SONGS WE FORGOT TO REMEMBER
John Aler, tenor
Grant Gershon, piano
(DE 3181)
I Hear You Calling Me [Charles Marshall; Harold Harford] • If I Could Tell You [Idabelle Firestone; Madeleine Marshall] • Trees [Oscar Rasbach; Joyce Kilmer] • Until [Wilfrid Sanderson; Edward Teschemacher] • Passing By [Edward C. Purcell; Robert Herrick] • The Green-Eyed Dragon [Wolseley Charles; Greatrex Newman] • The Lost Chord [Arthur Sullivan; Adelaide Proctor] • My Lovely Celia [George Munro; Lane] • Serenade (Rimpianto) [ Enrico Toselli; Alfredo Silvestri (Elkin)] • Still As The Night [Carl Bohm; Nathan Dole (Morgan)] • Do Not Go, My Love [Richard Hageman; Rabindranath Tagore] • Bird Songs At Eventide [Eric Coates; Royden Barrie] • Love’s Philosophy [Roger Quilter; Percy Bysshe Shelley] • Love, Could I Only Tell Thee [J.M. Capel; Clifton Bingham] • Annabelle Lee [Henry Leslie; Edgar Allan Poe] • Little Boy Blue [Ethelbert Nevin; Eugene Field] • The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise [Ernest Seitz; Eugene Lockhart] • I Love, And The World Is Mine [Clayton Johns; Florence Coates] • Kashmiri Song [Amy Woodforde-Finden; Laurence Hope] • Evening Song [Charles Griffes; Sidney Lanier] • The Cloths Of Heaven [Thomas Dunhill; W.B. Yeats] • A Perfect Day [Carrie Jacobs-Bond] • I Love Life [Mana-Zucca; Erwin M. Cassel] • Homing [Teresa del Riego; Arthur L. Salmon] • When I Have Sung My Songs To You [Ernest Charles]
“This is a gem of a disc — 25 songs from ‘I hear You Calling Me’ to ‘Annabelle Lee’ and the lovely ‘A Perfect Day,’ beautifully vocalized by the American lyric tenor with superb piano accompaniments from Grant Gershon. Denver Post
“Not only don’t they write ’em like that, they don’t sing ’em like that either any more! Order it today!” Entertainment Times
“Tenor John Aler often calls John McCormack to mind in this collection … for the tonal purity of his light tenor voice, his stylistic perfection and intense dedication.” The Washington Post
“It’s all too delicious to be missed” In Tune
“Aler sings with feeling and humor, and the sonics bring him right into the room.” On the Air Magazine
John Aler, one of the most acclaimed lyric tenors on the international stage, put together for Delos a sentimental trip down memory lane. These are songs that were popular in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, and sung in every home where sheet music was to be found. In fact, the distinguished American tenor’s suggested subtitle for the album was “Songs from the Piano Bench.”
This is the kind of repertoire made famous by singers like John McCormack, Nelson Eddy and John Charles Thomas. It is our impression that every voice student in any English-speaking country will have studied and sung at least one of these classics. John is accompanied here by the gifted pianist — and choral director — Grant Gershon.
“Wonderful — both as actor and singer” noted Opera News about John, who began his Juilliard studies as an actor but later switched to singing. He brings both skills to his performances of these engaging songs.
Our samples are favorite love songs, of course, with one exception. We couldn’t resist including a bit of “The Green-Eyed Dragon,” which brings John’s comedic talents to the fore. You’ll get a taste of his fun with the sound-effects when he’s portraying the dragon, and we can tell you that such sound-effects escalate in the course of the song!
John wrote in his introduction to this album:
Because music and singing were such a natural part of growing up in my family, it’s hard to remember a time when most of these songs weren’t familiar. My mother had studied singing as a young woman, and had amassed a good collection of sheet music, anthologies, and recordings. So when I started to sing as a boy soprano, and the mysteries of musical notation gradually became less impenetrable, there were songs such as these lying around…
There was a collection called “56 Songs You Like to Sing” — every singing student must have had one! — and I would try to figure out how the songs went, probably driving my sister crazy as I picked out the tunes by ear on my two-octave electric organ.When I think of the many wonderful singers (like Lawrence Tibbett, Gladys Swarthout, John Charles Thomas, and Richard Crooks) who sang these songs and made them enormously popular, it’s hard to believe that so few singers include them on programs today. Certainly song recitals have changed; not only there are fewer of them, but the programming has become more serious. American singers have all but abandoned some of these lighter, more sentimental works.
Some years ago, we got rid of our old upright piano, and I came into possession of the contents of the bench, including “56 Songs…” and other onetime favorites. It occurred to me, as I thumbed through these songs, that they might make a lovely recording. I started collecting titles from here and there — so many songs I knew, but had filed away. I had forgotten — forgotten about them.
Surely almost everyone knows at least two or three of the songs in this collection. Perhaps, as you listen, you may recognize a few more melodies. Who could forget John McCormack singing I hear you calling me or The Cloths of Heaven? Or Eleanor Steber’s beautiful voice in If I could Tell You? Trees was a great favorite of John Charles Thomas, as was I Love Life and The Green-Eyed Dragon. Schumann-Heink almost always included Still as the Night in her concerts, and Richard Crooks lent his melting tenor to Little Boy Blue, My Lovely Celia, and of course the Toselli Serenade. Do not go, my Love was an immensely popular song — even Jeanette MacDonald included it in her Schirmer anthology! And singers from Dame Clara Butt to Nelson Eddy made The Lost Chord, Sullivan’s great hymn, a favorite of audiences everywhere.
This recording has been a true labor of love and a joy to perform. I hope it brings to the listener the same enjoyment.
John can also be heard on Delos as the glorious tenor soloist in the Berlioz Te Deum with Dennis Keene, Voices of Ascension, and massive forces of nearly 400 musicians, recorded live at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York (DE 3200); and in the Dvorak Requiem with Zdenek Macal, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Westminster Choir (DE 3260).