I was quite taken with Brian Field’s concise, rhythmic First String Quartet two years ago (11/19; he completed an even briefer Second this year), so I jumped at the chance to review this new, rather short-measure release of his vocal music. It certainly broadens the picture of him considerably, from the erotic art songs of Tres Canciones de amor (2020; setting three poems of Pablo Neruda) to the satirical skit Let’s Build a Wall! (2018) and the gospel-like part-songs By and by (2020) and Let the light shine on me (2019).

At its best, Field’s music has a winning melodic flow and harmonic translucency that make it easy to appreciate without pandering to an audience. Those qualities can be heard in the Tres Canciones de amor, the texts taken from Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets, clearly sung by Yanis Benabdallah. Field’s response to the words is subtle and involving, from the ‘genital fire [that] slips through the narrow pathways of the blood’ in the first to the impassioned resignation of a dying lover’s leave-taking. By contrast, Let’s Build a Wall! wholly lives up to its subtitle, An American Satire, with its not-too-subtle glare at Trumpian politics. The twinkle in Zoli Mujahid’s Broadwayesque tenor is quite clear.

Chimneys, Sonnets-Realities (1990) consists of six aphoristic settings of poems by EE Cummings, taken from the collections Tulips and Chimneys. The toughest listen here, the atmosphere is quite different to Tres Canciones de amor. The accompaniments, very adroitly played by Veronica Tomanek, are the subtlest and most angular in profile, while in baritone Edward Whalen, Field found (the recording is archival, from 1990 – the premiere perhaps?) a persuasive interpreter. It is instructive to compare these settings with the Sephardic Lullaby (2018; aka ‘Durme, durme, kerido ijiko’). All the performances are nicely delivered, though Navona’s sound is flat and studio-bound in places.