Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience.(William Bolcom)

BOLCOM: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

* Brewer, Brueggergosman, Davidson, Hohenfdd, Pelton, Morris, Simpson; Dung, Ford, Graham, Ruth; University Musical Society, University of Michigan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Slatkin. Text. Naxos 8.5592126-18 (3)

In the past two decades, William Bolcom's song cycle/oratorio Songs of Innocence and of Experience has become what Gurrelieder, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Mahler's Eighth Symphony must once have been--massively scaled, rarely encountered, almost legendary experiences available only to a well-traveled, patient few. With a mere sixteen performances worldwide since its 1984 premiere, in Stuttgart, and no recording, Songs had to rely on reports of the experience, conversational and published, to convey the power of its complete setting of the William Blake book, using virtually every musical style available to the late twentieth century. (The history of the various attempts to record Songs, leading to the eventual strategy of capturing this live performance at the University of Michigan, where Bolcom teaches, was chronicled in OPERA NEWS this past October by Nancy Malitz as "Innocence Rewarded.")

What we've been given is a thrilling experience by any standard--even for those to whom Songs is not entirely new. (I caught its 1992 visit to Carnegie Hall with St. Louis forces.) Its first swirling upbeat launches a sonic haze whose mystery never quite vanishes, but which clears periodically to allow aural glimpses of one picture after another. The initial mild cacophony yields to mock-folksong for "Piping down the valleys wild," then gathers momentarily to unveil "The Ecchoing Green," choral homophony that might have come from Britten--except for the spicing of country fiddle and electric bass--and which itself dissolves into "The Lamb," a poignantly disjunct soprano aria. That opening swirl then ushers us into pure down-home country music for "The Shepherd," complete with fiddle, guitar, harmonicas and suitably gravelly vocalist (Peter "Madcat" Ruth).

And so it goes throughout the three expertly paced and contrasted parts, from which a ...