Leonard Slatkin, University Musical Society & University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra Songs Of Innocence & Of Experience

William Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (2004) - Carmen Pelton (soprano), Christine Brewer (soprano), Contemporary Directions Ensemble, Ilana Davidson (soprano), Jeremy Kittel (fiddle), Joan Morris (mezzo-soprano), Linda Hohenfeld (soprano), Marietta Simpson (contralto), Measha Brueggergosman (soprano). From the time he was a teenager, William Bolcom had dreamed of setting William Blake's epic poem collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience to music - and eventually he did. But it took over a quarter of a century, from the first completed songs at age 17 in 1956 until 1982 when, as a tenured professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Bolcom was finally able to find time to pull it all together. And then Bolcom had to wait another two years for the first performance in Stuttgart, and another 20 years until some record company was enterprising enough to take it on. In the eclectic spirit of Blake, the result is an extraordinary synthesis, a two-hour-and-17-minute song cycle for choirs, vocalists, electric and folk instruments, and symphony orchestra, in which Bolcom throws in just about every style he can think of.