The “Portara” blog from Naxos USA featured our album Love is Everywhere yesterday and even included a brief interview with Lucy Mauro (piano) and Donald George (tenor)!
Here’s a little of their blog, but make sure and visit the Naxos Blog to read the whole thing:
“Donald George: Lucy and I are very excited to have Margaret Lang’s music reach a wider audience. I discovered Margaret Lang during the summer of 2007 when I was researching American art songs and found an article titled “Margaret Ruthven Lang: Boston’s Other Famous Woman Composer.” The article was by Laurie Blunsom and it discussed Lang’s many accomplishments and her studies in Munich, where I also live and where I was at the time. I sent it to Lucy to see if she knew of this composer. Neither of us had heard of Lang, but Dr. Blunsom’s article was very intriguing. I liked Lang’s connection to Germany, and we both began researching these songs.
Lucy Mauro: Interestingly, it turned out that one of the few people who had done research on Lang was teaching at a school very close to where Donald and I were teaching in southwest Virginia. Donald contacted Judith Cline, and she kindly met with us and shared her many Lang scores, her dissertation and some interesting information about the Lang family. We have since met Lang’s great nephew, Professor Fletcher DuBois, who has also told us stories of his great aunt and his visits with her. Hopefully he will also contribute to this blog [EDITOR’S NOTE: He will. We have received Mr. DuBois’ notes, and will be publishing them in a post next week].
A year later, I received a Senate Research Grant from WVU to record the CD, which has evolved, through Carol Rosenberger’s great vision at Delos, into not just one CD, but two volumes and the exciting companion CD-R with the printable scores. Our experience has been that audiences, performers, teachers, scholars and students alike have been most enthusiastic about this music and this exciting “rediscovery.” The music is truly beautiful and shows a composer who not only has a strong command of the language, but also a real gift for the song medium, with a directness and simplicity and a genuine expression…
DG: Lang had a gift for melody, and there is a craft and skill in her methods that strikes one repeatedly. Her songs are eminently singable and pianistic, and they typically show one striking idea that is emphasized throughout, often a melodic fragment or rhythm which is then developed and used throughout the song, similar in a way to Brahms or Schumann. She often featured the poets of the period and their emotional output: Reese and her gardens and children, Meynell and her religious fervor, Cheney and his looks at American life in this period. We should in the 21st century view this music afresh and in light of what Lang and her poets were trying to accomplish in creating a truly American art form with American words and American thoughts…
LM: Margaret Lang’s whole story is quite fascinating. As Donald and I researched this, we were interested to discover the musical prominence of the Lang family: her father, Benjamin Johnson Lang, B.J. as he was known, was a distinguished pianist, conductor, composer and organist in Boston. He was a member of the Harvard Musical Association and started such venerable Boston music organizations as the Cecilia Society and the Apollo Club, which are both still active today. He also helped with the formation of the Boston Symphony. The Lang family frequently hosted prominent musicians of the time, including Dvořák and Paderewski. B. J. Lang was also a friend of Franz Liszt and his daughter Cosima, Hans von Bülow and Richard Wagner. The Lang and Wagner children were playmates. He conducted the premiere of the famous Tchaikovsky piano concerto and later performed it on the piano. Margaret was raised in an exceptional musical home…
LM: Donald and I have enjoyed exploring this music and learning more about such a fascinating figure in American music. We hope this CD and the upcoming Volume Two will create a new interest in Margaret Lang, whose lovely songs are really an American treasure…
Read the full, fascinating interview on the Naxos Blog! Thanks to Naxos for the feature!
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