From Navona Records
This album features music for voice and piano, voice and guitar, chorus and organ, woodwind quintet, clarinet and piano, flute and piano and solo piano pieces. Each of these unique works has a special connection with a song.
https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6481/
A more satisfying and comprehensive account of Garth Baxter's music than Ask of Me What the Birds Sang would be hard to imagine. Consider: the release features a mix of twelve vocal and instrumental pieces performed by duos, trios, a wind ensemble, a solo pianist, and choir. While variety is a key aspect of the recording, what distinguishes it even more is his writing style. Described as a “modern traditionalist,” he's a tonal composer whose works are unabashedly lyrical and melodic; Baxter isn't a hard-liner, however: an unusual harmonic gesture or smattering of dissonance will appear if the material calls for it.
Ask of Me What the Birds Sang wouldn't have the impact it does if the performers weren't such an impressive bunch, but that they assuredly are, from soprano Katie Procell and mezzo-soprano Christine Thomas to The Patagonia Winds, the Kühn Choir of Prague, and the many other instrumentalists that take part..
All twelve of the pieces presented impress in one way or another, November 1994 for the heartbreak Thomas, accompanied by Stewart, conveys in her vocal performance of the song.
Flirt, performed by Procell and pianist Valerie Hsu, for spotlighting Baxter's humorous side. Songs Without Words in Miniature, six short piano works based on art songs by Baxter, is performed by Bonghee Lee, for whom the work was written. “Hearts as One” finds Baxter at his lyrical best, but others see him venturing into Satie-like dreaminess (“Starry Wondrous Nights”) and jazz-tinged romanticism (“The Night Grew Cold Without”).
As the album nears its close, flutist Johnson partners with pianist Mariko Hiller on The Darkness Between Us, a two-part work Baxter dedicated to Jwandune, whose face was destroyed by a bomb dropped from a United States drone in Afghanistan. Whereas the first section, “Â lalo lalo lalo,” evokes the sadness and pain caused by her disfigurement, “Jwandune's Song” captures the resilience and courage she showed in dealing with surgical reconstruction. Arriving after that intimate performance is the final one, a towering treatment of Still Falls the Rain by the Kühn Choir of Prague with Lenka Navrátilová conducting and Linda Sitková at the organ.
In liner notes, Baxter discusses the words by Teasdale he set for The Long Hill and specifically makes note of the realization expressed in the text “that at some point most of us will suddenly discover we have reached middle age and our hopes to be someone grand are not going to be met.” Baxter might not be a household name in the same way that certain celebrity figures are, but in giving to the world exceptional music of the kind on Ask of Me What the Birds Sang, he most definitely qualifies as “someone grand.”
Textura
February 2023
"Ask of Me What the Birds Sang explores the voice of contemporary American composer Garth Baxter. Renowned for his art song compositions and self-styled as a modern traditionalist, Baxter presents a charming variety of instrumental and vocal works inspired by British, Irish, and American song and poetry.
The clarinetists featured on this album include Emily Robinson of the Maryland-based woodwind quintet Patagonia Winds, and the soloist Jennifer Tscheulin, also based on the Eastern seaboard. Both artists bring a wonderfully rich tone and expansive sense of musicality to Baxter’s signature lyrical writing style.
Robinson ably contributes to the agile Patagonia Winds in the two wind quintets. The first, A Jagged Path, showcases the composer’s more angular, contemporary approach to harmony in a departure from the shimmering tonality elsewhere (particularly in the second quintet, A Parting Glass), and this contrast is a welcome addition. Robinson leans into the rhythmic complexity of the work with ease, weaving intricate lines with dexterity across the ensemble and traversing the wandering melodies over the wide range of the clarinet seamlessly.
Tscheulin is paired with piano on Wrapped in the Wind and the Sun, while performing alongside flute and guitar in When Lights Begin to Show. In both contexts, the ensembles are well-balanced and particularly well-matched with flutist Karen Johnson. The flute, clarinet, and guitar trio is marvelously reminiscent of salon-type chamber stylings from an earlier period, but with a modern sensibility. The duo with piano is considerably more introspective, offering Tscheulin an opportunity to showcase their great sensitivity of phrasing.
This recording provides a helpful resource to clarinetists examining contemporary wind quintet or small chamber repertoire with a wide accessibility. Baxter’s sumptuous, warm harmonies and clear-voiced melodies in the diverse instrumental and vocal settings presented create a most pleasant listening experience for any audience.
– Emily Kerski
The Clarinet Online (June 2023)
GARTH BAXTER’S LATEST ALBUM of songs is a musical treasure hunt with the composer using melodies and fragments from his own work to create new pieces. The practice isn’t new—Rossini is famous for recycling his own material wholesale. But what Baxter does isn’t recycling out of commercial necessity but seemingly out of affection and a desire to link the songs together with shared musical material. The melodies he chooses to reuse or develop often have poetic or dramatic associations attached to them from their original work. When recognized, their familiarity helps the listener frame the wordless instrumental work, and when they are new to the listener, as in the woodwind quintet “A Jagged Path,” which contains themes based on excerpts from his opera Lily, they’re still delightful.
