New release: The Pied Piper Of Hamelin And Other Melodramas
Jed Wentz realized a unique concept: 19-th century melodramas for voice and piano.
The Pied Piper Of Hamelin And Other Melodramas
With The Pied Piper Of Hamelin And Other Melodramas Jed Wentz (recitation) and Artem Belogurov (piano and dulcitone) are searching out in the melodrama a dual art that merges words with music, in the hope of revealing how moving melodrama can be, why it was so popular, and how it may be revived today.
The composers on this album include Alexander Campbell Mackenzie, Margaret Amphlett, Harry Farjeon, York Bowen, and the authors include Thomas Hood, William Butler Yeats, John Keats and Edgar Allen Poe.
Artem Belogurov and I recorded a CD of melodramas - recitations with keyboard accompaniment - from ca. 1900. This genre of musical declamation was incredibly popular throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, but died out with the rise of naturalism in acting in the 1920s. Artem and I have been inspired by historical recordings and sources, and have put together a CD of dramatic, lyrical and highly elaborate musical speech: music that speaks and speech that nearly sings.
- Jed Wentz
Read more here.