SOMM Recordings announces the launch of a major three-volume series devoted to the rich and varied songs of Stephen Dodgson on the eve of the 10th anniversary of his death in 2013, aged 89. Volume 1, The Peasant Poet, features tenor James Gilchrist, baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Ailish Tynan and mezzo-soprano Katie Bray, accompanied by Christopher Glynn (piano), Mark Eden (guitar) and Ian Wilson (recorder). Son of the Symbolist painter John Arthur Dodgson and a distant cousin of Lewis Carroll, Stephen Dodgson was a prolific composer with a notable focus on works for guitar, harpsichord and recorder. Although neglected, his more than 100 songs are a substantial and defining part of his output. Composed in 1961, 'The Peasant Poet' from Four Poems of John Clare, settings of the troubled and travailed poet, gives Volume 1 it's title. Contrastingly, 1950's Tideways sets four poems by the idiosyncratic Ezra Pound. The six songs from Dodgson's 1998 Second Series of Australian Bush Ballads "makes use of his own melodic style, graceful, elegant or sharply original and witty... with expressive accompaniments, sometimes simple, sometimes richly chromatic", as John Warrack comments in his booklet notes, supplemented by Robert Matthew-Walker's informative note on Dodgson's style. Writing in his native Gaelige, Irish playwright and political activist Joseph Campbell prompted 1949's Irishry, the late The Monk and His Cat from 2004 returning to Ireland to animatedly set a playful ninth-century text. Seven other songs, drawn from a variety of sources and voiced with appropriate individuality, complete a recital that eloquently argues for Dodgson's place amongst the best of modern British art-song composers.

Tracklist:

Four Poems of John Clare~Trotty Wagtail
Four Poems of John Clare~The Peasant Poet
Four Poems of John Clare~Turkeys
Four Poems of John Clare~The Fox
Mrs Hen
Heaven-Haven
Five Eyes
Monk and his Cat
Bush Ballads (Second Series)~Meet Me in Botany Bay
Bush Ballads (Second Series)~The Sick Stockrider
Bush Ballads (Second Series)~Holy Dan
Bush Ballads (Second Series)~The Style in Which It's Done
Bush Ballads (Second Series)~Old Harry
Bush Ballads (Second Series)~The Parson and the Prelate
From Eight Fanciful Pieces~A Leaf in the River
From Eight Fanciful Pieces~Shrovetide Procession
Irishry~Tinkers
Irishry~The Midwife
Irishry~The Mill Girl
Irishry~Rags and Bones
Tideways~Psyche
Tideways~The Needle
Tideways~The Gypsy
Tideways~????a (Doria)
Inversnaid
Slow, Slow Fresh Fount

UPC: 748871065925
Label: Somm Recordings
Release Date: 11.18.22
Format: CD

Dodgson / Tynan / Bray / Gilchrist - Peasant Poet: Songs Vol 1 (CD)