It is less than a week away from Valentine’s Day, and we think one of the best gifts for any holiday is the gift of music! Last Valentine’s Day we featured albums from Delos’ Evergreens collection (click here, here, or here), but this year we are starting our focus on love-oriented music with one of our newest releases, “Love is Everywhere.” It does seem as if people are talking about this album anywhere you turn!
Love is Everywhere: Selected Songs of Margaret Ruthven Lang, Vol. 1 is a great place to start for this Valentine’s Day. The first six tracks on the album are from Margaret Lang’s collection of “Songs of Love Gained and Lost.” But since it’s Valentine’s Day, we’ll focus on the tracks where “love is gained” (Click the title to find the MP3 on iTunes):
Love is Everywhere
Ojalá
A Poet Gazes on the Moon
Irish Love Song
Love is in the air, and here is what others have been saying about “Love is Everywhere”:
“Truly American compositions in the best European art song tradition, masterfully sung by Donald George with atmospheric and sensitive accompaniment by Lucy Mauro. Margaret Lang is a composer worth discovering.” – Robert Tannenbaum, Stage Director, Professor at Hochschule für Musik Munich
“George’s voice is an aural celebration of beauty and brilliance. His interpretation of Lang’s music has an urgency and honesty that is rare.” – Bruce Earnest, Director, International Performing Arts Institute
“One of my favorite passions in American music is to rediscover well-hidden treasures of private creativity. Margaret Ruthven Lang’s beautiful music is exactly that kind of exciting story, making up the larger tapestry of the Arts and Humanities in the United States. I am thrilled that tenor Donald George and pianist Lucy Mauro’s new two-volume recording of her work, accompanied by a CD-ROM with the hard-to-find original manuscripts, now make her music available to a larger audience.” – Thomas Hampson, baritone
Poetry by John Vance Cheney
My Love is in the hills,
And I am by the sea,
But, ah, I know my loved one thrills
With touch of love and me.
Whether together or apart
I fold you, Love, I hold you Love,
Hard to my heart!
My Love is far away
But love is everywhere;
My Love be where she may,
Where she is, I am there.
You can hear some of each of these pieces in our video “Selected Songs of Margaret Ruthven Lang”:
Download the “Songs of Love Gained and Lost” today: