Reviews

Classical Singer Magazine (Caleb Harris, May 2007)

“If you are a lover of traditional art song and are always searching for repertoire selections that are highly melodic, and clearly written with the voice in mind, you can find a breath of fresh air in the settings included in this volume of 14 songs by composer Ben Moore… If you are interested in performing works that have yet to reach a wide market but are sure to be well-received in the concert hall, at your senior voice recital, or at your family reunion, rest assured that these fine settings by Ben Moore will please the palette and leave your audience wanting more.”

Fanfare Magazine (James H. North, January 2006)

“Moore finds just the right note and dynamic for every vowel, and he writes illuminating, sometimes complex accompaniments, capturing the spirit of each poem. Voigt and pianist Brian Zeger seem thoroughly at home with Moore’s songs, throwing themselves into the music with more abandon as they progress through the set of eight, whose order has been well chosen. One suddenly feels that the Moore songs are the true focus of the disc.”

Opera News (F. Paul Driscoll and Oussama Zahr) (January 2006)

The Best of the Year “a disarming program of American Songs”

Opera News (Brian Kellow, December 2005)

“All My Heart is Deborah Voigt’s tribute to American composers- Charles Ives, Amy Beach, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Griffes and the talented Ben Moore, best known for writing effective comic numbers for the recital appearances of Voigt, Susan Graham and others… She (Voigt) is most effective in Moore’s lyrical, keenly nuanced selections.”

Opera News (Judith Malafronte, November 2005)

“Eight songs by Ben Moore form the centerpiece of the disc, and their easy tunefulness and effective setting offer Voigt plenty of emotional range…she understands perfectly the romantic sweep and dark urgency of Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘I am in need of music,’ the gently lyrical ‘In the dark pine-wood’ (from James Joyce’s Chamber Music) and the richly internalized imagery of Moore’s restrained setting of Keats’ ‘Darkling I listen’… a heartfelt and richly communicative recital.”

Pittsburg Post-Gazette (Robert Croan, senior editor) (September 22, 2005)

“In this impressive recital of American art songs, Deborah Voigt traverses classics…plus a more recent group by 45-year-old Ben Moore, who has become a favorite among opera luminaries looking for new repertory… It is Moore’s lovely songs that most spark the singer’s imagination, and provide this collection’s most rewarding moments. His individual treatment of ‘Gather ye rosebuds,’ for example, or his pungent music for ‘The Ivy-Wife,’ typify his serious text-setting, his wit and an old-fashioned melodic invention seasoned by the irreverence of Broadway.”

Akron Beacon Journal (Elaine Guregian, Sep. 25, 2005)

“Variants on the ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’ theme urging the listener to give in to his/her raging hormones are rampant in pop music. For one of the eight song settings by Ben Moore on this disc, the composer actually goes back to the source. Robert Herrick’s poem titled To the Virgins to Make Much of Time. It’s presented here in a collection of other songs set to such estimable authors as Thomas Hardy, William Butler Yeats and James Joyce. Moore (born 1960) sets the poetic language in poignantly lovely writing that is a natural descendant of that heart-on-sleeve melodist Leonard Bernstein… It’s significant, and gratifying, that Voigt hasn’t just grabbed the big Wagner and Strauss roles and run, leaving more recent music (by Americans, yet!) on its own. The Ben Moore songs are wonderfully intelligent and clever, never self-consciously intellectual.”

Opera Today (Barbara Miller, September 19, 2005)

“At the heart of the program is a fine set of art songs by the contemporary composer Ben Moore, who has composed several musical shows and cabaret pieces as well as humorous encore pieces for classical singers. While the songs earlier in the program evoked childhood, in many of Moore’s songs we see the dilemmas of people coming to terms with romantic love and the choices it invites them to make. These songs are all melodic, with interesting and singable texts, and harmonies and accompaniments that reinforce the poetry. It is fortunate that such talented artists have chosen to devote at least half of the recording to Moore’s songs, since they deserve to be heard. A particularly memorable song at first hearing is the setting of Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Ivy Wife,’ which deflates the Victorian metaphor of the wife as clinging vine, faithful to the strong tree who is her husband. In a setting of great energy which eschews the delicacy and gentleness associated with that image, we hear a woman on a mission, telling us of how she set out to find the man whom she could cling to and eventually completely contain, and of the resultant destruction to them both.”

Berkshire Eagle (Andrew Pincus, July 14, 2005)

“[Moore] writes in a conservative tonal style that ought to be a throwback, but isn’t. The text setting of these thrice-told poems is so sure that it yields a constant sense of discovery.”

Opera News (William V. Madison, 2004)

“…five perfectly chosen songs by Charles Ives and four by Ben Moore… Perhaps most impressive were his [Zeger’s] accounts of Moore’s songs, in which he located an ingratiating melodic gift.”

Wall Street Journal (Barrymore Laurence Scherer)

“Ives couldn’t have wished for a more versatile performer of [his] songs…nor could Ben Moore, a composer who sets the classic poetry of Joyce, Herrick, Keats and Hardy with insightful craftsmanship.”

The New York Sun (Jay Nordlinger, April 12, 2004)

“The program was well chosen, and superbly executed… Hosannas to Mr. Moore for having the confidence to write beautiful, tonal, ‘old-fashioned’ art songs…moving on to her Ben Moore novelty song, ‘Wagner Roles.’ Oh, what a wonderful song it is!”