ASK THE MOON
Garth Baxter, composer / Navona Records
Stream or Buy: Apple Music / Spotify / YouTube
Ask The Moon is a collection of vocal music by Garth Baxter for voice and piano, with one work including flute, released by Navona Records. The recording features Peter Scott Drackley, Jessica Satava, Katherine Keem, and Annie Gill as vocal soloists, with Andrew Stewart, piano, and Melissa Wertheimer, flute. Centered on art song, poetry, and expressive text setting, the album includes individual songs alongside the cycles Three Madrigals, Four Views Of Love, Three Poems From Edna St. Vincent Millay, Two Last Songs, and Skywriting, offering a broad portrait of Baxter’s lyrical, tonally grounded, and contemporary vocal writing
Nights Without Sleep — 2:32
Peter Scott Drackley, tenor; Andrew Stewart, piano
Three Madrigals
Jessica Satava, soprano; Andrew Stewart, piano
I. There Is A Lady Sweet And Kind — 1:52
II. The Silver Swan — 2:51
III. Love Me Not For Comely Grace — 1:34
Is This The Cost? — 3:19
Katherine Keem, soprano; Andrew Stewart, piano
Four Views Of Love
Peter Scott Drackley, tenor; Andrew Stewart, piano
I. When You Are Old — 3:49
II. Let It Be You — 1:50
III. Let It Be Forgotten — 2:38
IV. A Thunderstorm In Town — 1:31
Grandmother, Think Not I Forget — 4:50
Jessica Satava, soprano; Andrew Stewart, piano
Three Poems From Edna St. Vincent Millay
Jessica Satava, soprano; Andrew Stewart, piano
I. Afternoon On A Hill — 1:23
II. Lament — 3:03
III. Travel — 2:04
Two Last Songs
Annie Gill, soprano; Andrew Stewart, piano
I. 1932 — 2:56
II. When I Am Dead, My Dearest — 2:43
April Twilight — 3:42
Annie Gill, soprano; Melissa Wertheimer, flute; Andrew Stewart, piano
Skywriting
Jessica Satava, soprano; Andrew Stewart, piano
I. There Are Poems — 2:06
II. Spring — 1:43
III. The Imperfect Paradise — 2:33
IV. Why Are Your Poems So Dark? — 2:13
“The world needs beauty,and there is plenty of it to be found in this collection of art songs by American composer Garth Baxter. Baxter seems to have carved out a happy if quiet career as a composer in an array of genres, with art song at the forefront. He bills himself as a modern traditionalist, and the music heard here bears out that description. His songs are suffused with lyric romanticism within a framework of familiar tonality, but plenty of modernistic touches in both his melodic and harmonic palettes keep everything fresh. Baxter knows how to shape lovely melodic lines and to cushion them within a warm harmonic framework.”
“The songs reveal a very intimate and poetic character....they are delicate, nocturnal works, with pleasing and graceful harmonies, that accompany and elegantly underline the poetic texts.”
“There are many lovely things on this recording of songs by Garth Baxter about loss and memory and of marrying words to music. Most are sad, and the composer’s idiom is simple, straightforward, old-fashioned romantic, but in each Baxter’s ear for matching the rhythm and sense of the verse quickly allows him to identify the central point of emotional interest at which his inspiration and the singer’s art intersect.”