This is one of the pieces from the song cycle, "In a Persian Garden" by Liza Lehmann. We discussed her today in class. Victorian Britain was really NOT "Das Land ohne Musik" - Lehmann is one of three female composers mentioned in Christina Bashford's article.
This cycle is interesting to me because it uses Edward Fitzgerald's versions of Persian poetry, similar to a song cycle I'm performing on my graduate recital. The Mirabai Songs by John Harbison use English versions of the Hindi poet-saint Mirabai's ecstatic poetry to the god Krishna. It seems that Harbison was the not the first composer with this sort of idea!
I was also interested to find that Lehmann wrote a voice pedagogy text - Practical Hints for Students of Singing. It would be interesting to compare some of her pedagogical ideas with those immortalized in Berton Coffin's Historical Vocal Pedagogy Classics, especially those of female pedagogues like Mathilde Marchesi and Lilli Lehmann.
You may have a paper topic there....
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Awesome.
ReplyDeleteAnd by Lilli Lehmann I think I may have meant Lotte Lehmann.
ReplyDelete