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Special offer. Whither Must I Wander

Jonathan King (baritone), Will Liverman (piano)

Whither Must I Wander
It’s built around Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, and Liverman’s account of the opening song, ‘The Vagabond’, combines a firm, oaky baritone with a sharp interpretative attitude – this wanderer...

Special offer. Whither Must I Wander

Jonathan King (baritone), Will Liverman (piano)

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It’s built around Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, and Liverman’s account of the opening song, ‘The Vagabond’, combines a firm, oaky baritone with a sharp interpretative attitude – this wanderer...

About

An exquisite recital of songs on the theme of travel, given insightful, powerful interpretations by the American baritone Will Liverman and pianist Jon King.

'Whither Must I Wander' takes its name from one of the 'Songs of Travel' by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a song cycle that is at the heart of this release. From the trudging 'Vagabond' to the more playful 'Roadside Fire' and the radiance of 'Youth and Love', Vaughan Williams explores every bittersweet nuance of journeying.

The album also features the exhilarating vigour of Frederick Keel's 'Three Salt-Water Ballads', and the magnificent 'King David' by Herbert Howells. We then travel from England across the Atlantic to hear American songs by Aaron Copland, with one of his 'Old American Songs', the serene 'At the River', and by contemporary composer Steve Mark Kohn, whose 'Ten Thousand Miles Away' uses traditional folk song to navigate the emotional strains of missing a loved-one far away.

Liverman and King end their recital with the Goethe-inspired 'Wanderer's Night Song' by Russian composer Nikolai Medtner, and with the beautiful 'Mondnacht' by Robert Schumann.

Will Liverman, an ambassador for diversity in the arts, grew up surrounded by gospel music in the Pentecostal Churches of Norfolk, Virginia. His musical education in piano and vocal studies enabled him to visit the Metropolitan Opera aged 15, a transformative moment that inspired Liverman to pursue singing as a career, with such success that he made his own Metropolitan Opera debut in recent years. Jon King is an American pianist and choral conductor, disciplines which he has studied to Doctorate level at the Universities of Michigan and Maryland. King has performed as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor in an array of venues, including London's Wigmore Hall and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Contents and tracklist

I. The Vagabond
Track length3:08
II. Let Beauty Awake
Track length1:52
III. Roadside Fire
Track length2:13
IV. Youth and Love
Track length3:44
V. In Dreams
Track length2:37
VI. The Infinite Shining Heavens
Track length2:32
VII. Whither Must I Wander
Track length3:56
VIII. Bright is the Ring of Words
Track length1:53
IX. I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope
Track length2:21
I. Port of Many Ships
Track length2:09
II. Trade Winds
Track length2:17
III. Mother Carey
Track length1:43

Awards and reviews

April 2020

It’s built around Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, and Liverman’s account of the opening song, ‘The Vagabond’, combines a firm, oaky baritone with a sharp interpretative attitude – this wanderer imparts a sense of coiled expectation without needing to hector aggressively…But most interpretative decisions Liverman makes seem naturally right, and this is by any standards a notable debut recital.
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