Includes CD Booklet as a pdf file

Marga Richter's instrumental compositions are well-represented on recordings, starting with MGM's commissions in the 1950s. But "Dew-drops On A Lotus Leaf & Other Songs" is the first full recital of her vocal music. A sense of melancholy permeates most of the tracks, from the elegiac civil war letter "Sarah do not mourn me dead" to the despairing resignation of "Sonnet 71" of Shakespeare. But she's not afraid to stir things up once in a while, as in the primal opening to "Wild Moon." But the tour-de-force of the recording is the titular song-cycle. Richter takes us on an epic journey, as the 18th-century Japanese Zen-Poet-Monk Ryokan travels through five seasons of life (and Prologue and Epilogue). The multi-octave cycle moves between tenor and counter-tenor range, and is in turns soothing and demanding, ethereal and intense.

Most of the songs in this collection were composed for or premiered by Tenor William George. After hearing Mr. George perform "Sarah do not mourn me dead," for the first time in 2003, Richter wrote, “Upon reflection, I find that it was the only perfect performance of any of my pieces that I ever heard! And I mean perfect in every way.” Pianist Andrea Lodge provides sensitive and nuanced collaboration.