Home Curriculum Vitae Photos Contact Me Lieder & Art Song Repertoire Oratorio Repertoire Parlour Repertoire Opera & Operetta Repertoire Reviews Listening Samples Forthcoming Engagements		Released by me in June 2007! A CD of Nostalgia, Parlour Song, Parlor Song, call it what you will! Recorded by Richard Carruthers of Music Chamber on the 8th of June, 2007 in London's Holy Trinity Sloane Street, with the fabulous Michael Brough playing his famous Bösendorfer Grand (the 275 with extra notes at the bottom) Contents: 1. Love's Old Sweet Song (James Molloy) 2. Thine Alone (Victor Herbert) 3. Fair House of Joy (Roger Quilter) I'll Walk Beside You (Alan Murray) 5. Kashmiri Love Song (Amy Woodforde-Finden) Also known as Pale Hands I loved beside the Shalimar 6. Panis Angelicus (César Franck) 7. The Honeysuckle and the Bee (William Penn) 8. Fly Home Little Heart (Ivor Novello) 9. Till We Meet Again (Richard Whiting) 10. On Wings of Song (Felix Mendelssohn) duet with soprano Rebecca Rudge Contact me to purchase a copy! Only £10. You can hear tracks 2, 7 and 10 on www.bebo.com/patriciahammond   Released at Canada House in October 2003: Belleville Records BEVI 001 www.bellevillerecords.com Also available at www.amazon.co.uk and in shops nationwide, including both HMVs on Oxford Street, filed under Female Vocal. Also in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Magic Flute Record Shop But for the best price (by far!), contact me directly to buy a copy. Track listing: 1. L'Heure Exquise (Reynaldo Hahn) 2. Automne (Gabriel Fauré) 3. Soyons Unis (Rhené-Batôn) 4. Fortunio: Chanson de Fortunio (Jacques Offenbach) 5. Chant Hindou (Hermann Bemberg) 6. Clair de Lune (Josef Szulc) 7. Epitaphe (Tivadar Nachèz)* 8. Si tu le veux (Charles Koechlin) From BERGERETTES arr. Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin --9. Jeunes Fillettes --10. Menuet d'Exaudet --11. Que ne suis-je la fougère --12. Tambourin 13. Les Feuilles Mortes (Joseph Kosma) 14. Le Charme (Ernst Chausson) 15. Jocelyn: Berceuse (Benjamin Godard) 16. Le Thé (Charles Koechlin) 17. Adieux de l'Hôtesse Arabe (Georges Bizet) 18. Hôtel (Francis Poulenc) 19. Plaintes d'Amour (Cécile Chaminade) 20. Quand l'amour meurt (Octave Crémieux) 21. Les Chemins de l'amour (Cécile Chaminade) 22. Chanson Triste (Henri Duparc) 23. Le Roi d'Ys: Vainement, ma bien-aimée (Edouard Lalo) 24. Plaisir d'Amour (Johann Paul Martini) *First recording TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (By John Sidgwick, OBE) INCLUDED IN BOOKLET Some personal notes to "Le Charme" 'Le Charme' is simply a collection of some of my favourite French songs. Because the composers range from Martini, who was born in 1706, to Charles Kosma, who died in 1969, it may appear to a be a somewhat quirky selection. In a way, this is done deliberately, to show that something like 'Les Feuilles Mortes' (Autumn Leaves), which many assume is a cabaret song or jazz standard, is really a French Art Song; straight out of Fauré, in a way. And at the other end of the time-frame, the charming Bergerettes, redolent of Watteau-esque landscapes with lute-playing lovers, have a relation to the later works of Hahn and his contemporaries; into Fauré. And it seemed more musically generous to group them as my own ears liked to hear them, and not chronologically. The recording also gave me a chance to present a few lesser-knowns, people like Josef Szulc and Hermann Bemberg and Tivadar Nachèz. The latter's song, 'Epitaphe', has never, to my knowledge, been recorded before. Neither has the Chaminade 'Plaintes d'Amour'. It may be of interest that I discovered a number of these songs when I was a girl, and an avid collector of vintage sheet music. In those days I collected mostly for the decorative covers, and the joy of possessing something that was antique and yet still affordable to the average nine-year-old (many were given to me from boxes in basements, and one could still come across stacks of the stuff in charity shops for pennies). Soon I found that the music behind the covers could sometimes be very good indeed, and thus my discoveries of songs by Tivadar Nachèz, Cécile Chaminade*, Sigurd Lie, Charles Villiers Stanford, and on and on. And now, having grown up to be a singer, it is a great feeling to be giving these dusty and flaking song sheets from my childhood new life and something of an audience. I'd like to say that the title of the disc is not just BelleVille Records telling the world that Zoë and I are charming (though we are!), but means 'Enchantment'. In the context of the majority of the songs here, 'Le Charme' refers to the seductive nature of sadness, which so many poets and composers have used to wonderful effect. The maiden in 'Chant Hindou', for example, is letting her tears fall into the sacred river to try to bring back her dead lover, and the music she sings about it is voluptuous in the extreme. Also, look at 'Les Feuilles Mortes' and its ravishing melody of regret. And of course the title track says, beautifully, 'I knew I loved you when I saw your first tear.' * From about the age of 12, I had it in mind to be the first singer ever to put out a record entirely devoted to Cécile Chaminade, and amassed a large collection of her songs. Alas, DG beat me to it in 2001! It's such a competitive business...   LISTENING SAMPLE: Hence Iris, hence away! (excerpt) from Handel's Semele - Recorded live at the Frome Festival, July 2002. Helen Collyer, piano  You can play the Clair de Lune clip again here
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