Composer Paul Lombardi Three Imagist Songs

Three Imagist Songs by Composer Paul Lombardi

 

I gave a concert in collaboration with World Oceans Music on January 29, 2017, where James Gibson and I performed music of living composers. One of the featured sets was Three Imagist Songs by art song composer Paul Lombard, published in 2009 for soprano and piano.

Although I’m a mezzo, not a soprano, I found the texts and musical settings compelling, so I decided to work them into my voice, perform them, and then record them.

They are short, stark, dramatic works full of emotional subtext.

Alba (recorded above)
As cool as the pale wet leaves
of the lily-of-the-valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.

– Ezra Pound
Personae
New York: Ruthven, K.K., 1926

New Love (recorded above)
She has new leaves
After her dead flowers,
Like the little almond-tree
Which the frost hurt.

– Richard Aldington
Some Imagist Poets
New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915

Triad (recorded above)
These be
Three silent things;
The falling snow…the hour
Before the dawn…the mouth of one
Just dead.

– Adelaide Crapsey
Verse
New York: Manas Press, 1915