| Cecilia Bartoli - If You Love Me (Se tu m'ami ), 18th-Century Italian Songs | | Posted Monday, September 11, 2006 4:12:07 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | The 17th-century Italian art song repertory traditionally reserved for novice singers is given new life via Bartoli's artistry. With impeccable diction and evocative phrasing, she captures every innuendo of these simple, but passionate, pieces. No two repetitive phrases are alike; she chisels every line into a landscape of interpretive magnificence. Scarlatti's simple "O Cessate di Piagarmi" becomes a testament of innocent pain and plaintiveness. Giordano's "Caro Mio Ben" is transformed into a tender cry for love. All embellishments are imaginative and well executed. Accompaniment by György Fischer is equally appealing, sensitive and precise. Every singer questing for the art of singing should study these. --Barbara Eisner Bayer ... | |
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| | | Vivaldi's Ring Of Mystery | | Posted Friday, September 08, 2006 2:11:50 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | THE STORY: A young violinist, Katarina, arrives at the orphanage where Vivaldi was music director. Aided by Giovanni the gondolier, she searches throughout Venice for clues to her mysterious past. THE MUSIC: Over two dozen excerpts, including Vivaldi's well-loved Four Seasons (with real sound effects), and guitar, piccolo, and trumpet concertos. Also featured are many of the violin pieces played by young violinists today.... | |
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| | | The Bourne Supremacy | | Posted Sunday, September 03, 2006 6:12:19 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Novelist Robert Ludlum's amnesia-plagued, tough-as-nails spy/assassin Jason Bourne again proves that success begats sequels, be they literary or cinematic. As he did for the saga's initial big screen installment, composer John Powell concocts an electro-orchestral fusion score that seasons its tense, bristling rhythms with dollops of melodicism, synth-atmospherics and staccato string figures. Those welcome touches hearken back to composer's similar work on the '03 action-thriller The Italian Job, with Powell initially evoking the film's exotic locales by employing a savory synth pop-meets-Eastern European palate. The tension-building rhythms and percussion flourishes familiar from Powell's other action-centric scores are the score's musical pulse -- even if they eventually upset the finely honed balancing act by boiling over into the familiar explosive cliches of all too many thriller scores. --Jerry McCulley... | |
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| | | Hildegard von Bingen: Canticles of Ecstasy | | Posted Friday, September 01, 2006 6:12:54 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Although Hildegard von Bingen's music has been around for 900 years--and recordings of her music for decades--it seems that only now, as we approach the turn of another millennium, the time is right for the world to pay attention. In this first-rate traversal of her music--the most popular of several volumes released by the early-music ensemble Sequentia--we hear music that resulted from Hildegard's legendary visions, which often included song texts that she subsequently collected and dispensed to her religious community of women. As rendered here by the voices and instruments of Sequentia, her music invokes an unobscured sense of mystery, conforming to Hildegard's belief that music was our bridge to the harmonies of the heavens. Whether or not we're experiencing that "heavenly harmony" here, the simple, direct, beautifully turned melodies, sung by pure, finely tuned, warm-colored women's voices, often eerily accompanied by an instrumental drone, is heavenly enough. --David Vernier... | |
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| | | Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla | | Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2006 6:13:32 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Yo-Yo Ma might seem like an unlikely protagonist for the tango, but this intrepid musical explorer has taken his task seriously, collaborating with experienced tango musicians. Ma even participates in a posthumous collaboration with one 1987 Piazzolla recording. Furthermore, while he's obviously the headliner here, he doesn't dominate the arrangements nearly as much as he does the billing and photography of the disc. While the result isn't your essential Piazzolla album (that would have to include more of the composer's own playing), it's an atmospheric and convincing collection, perhaps a good introduction for those who don't know the music. --Leslie Gerber... | |
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| | | Odyssey | | Posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:11:51 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Hayley Westenra's new album Odyssey was always going to be a different proposition to Pure, the record-breaking 2003 collection which marked her international debut. A lot has happened to the young New Zealander over the past two or three years--and those changes are clearly reflected by a record which encapsulates her growth from a budding teenage prodigy into a mature young woman.Now, at 18, Hayley is ready to show the world how much she has grown up, both as an artist and as an individual. Fans of Pure will be pleasantly surprised by her new album. Her wonderful voice retains its crystal-clear purity, but Westenra's singing is now richer and more rounded than before. Touring the world and singing in some of its greatest concert venues, such as the Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, and Carnegie Hall, has worked wonders for her confidence. Suitably emboldened, she has embraced an even wider range of musical styles including classical, hymns, folk and pop."I was happy with Pure at the time, but I've moved on so much," says Hayley. "It's really exciting to have something new out there for people to listen to. I wanted to make a record that represented me as a person. And I think I've improved as a vocalist."Variety is certainly one of the keywords with Hayley's new album. When she first entered a recording studio in New Zealand as a 12-year-old, Westenra restricted herself to classical pieces and show tunes. Now, in addition to impressive takes on classical works, Hayley uses her new album to perform an inspired cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and has arranged and written much of the material. "I like to push myself, and I'm now confident enough to try different things. I have been much more involved behind the scenes with this album--I wanted to put my individual stamp on each song."With her career stretching out promisingly before her, Hayley is also keen to continue experimenting. She is still primarily a classical crossover artist but she also wants to keep broadening those musical horizons. Three years after her international debut CD, Hayley Westenra is still pure: she exudes pure quality and she remains pure class--but her musical journey continues with her new album Odyssey.... | |
