Shades of Reflection Ann Woodfield & Martin Leberman
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This selection from the musical theatre sweeps us through the astonishing range of emotions surrounding the subject of love. Ann Woodfield and Martin Leberman present sixteen songs looking at love in sixteen different ways. Whilst each could be seen as a different experience, they could also represent several moments in one persons romance. From yearning expectation through every shade of joy, grief, pleasure and anticipation, Ann takes us through the whole bewildering process of falling in and out of love.

DDD Total Time = 54:52 - Recorded in Winterbrook Road Studios, London, 1997

Ann Woodfield together with her accompanist Martin Leberman, made their London début in 1996  at Centre Stage, Covent Garden, utilising the writings of Sondheim, Weill, Brel, Maltby & Shire, Bernstein and Bennett to name but a few. Since then the duo, with their eclectic programming, have gone from strength to strength.

Why choose these songs? Why these particular songs? Because they're great songs? - Well, yes. Because they have a common theme? - Well, yes. Because they grow out of the same musical tradition? - yes, yes, yes! Perhaps because of all these reasons and from a desire to use the combined inspiration behind the different songs to express a little more.

If you look at something once you see it only one way. Here are sixteen songs looking at love sixteen different ways. While each person could be seen as a different lover, it could also be several moments in one persons romance. Each song captures a moment in love.; from the yearning expectation in Someone To Watch Over Me, to the effervescent pleasure of Surrey With The Fringe On The Top, every shade of joy and grief, pleasure and anticipation is touched upon. Imagine the songs all sung - as they are here - by one woman, each song a moment to itself but, more than that, an expression of small parts of the whole bewildering process of falling in and out of love.

If all this sounds a little daunting, one shouldn't forget that some of the wittiest lyricists in the business wrote these songs and humour is never far from the surface. The wry tone of Times Like This and the retrospective, if self-mocking flavour of Nice all help to sugar the pill of the difficult times, without ever shying away from the true depth of emotion involved. Love is all consuming and is lived in the present. The all embracing satisfaction of What More Do I Need is apparently completely divorced from the anxious fear of separation expressed in Black Coffee. But what they have in common is an inability to live for the future or for the past - this moment is everything.

These songs could be seen as entirely disparate but taken as a whole this song cycle can be seen as a mature consideration of the whole question of love. However, mature consideration comes unstuck in the face of romance. I Hear Bells and Bewitched are strong evidence of that.

Analysis makes it all seem trite, only great poets can talk of love without making fools or bores of themselves. So that's enough writing, relax and listen to the words and music, all these songs are different and all these songs are true - enjoy.

Richard Stockwell. London March 1998.

My special thanks to Carol Duffy for the poignant title, Richard Stockwell for his inspired notes, all those gifted, indeed extraordinary Composers and Lyricists who exercise their craft with such elegance, dignity and consummate understanding of human aspirations

Ann Woodfield. London March 1998.