With so many concerts on hold, it is good to hear of recording projects around the country. One is of two new song recordings released online by soprano Lucinda Cox.
Soprano Lucinda Cox sang the premiere of Ailsa Dixon’s The Spirit of Love at St George’s Bristol in February. She has recently made two new song recordings with pianist Tom Jesty:
- I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills is a setting of Psalm 121 for high soprano. It was written in the mid-1980s for Sally Harrison, who had sung the part of an angel in the closing scene of Ailsa’s opera Letter to Philemon in 1984. The soaring vocal lines evoke the elevation of the hills and the exaltation of the faithful soul, over a flowing piano part. Watch the YouTube video of this song which celebrates the beauty of hillside landscapes as it follows the words of the Psalm through light and shade, the sun by day and the moon by night, closing in a spectacular sunset ‘from this time forth, even for evermore’.
- Come Away Death, Feste’s melancholy lyric sung for the lovesick Orsino in Twelfth Night, is an early composition which Ailsa Dixon revisited around 1980, reworking the song with guitar accompaniment for a stage production. This recording which you can watch here on YouTube video returns to the original version with piano.
See concert listings for details of Lucinda’s upcoming online recital on 3 February with a programme of songs by women composers.