I'm going to focus on songs that are really ABOUT flowers, gardens, etc., instead of just set in gardens or using flowers as metaphors or similes. By this measure, "Come into the Garden, Maud", "Salley Gardens" and "My luve is like a red, red rose" are OUT, but William Boyce's "Spring Gardens" and Betty Roe's "My Garden" are IN.
One song cycle you absolutely must do is Darius Milhaud's CATALOGUE DE FLEURS. The other cycle to consider are Richard Strauss's glorious MAEDCHENBLUEMEN (yes, it breaks my "no metaphors" rule, but it's so glorious and so undeservedly underperformed...).
Such a shame there's no solo version of Benjamin Britten's choral FIVE FLOWER SONGS, op. 47....
Other "IN" songs:
George Butterworth: Loveliest of Trees (from SONGS FROM 'A SHROPSHIRE LAD') - same poem set by several
George Butterworth: Sowing the seeds of love (from FOLK SONGS FROM SUSSEX); same folk-song also arranged, in slightly different form, by Ralph Vaughan Williams as "The Seeds of Love"
Gerald Finzi: Childhood among ferns (from BEFORE AND AFTER SUMMER, op 16)
Schubert: Heidenroeslein (D257) - also set by Brahms in his VOLKS-KINDERLIEDER and Schumann in his op. 67
Arthur Bliss: The Dandelion (from TWO NURSERY RHYMES)
Anton Webern: Im mortentaun (op 3, #4)
Wallace Earl de Pue: Thy Lowly Dandelion (from EIGHT TEXTURES OF LOVE)
Hugo Wolf: Frueling uebers Jahr (from Goethe-Lieder)
Frederic Delius: Das Veilchen - and - Im Garten des Serails (from FIVE DANISH SONGS)
Charles Tomlinson Griffes: Le jardin
Sir Arthur Bliss: Lenten flowers, from ANGELS OF THE MIND
Ernst Bacon: With the first Arbutus
Michael Head: Sweet almond blossom
Emmanuel Charbrier: Toutes les fleurs!
Roger Quilter: June
Nikolai Medtner: Lish' rozy uvjadajut (as soon as roses wither), op. 36, #3
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel: Ihr verbluehet suesse Rosen - Erwin op 7 #2 (also set by Grieg as "Zur rosenheit" op 48 #5
Schumann: Die letzten Blumen starben (from SIEBEN LIEDER VON ELISABETH KULMANN ZUR ERINNERUNG AN DIE DICHTERIN)
Schumann: Jasminenstrauch (op 27, #4)
John Ireland: All in a garden green (from FIVE SIXTEENTH CENTURY POEMS)
John Ireland: The Garland (from MOTHER AND CHILD)
Amy Beach: Juni, op. 51 #3
Rachmaninov: Margaritki (Daisies)
Mendelssohn: Maigloeckchen und die Bluemelein op. 63 #6 (duet)
Ivor Gurney: The Lent Lily (from LUDLOW AND TEME) - same poem also set by John Ireland in his THE LAND OF LOST CONTENT
William Alwyn: The Lily (from SONGS OF EXPERIENCE)
Liza Lehmann: The Lily of a Day
Malcolm Williamson: The Flowers (from FROM A CHILD'S GARDEN)
R. Strauss: September (from VIER LETZTE LIEDER)
Brahms: Im Garten am Seegestade, op 70 #1
Rachmaninov: Noch'ju v sadu u menja (In the night in my garden)
Schumann: Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen (from DICHETERLIEBE)
Schumann: Maerzveilchen (op 40 #1)
Erik Satie: Les fleurs (op. 20)
Charles Villiers Stanford: Drop me a Flower - also set by Arthur Bliss as "At the Window"
Alexander Ritter: Primula Veris (op 10, #1)
John Ireland: The Trellis
Reynaldo Hahn: La primavera (from VENEZIA)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Summer is gone (part song)
Schuman: Die Lotusblume (from MYRTEN); also set by Robert Franz, op 25 #1
and no doubt a billion others that I've missed.
KM ............................ NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + I sing hymns with my spirit, + + but I also sing hymns with my mind. + + - 1 Corinthians 14:15 + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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