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| | | The Very Best of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf | | Posted Thursday, August 24, 2006 6:11:44 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was certainly one of the greatest singers of her own, or indeed any other time. An obsessive perfectionist, her flawless technique and intonation over a huge range, vocal flexibility, breath control, phrasing, stylistic versatility, and above all her focused, radiantly beautiful sound were matchless and incomparable. All these are on full display on this generous 2-CD set, which features over a dozen arias, songs by Schubert, Wolf and Richard Strauss, and some lighter fare. The recordings were made between 1950 and 1967, and the singing becomes better and better, the voice richer and more varied, the expression deeper and more immediate. Not surprisingly, the peaks come in the arias from her signature roles in Mozart's Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte; Richard Strauss' Ariadne, Rosenkavalier, and Arabella, which rise to real ecstasy; and arias from Weber's Freischütz and Smetana's Bartered Bride, which are wonderfully intimate and touching. She is less convincing in roles she never sang on stage, and the "childish" voice she cultivated especially for Hänsel and Gretel is unnatural and contrived. The same is true of the last two "popular" numbers, which sound condescending and artificial. The songs, however, have all her customary finesse and inwardness; the Wolf group, perhaps chosen for its gentle humor, is charming, while Strauss' "Four Last Songs" (represented by two) shimmer and soar. Schwarzkopf's singing had instantly recognizable characteristics: a tendency to hold back both vocally and emotionally, giving a sense of noble restraint, but also of cool detachment; excessive use of color and nuance, creating a fussy, calculated and somewhat artificial air. Only rarely does she "let go" with full voice and spontaneous feeling. However, as these recordings show, she invariably inspires admiration and captures ear and heart through the inimitable, glorious beauty of her voice. --Edith Eisler... | |
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| | | Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra | | Posted Tuesday, August 22, 2006 6:11:47 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Throughout his career, pianist-composer Bill Evans successfully melded Bud Powell's fiery bop-paced technique with the lyricism and harmonic language of the French impressionists Ravel and Debussy. So it was only natural that he would record a session that combines the jazz and classical traditions.Released in 1965, this date features Evans's trio with drummer Larry Bunker, who, three decades later, guest-starred on Diana Krall's When I Look in Your Eyes, and the sensitive bassist Larry Bunker. They're augmented by the azure-tinged arrangements by the famed conductor Claus Ogerman, who worked his magic with artists from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Frank Sinatra. The result of this union is a swinging and seamless interplay in which improvisation becomes spontaneous composition, and vice versa. The linearity and logic of Evans's lines erase centuries of musical distance from the works of Bach, Chopin, Granados, Fauré, and Scriabin, with the trio's trademark telepathy expressed in 4/4 and 3/4 time signatures and light Latin tinges. Evans's haunting compositions, "My Bells" and "Time Remembered," imbued by Ogerman's ethereal strings, are the jewels of this delightful recording, whose brilliance has increased with time. --Eugene Holley Jr.... | |
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| | | Born | | Posted Saturday, August 19, 2006 6:12:06 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Born, the debut album by four conservatory-trained young women, has little to do with classical music. It's a gimmick, fusing a string quartet of frivolous femmes, spicy girls who all want to be "Posh," with dance beats, a big production mixing their violins, viola, and cello with polished electronics. Taking themselves less than seriously--they played the James Bond theme at their Royal Albert Hall debut--pop "Victory" looks assured. This single bounces along with a dash of Rossini's Barber of Seville and a real sense of pop melodrama, in spirit little different from what guitarist John Williams did with his rather less photogenic band Sky in the late 1970s. What may surprise is that tracks such as the frenetic world-dance "Quixote" are penned by the film composer Magnus Fiennes, brother of the more famous Ralph and Joseph. "Winter" adds Jean Michel Jarre-style synth and voice-over to the ghost of Vivaldi and the infectious beat goes on, and on, and on. Sex sells, and Bond's success seems assured. This is a state-of-the-art product, but with a bonus remix of "Victory" by Mike Batt of Wombles fame, just don't expect it to be art. --Gary S. Dalkin... | |
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| | | Sacred Treasures: Choral Masterworks From Russia | | Posted Monday, August 14, 2006 4:11:52 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Although this collection intends to transport the soul, it has a tremendously potent low-end depth to it that earns high marks indeed in the worlds of vocal and liturgical music. Dmitri Bortniansky's "Hymn of the Cherubim" is performed with a gracefulness that gets a warming fatness from the production, as does Alexander Gretchaninov's "I Have Chosen the Blissful," which travels with a ringing resonance. In a year of fine choral works--check out Sequentia's Hildegard cycle box, 900 Years or Arvo Pärt's Kanon Pokajanen for a "something old, something new" mix--this collection is highly valued for its sonic integrity and its excellent anthological mix. --Andrew Bartlett... | |
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