Lieder Recital

- This CD is literally the "Rediscovery of an Undiscovered Composer"! Very little is known about Anna Cramer who lived and worked in Berlin and Vienna around the 1910s, whose songs were published in Berlin and Munich, and who then completely disappeared to re-surface in 1958, ten years before her death, in Amsterdam where she lived in extremely poor circumstances. She only composed Lieder, but of such a high quality that, had they been written by more famous composers, these songs would certainly have found a lasting place in the repertoire! Anna Cramer was no avant-gardist, but moved stylistically along the front ranks ofthe fin-de-siecle idiom, in the company of Richard Strauss, Wolf, Mahler, Zemlinsky, the young Alban Berg and also Debussy.

- The rediscovery of Anna Cramer is mainly the work of mezzo soprano Rachel Ann Morgan and also of Willem Noske, famous explorer of the Dutch musical heritage. Rachel Ann Morgan gave a number of truly remarkable song recitals in the Holland Festival, where she sang 14 of these songs and caused a sensation with them, not only because of the outstanding quality of the Lieder, but also with her performances.

- Texts of the Lieder and introductions in Dutch, English, French and German in the booklet!

 

Mezzo-soprano Rachel Ann Morgan was born in Cardiff, Wales, where she began to play the harp at the age of nine. She read Music at Bristol University, then came to The Netherlands to study the harp with Edward Witsenburg at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. She also studied singing at the Conservatory with Sophia van Sante. After five years as principal harpist of The Netherlands Ballet Orchestra she joined the Opera Studio of The Netherlands Opera as a mezzo-soprano. She is an opera and concert singer as well as a recitalist and gives concerts accompanying herself on the concert harp as well as the Celtic harp. She has performed in Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Russia, America and The Netherlands where she now lives. She has made several CDs, including two solo discs of Celtic folksongs accompanying herself on the Celtic harp for Etcetera and has sung the title-role in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for Globe. In 1994 she was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to British cultural interests in The Netherlands.

Pianist Marjes Benoist was born in Velp near Arnhem where she began to play the piano at the age of ten. She studied at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory with Jan Ode, in Rome with Guido Agosti, was granted the Jacques Vonk Prize and received scholarships which enabled her to continue her studies with Alicia de Larrocba in Santiago de Compostela and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow where Yevgeni Moguilovksi was her principal teacher. She took part in a great many music theater productions by, amongst others, Mauricio Kagel and Louis Andriessen, and also performed works by several avant garde composers. As soloist and chamber music player she frequently appears in France, Russia, Germany, Spain, England and Italy as well as in her native country.