In a ninetieth anniversary feature about Copland on record (11/90) I mentioned the 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson as a serious gap in the record catalogue—a work rightly claimed as one of the finest song-cycles to an English text. That gap is now filled in a way which I am certain would have given the composer a great deal of pleasure— sensitive and intelligent performances from a fine singer and pianist, well recorded and coupled with some early songs which are virtually unknown. I wrote the notes for this CD but had not heard any tapes. My previous impressions of Roberta Alexander were based on her two volumes of songs by Ives, also on Etcetera. Vocally she is now more impressive and in every way justifies the confidence that Etcetera have shown in her—this is her eighth CD with this company.
I have listened to the early songs several times because of the sheer novelty of hearing early Copland performed as dedicatedly as if it were Lieder. First come three songs to pallidly undistinguished poems by Aaron Schaffer written when Copland was only 18: A Summer Vacation has a Straussian sweep and Night, with its whole-tone harmonies, recalls Debussy. But Copland mostly transcends his models by imagining every detail precisely and creating a mood of lonely isolation which was to become essentially his own. (The printed score has a number of misprints, probably stemming from Copland's own manuscript, and Roger Vignoles has caught almost all of these.)
Old Poem, written two years later, shows Copland assimilating Duparc and Ravel but in a perfectly focused way. Pastorale (1921) extends the harmonic range to late Scriabin. Alone (1922) is more dissonant, building up clusters in the piano part to support the climax. These three songs, and the later Poet's Song (1927) to a poem by E. E. Cummings, are mostly about absent lovers: a mood of wistful unfulfilment predominates, but it is hauntingly expressive.
The 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950) contain a variety of song types based on the composer's response to one of the most powerful and original nineteenth-century poets. The poems are given in full in the CD booklet, where readers familiar with this poet will soon see that Copland set the early edited versions of the poems: what Emily Dickinson actually wrote was not published until 1955. With each song dedicated to a different composer friend—what a tribute to Copland that he could have 12 other composers as friends!—this is a cycle which makes considerable musical and vocal demands. The first song, ''Nature the gentlest Mother'', requires absolute stillness in sustained notes and the last one, ''Because I could not stop for Death'', ends with a high F sharp held for four bars in medium tempo. Alexander's control is so nearly absolute and Vignoles's playing so nearly impeccable that comments may seem niggling. All the same, a few flaws detract.
After the climactic song in the middle, ''Sleep is supposed to be'', Copland asks for a long fermata: considering the build-up of tension and the contrast with the next song, Vignoles is decidedly on the short side. In the next song, ''When they come back'', Vignoles, after years of playing Lieder, misreads the second chord under the voice as major rather than minor, and does this again at the same spot near the end. In ''Going to Heaven'' his accents are not as strongly off-beat as marked and in the last song, at 1'56'', he plays the left-hand sustained chord an octave lower than marked. In some ways this is an improvement since it sounds through longer.
Vocally Roberta Alexander has exactly the right unaffected lyric mezzo quality yet can also command serious subjects and the dark tones to go with them. In the two sets of Old American Songs—a kind of anthology of Copland's favourite tunes some of which he used in other works—Alexander catches the right adapted folk idiom with a real sense of comedy, whereas Vignoles is a trifle staid. His banjo picking in ''The Dodger'' is not quite staccato enough. But overall they make an excellent duo and this imaginative release is a landmark for Copland since it combines his only song cycle with both volumes of Old American Songs and the revelation of the early ones too.'