The Prince Consort - Ned Rorem - Ionarts

Ned Rorem, America's French composer, writes songs the way I should like all songs to be interpreted, "non-operatic" and consequently intimate-natural. Whether you buy Time Magazine's epithet of Rorem as the best songwriter in the world or not, you cannot deny that he has a melodic gift, and a great one at that. "On an Echoing Road" is a magnificent collection of 29 of them (original and arranged), sung variously by the five members of The Prince Consort and accompanied by artistic director Alisdair Hogarth. All the voices-Jacques Imbrailo (baritone), Anna Leese (soprano), Tim Mead (tenor), Andrew Staples (countertenor), and Jennifer Johnston (mezzo)-sound very pleasant and well suited to what they are tackling and among them the baritone and soprano stand out for particularly smooth delight. Of the 29 songs, I love maybe half a dozen ("Jeanie with the light brown hair", "What if some little pain") and I much like the rest