Baxter clearly takes inspiration from the human voice and poetry. The five vocal songs on the first half of the album are a sort of musical anchor, and each represents a different theme or mood, from yearning nostalgia to cheeky humor. In “Spanish Johnny” for soprano and guitar, Baxter sets one of Willa Cather’s final poems (also the final song in Baxter’s song cycle From the Heart) as an engaging, dramatically structured ballad with intriguing tumbleweed-and-sunshine flavors of the American West evoked by the guitar and Baxter’s subtle, atmospheric harmonies. By contrast, “The Long Hill” is an introspective response to Sara Teasdale’s poem about the gradual realization that life has passed you by, leaving dreams unfulfilled. Baxter takes one of the lines from Teasdale’s poem and uses it for the title of the clarinet and piano duet “Wrapped in the Wind and Sun,” which quotes a melody from “The Long Hill” in the second movement. The mournful tone of the clarinet (Jennifer Tscheulin) adds an additional layer of melancholy. The stunning, heartbreaking “November 1994” and the tender love song “Tattoo” are both part of Baxter’s cycle Music’s Path and, together with the folk-inspired “Flirt,” setting a poem by Nuala Ni Chonchüir (Nuala O’Connor), contain some of Baxter’s most indelible melodies on this album. Music’s Path was commissioned by mezzo-soprano Christine Thomas, who performs the two selections from that cycle with voluptuous tone and musical urgency. The three other vocal tracks are sung by emerging soprano Katie Procell, who is a vocal chameleon, easily shifting the color of her voice to match the bravado of “Spanish Johnny,” the stunned regret of “The Long Hill” and the playful, tongue-in-cheek defiance in “Flirt.”
With the six songs comprising his Songs Without Words in Miniature, Baxter demonstrates that his compositional voice resounds most powerfully in shorter, compact works, where he writes with more movement and momentum and less contemplation than in other, longer instrumental works on the album. Without having to adhere strictly to the inflection of the text, Baxter weaves fragments of material into beguiling, almost endless melodies wandering through more complex harmonies, as in “Hearts as One,” “We Sat Snug and Warm” and “Starry Wondrous Nights.” Pianist Bonghee Lee performs the collection with equal parts nuance and abandon.
According to Baxter’s liner notes, the two-part “The Darkness Between Us” for flute and piano is inspired by the resilience of a young girl named Jwandune who was gravely injured when an American drone bombed her village in Afghanistan. It begins with a carefree melody inspired by an Afghan lullaby, then journeys into darkness and fear before ultimately ending in peace and light. Conversely, Baxter’s setting of Edith Sitwell’s “Still Falls the Rain” for chorus and organ begins in darkness—Sitwell wrote the poem during the London Blitz of 1940—with only occasional flickers of light. Baxter’s complex horizontal layering of voices against the ominous backdrop of the organ paints a vivid musical portrait of hopelessness. With the final stanza of Sitwell’s poem, “Then sounds the voice…,” the piece turns toward hope and one voice emerges from the crowd (presumably the voice of Christ). It’s a powerfully dramatic moment, effective and memorable in its simplicity. —Steven Jude Tietjen
Opera News August 2023
From Navona Records
This album includes my work Still Falls the Rain for SATB and Organ performed by the Kühn Choir of Prague, Lenka Navrátilová, conductor and Linda Sítkov, organist.
Voices of Earth and Air, Volume III showcases contemporary choral music. There are also works by William Copper and Deborah Anderson among others.
Released October 9, 2020
February 8, 2019 PARMA Recordings (Navona) released a new album of Garth's instrumental music.
The performers are:
Pianist Andrew Stewart.
Flutist Melissa Wertheimer.
Violinist Nicholas Currie.
Pianist Diana Thompson Greene.
Saxophonist Kenny Baik.
Pianist Bonghee Lee.
The Arabesque Duo (Troy King, Kathrin Murray).
The Azimuth String Quartet (Nicholas Currie, violinist James Tung violist Alice Tung and cellist Adam Gonzalez).
And the West Shore Piano Trio (violinist Heather Haughn, cellist Diana Flesner and pianist Jay DeWire.)
Available at:
http://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6206/purchase---resistance---garth-baxter.html
Was released January 12th 2018 by PARMA Recordings. It will include performances by soprano Jessica Satava, pianist Andres Stewart, Tenor Peter Drackley, Soprano Annie Gill, Soprano Katherine Keem and flutist Melissa Wertheimer. It will include the song cycles Skywriting, Three Poems from Edna St. Vincent Millay, Three Madrigals, Two Last Songs, as well as Nights Without Sleep and Grandmother, think not I forget and the closing aria from the opera Lily, Is this the cost? This has been described as an "exquisite collection of works for voice."
Available at:
https://naxosdirect.com/items/garth-baxter-ask-the-moon-430034
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/garth-baxter-ask-the-moon/1321481310
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2264163
The recording Katherine Keem Sings Songs and Arias by Garth Baxter is now available from Centaur Records. This includes a number of art songs for voice and piano as well as some for voice and guitar. Also, there are 5 arias from the opera Lily. The artists on this release are Katherine Keem, Soprano; Andrew Stewart, Piano; Kathrin Murray, guitar; and Peter Scott Drackley, Tenor.
The Four Songs from Twelfth Night is included on the release
Chords and Strings, Centuries of Songs for Voice and Guitar from Lil Red Hen Records
Suzi More, Soprano; Daryl Hester, Guitar
Available at CDBaby
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/suzimorewithdarylhester