Fanfare Archive’s Henry Fogel has a high recommendation for Eric Ferring, Quatuor Agate, and Madeline Slettedahl‘s We have tomorrow recording:
“Eric Ferring is a young American lyric tenor with… intelligent musicality. His career is continuing to grow and this imaginatively programmed disc is a winning demonstration of his musical probity and sensitive singing. … Samuel Barber’s Mélodies passagères is the only work he wrote in a language other than English… Ferring sings them beautifully, with an exquisite held soft high B♭ to conclude “Le clocher chante.” He captures the wistful beauty of the final song, “Départ.” Ferring’s French diction is very clear.
The two songs by Florence Price, setting texts by Langston Hughes, are among the finest works by her that I have encountered. “Hold Fast to Dreams” is urgent and impassioned; “We Have Tomorrow” is a glowing statement of optimism for a better future, and Ferring ends it with a ringing B♭. … It is splendid to encounter Fauré’s cycle La bonne chanson as part of something other than an all-French program. It is a fitting way to end the disc, being an absolute masterpiece, and because Ferring does some of his finest work here.… Very well-balanced recorded sound and the inclusion of full texts and translations round out this disc, which I recommend because of its skillfully assembled program and its fine performances.”
—Henry Fogel, Fanfare Archive (March/April 2024)
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