Carole Farley, Ned Rorem - American Classics - Ned Rorem: Selected Songs (2001)

Seventeen of these 32 songs aren't otherwise available on disc, and they include some of Rorem's finest and most haunting. The utter simplicity that weaves a magic spell in Nantucket, the beautiful paralleling of Gerard Manley Hopkins's ecstatic imagery in Spring, the bare but deeply eloquent Such beauty as hurts to behold, the amiable contemplation of old age and possible immortality in Full of life now – all these are warmly welcome, and it's good to have for the first time a complete recording of Rorem's nine settings of Theodore Roethke. Carole Farley's diction is so immaculate that you'll hardly need the booklet of texts, and her acute response to words must be one reason why Rorem so willingly collaborated with her on this recording. About the voice itself some might have a reservation. Although Farley fines her tone down for the most part effectively her sound is basically operatic. But rejecting this disc on that account would mean foregoing the infectious lilt of The Nightingale, the amply lyrical, movingly expressive Love in a life, the beautiful long lines of Ask me no more and all the others mentioned. No, admirers of Rorem's unique talent will simply have to have this collection. His piano-playing is beautifully supportive.