The Listening Room
Classical | Choral
 

Under the Willow Tree is a beautiful duet from Barber's opera, "Vanessa." It first premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1958. The story revolves around a love triangle between Vanessa, her niece Erika, and Anatol, the son of Vanessa's former lover.

The opening movement of Song of Liberty: A Blake Cantata is the beginning of William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. This is Blake in his most thunderous, prophetic voice: “Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden’d air; / Hungry clouds swag on the deep." The prominent percussion in the music accentuates the dramatic, insistent tone of the poetry, and the imagery is captured through transparent musical allusion depicting the buzzing of bees, the flowing waters of the river and the spring, the creeping serpent. After this apocalyptic first movement, the remainder of the cantata treats Blake's celebration of love and mysticism.

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote this 1936 cantata for chorus and orchestra with soprano and baritone soloists. The six part work draws from three poems by Walt Whitman, several liturgical texts, and an anti-war speech by John Bright.