Search - Leslie Guinn, Stephen [1] Foster, Joan Reinthaler :: Songs by Stephen Foster

Wonderful!

Paul Metz | 11/02/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is truly wonderful. I listen to my LP of it all the time. Jan Degatani, Lelsie Guinn, and Gilbert Kalish with the help of some other musicians recorded this album in Concert at the Smithsonian Institution. It is just the thing for a rainy day. Spin the Black Vinyl, and pour yourself a hot drink and sit back and listen. If you threw the turntable out, don't worry. I suppose this album still sounds great on CD."

Superbly rendered Americana

klavierspiel | TX, USA | 10/13/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is, in a word, a wonderful album. The performers have sterling credentials, there is attention to authenticity and historical accuracy--original editions and period instruments are used--and above all, the project of recording the music of Foster was obviously approached with care and love on the part of all involved. The result is that music that can seem quaint and even campy glows with all its original richness of emotion and humor. There are surprises among the familiar classics, as well--the moving "Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway," with its surprising harmonies (in the original), and the duet "Wilt Thou Be Gone, Love?" based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, are particular gems. This is an album I still return to after decades."

The sessions of sweet silent thought stirred

Eileen | MD USA | 11/22/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have never heard such unadulterated extraworldy sound emanate from two human voices and what would otherwise be firewood (the period instruments played by Gilbert Kalish). It stirs profound patriotism and a deep sentimentality for our early days when a civilized people pined to find virtue by examining its own body-- the north and the south, the small town, the simple flag, and the beauty of gentile manly and womanly love expressed through equisite song. There is no other music I would rather hear 'when summoning up the remembrance of things past.' The ghost of the early American parlor will prick your skin through these simple hymns and you may escape for a moment our troubled and busy times."