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William Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (2004) - Carmen Pelton (soprano), Christine Brewer (soprano), Contemporary Directions Ensemble, Ilana Davidson (soprano), Jeremy Kittel (fiddle), Joan Morris (mezzo-soprano), Linda Hohenfeld (soprano), Marietta Simpson (contralto), Measha Brueggergosman (soprano). From the time he was a teenager, William Bolcom had dreamed of setting William Blake's epic poem collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience to music - and eventually he did. But it took over a quarter of a century, from the first completed songs at age 17 in 1956 until 1982 when, as a tenured professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Bolcom was finally able to find time to pull it all together. And then Bolcom had to wait another two years for the first performance in Stuttgart, and another 20 years until some record company was enterprising enough to take it on. In the eclectic spirit of Blake, the result is an extraordinary synthesis, a two-hour-and-17-minute song cycle for choirs, vocalists, electric and folk instruments, and symphony orchestra, in which Bolcom throws in just about every style he can think of.

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Bolcom's dream of setting Blake's poems to music began when he fell under their spell as a teenager; he worked on the composition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience on and off for 25 years, completing it in 1982. This live recording celebrates the 20th anniversary of the work's American premiere. Following an early edition of the poems that assigns them a different order from the customary one, he created nine movements to form "a series of arches." Blake's own principle of "contraries" and his use of many poetic traditions is a perfect counterfoil for Bolcom's eclecticism, which encompasses styles ranging from solemn chorales, lush romanticism, abrasive, dissonant modernism, to jazz, folk, country, and rock. His interpretation of the poems, which he calls "A Musical Illumination," is sometimes startling, but always interesting, highly personal, and unquestionably sincere. Some of the settings enhance and heighten the poems, entering deeply into their spirit and mood. Others seem at variance with them: "The Lilly," a peaceful, serene poem, set to crashing, aggressive music, is an extreme example, and some stratospheric, jagged soprano lines seem to add nothing to the text. For some of the most arresting, convincing settings, Bolcom uses his well-known and beloved cabaret style, sung to perfection by his wife and partner, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. Indeed, the entire performance is beyond praise. The work calls for a whole army of participants: several choruses, including a children's choir, a dozen vocal soloists, a speaker, a harmonica player, a fiddler, and a huge symphony orchestra augmented by electronic instruments and extra brass and percussion. The last produce a large number of terrifying explosions, both between and within the songs, as well as fascinating sound effects, like imitations of running water, delicate tinkles, and ominous roars and rumbles. The singers are superb; the women contribute incredible coloratura leaps, melting lyricism, caressing warmth, while the men include a heroic tenor, a commanding baritone, and sometimes sung, sometimes spoken scatting. Leonard Slatkin holds his enormous forces together with total control and authority. --Edith Eisler