This is the first recital disc by Sanford Sylvan, best known for his work with the American minimalist John Adams. In terms of repertoire, he has chosen well. Apart from Arleen Auger's account of ''Heart, we will forget him'' on Delos, Copland's 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson are not represented in the UK catalogues at present. Even Copland's own recording with soprano Adele Addison (CBS, 9/80—nla) has been unavailable for some years. It was the version by Robert Tear and Philip Ledger that showed Copland how effectively the songs could be projected by a man (Argo, 3/77—nla). Tear used his gritty tenor with consummate skill, pointing the texts with post-Pears precision. Sylvan's light baritone is a more conventional instrument, and his interpretations can afford to be less characterful. When, in the third song, Tear poses the question, ''Why do they shut me out of heaven?/Did I sing too loud?'', he does just that. Sylvan is blander, more beautiful. The piano sound could be more crystalline, less caressing. Tear has said of the poetess ''She reminds me very much of a person whistling to keep the spirits up going down a dark lane''. Those darker currents are just a shade underplayed here, so that the contrast with Barber's softer-grained Hermit Songs is not as extreme as it might be, given the composers' mutual dislike for each other's music.
While Adele Addison proved a bit of a shrieker in her recording of the Copland Poems, Barber as pianist-composer struck gold with his chosen soprano, the young Leontyne Price. Their wonderful, saccharine-free performance (CBS Masterworks Portrait) is a hard act to follow. Sylvan provides an interesting alternative, pointing up the sexual ambiguities of monastic life, but the 1954 recording is by no means outclassed. He certainly snatches at the ''Sea-Snatch'' and allows David Breitman's bells to drown him out at the start of ''The Desire for Hermitage''. The songs of Theodore Chanler (1902-61) will be virgin territory for many readers. More active as a writer and critic than a composer, Chanler studied composition with Nadia Boulanger like so many of his contemporaries. Working mostly in smaller forms, his own idiom could best be described as cautious—Barber without the kitsch or the individuality. He often set the poetry of Walter de la Mare, but his approach is too dignified and delicate to be stigmatized as merely twee. Sylvan is at his best in these Eight Epitaphs, making the most of the economical vocal lines set against textures of quasi-Bach and pseudo-Faure.
To sum up: this is a recital to confound those who think American culture is all steel, glass and wide open spaces. Copland has set the words of an eccentric recluse, speculating on eternal questions from her New England retreat; Barber's hermits seek security within monastery walls, and Chanler takes cover in his childlike Eden. Such music requires a precise blend of simplicity and insight. Sanford Sylvan's manner is svelte and sensitive, but there is an inevitable feeling of lassitude by the end of such a programme.
Elektra-Nonesuch's recording, made in Methuen Hall, Massachusetts, is resonant, not always ideally clear but contributing a warm autumnal imprecision many will find irresistible. Packaging is excellent as usual with this label, and there are full texts.
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