Jacqueline Schwab: I Lift My Lamp
Sono Luminus

Beyond performances that are engaged and expressive, what distinguishes I Lift My Lamp is its programme. On this sixty-five-minute collection, pianist Jacqueline Schwab presents songs from numerous countries, some familiar and some not but all performed with deep feeling. As the songs are associated with the American immigrant experience, many are filled with longing for the countries left behind. As an example, Schwab cites her Scottish friend Stuart, who retired to Cape Cod but would, in her words, “sing the old song ‘I Belong to Glasgow' at the drop of a hat.” Cultural pride is certainly part of the emotional mix, but it's that melancholy tone that makes I Lift My Lamp so affecting.

This isn't the first time Schwab, a graduate of Boston's New England Conservatory who lived for many years at Cape Cod before returning to Boston, has given her attention to such material; in fact, much of her career has been devoted to projects celebrating the American experience in one form or another. She's worked on soundtracks for filmmaker Ken Burns about baseball, the Civil War, Mark Twain, and other topics and has performed vintage American music throughout the United States. She's performed at the White House, on public radio's A Prairie Home Companion, and with The American Pops Orchestra, and is as comfortable playing an old Appalachian hymn as a Scottish jig. Even when these immigrant tunes and dances span the globe, she locates their common thread and infuses her performances with humanity. None of the material was written by her, but the songs feel no less like personal expressions in her hands.

Beginning the album with “For Ireland I'd Not Tell Her Name,” a stirring Irish slow air from the nineteenth century, ensures the listener will be captivated from the start. Schwab's sensitive, free-flowing treatment amplifies the haunting quality of its melodies and makes this opening tune one of the set's most memorable. Like many an album performance, it's paired with a second song, in this case a rousing popular jig called “The Blarney Pilgrim.” Another slow air follows, “The Shieling in the Braes of Rannoch,” this one Scottish and rather more doleful than the opener, after which Schwab pairs “The Marchioness of Huntly's Strathspey,” a charming Scottish strathspey by eighteenth-century fiddle composer William Marshall, with the Scottish country dance tune “Miss Dumbreck” and “Miss Stevenson's Reel.” Shifting gears again, “Finlandia Hymn,” from Finlandia by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, sings its resonant song with grace. The beloved habanera “La Paloma” is taken at a slow pace, all the better to be seduced by its aromatic melodies. The African-American spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” receives a suitably bluesy reading, as does Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer's 1946 American songbook tune “I Had Myself a True Love.”

From the Kujawy region in central Poland comes the village dance “Ada's Kujawiak #1,” from Chile “El Copihue rojo,” from Italy “Neapolitan Tarantella,” from Brazil the tango “Carioca,” and from Ukraine the Yiddish song “Oyfn Pripetshik.” Dances and ballads consistently alternate, with examples of each coming from various parts of the world and Schwab executing them all with equal attention to detail and tone. Adding to the release's appeal, in-depth liner notes presenting background for each composition were written for it by Stephanie Smith, one-time Archives Director of the Smithsonian Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Many of these tunes—what Twain called “remembrancers,” apparently—were written long ago, but the feelings they express and the message they impart transcend time and resonate afresh in Schwab's inspired readings.

October 2022