****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Thomas Hampson appears to be enjoying the full flower of his voice, even at 56; he recorded this second volume of American songs in 2009. There really is no comparison on the present scene. Marilyn Horne and Cheryl Studer, who championed American song at a high level, no longer record any. Passing albums from Jennifer Lamore, Nathan gunn, and Susan Graham have been worth collecting, the two women being the outstanding ones. Only Hampson has devoted a substantial part of is career to reviving the golden age of radio singers like Laurence Tibbett and Paul Robeson, who used the context of the Depression and the plight of the common man to turn what might have been arty platform songs into popular expressions.Some of that Depression fervor remains in Hampson's delivery, and he surpasses his great predecessors by being less consciously grand or operatic. He sings the song of America in a more refined and more accessible manner at the same time. Being an articulate spokesman, Hampson has also given us plenty of material on his website and elsewhere to describe his best-loved project. For anyone coming new to it, the best place to start isn't here but with his EMI recordings, especially the stunning debut album, An Old Song Resung.A few numbers form that 1990 collection, including 'Shenandoah' and "luke Havergal," are redone in splendid voice and with undiminished feeling. (Vol. 1 in the series consists entirely of reissued EMI cuts.) My only disappointment is that there's not as much rhythmic vigor and pace. I don't know how much of the blame to assign to the two pianists, Wolfram Rieger, who covers half the program from Berlin, and Craig Rutenberg, who covers the rest from a session in New York. Both tend to be plodders, and their caution is unfortunate, since it infects the entire album.I also wish that Hampson had found some exciting discoveries of the kind that filled an Old Song Resung. Maybe he's mined this vein of popular platform song so thoroughly that the gems are depleted. In a slightly more modern idiom we get five songs by Paul Bowles set to texts by Tennesse Williams. I'm not persuaded of Bowles's musicla gifts, frankly, but he and Williams manage a marvelous blending in one number, "Heavenly Grass." the five songs are gathered as a spare cycle, "blue Mountain Ballads," which amounts to faux folksiness form two very sophisticated cosmopolites. also of interest is a setting of General Booth Enters into Heaven by one Sidney Homer, an earnest attempt that doesn't rise to the inspired level of the familiar version from Charles Ives. The rest of the program is sprinkled with bits of Ives and Stephen Foster sung with exemplary artistry and personal expression - whatever the duplications, Hampson has achieved something treasurable.
