This carefully chosen, persuasively performed anthology of Blitzstein is the ideal way to extend one's acquaintance with a neglected American composer. Essentially a man of the theatre, in some ways akin to Kurt Weill in aim and social commitment, Blitzstein understood the ingredients needed to focus a popular song. But these songs were not popular. He has no entry in Alec Wilder's classic account of the genre American Popular Song (New York: 1972), recently the subject of two BBC Radio 3 programmes, so where does he belong? Even the apparently sure-fire cabaret number, The New Suit, extolling the virtues of the new-fangled (in 1945) zipperfly for a man's suit may not have been performed apart from renderings at parties by the composer and his admirers, including Leonard Bernstein. This sort of neglect is hard to explain, unless Blitzstein is being made to pay the price of crossing categories, which now ought to matter less than ever.
It is fascinating to trace Blitzstein's development from the rough edges of some songs from The Cradle will Rock to the softer centre of the war-time lyrics, but it is very difficult to do with this recording since the informative essay which comes with it is not laid out song by song. The very first song, Monday Morning Blues, sets the tone—relaxed and idiomatic delivery from both performers, just jazzy enough and most attractive. Both William Sharp and Karen Holvik are thoroughly at home in the hybrid idiom, which makes for successful duets such as ''In Twos'', from This is the Garden of 1957. The last song, Stay in my Arms, has a catchy refrain of real charm which ought to have given it a viable career.
There was another side to Blitzstein, who trained as a serious composer and studied under both Boulanger and Schoenberg. This aspect is represented here by his settings of E. E. Cummings (or e. e. cummings if you insist, but the collected works have been in print with his name in upper case for some years): he set Cummings first in 1929 and then again in 1960 when the New York soprano Alice Esty commissioned a cycle. Some of these are a little disappointing, except for the earlier Brooklyn parody, Jimmie's got a Goil. But as a whole this anthology of Blitzstein songs is in the same top league as Joan Morris and William Bolcom performing Gershwin (Nonesuch—nla). No wonder Sharp has won contests and has been twice nominated for a Grammy Award in American repertoire. With Holvik here, Stephen Blier at the piano, and a fine recording, there's everything to enjoy in this release and some justice at last for Blitzstein.'