Dip Your Ears, No. 59

Canciones Argentinas, Bernarda & Marcos Fink, Carmen Piazzini

There have been plenty of good and interesting releases this year, already, but (Mitsuko Uchida’s Beethoven apart) few have really captured my attention. Along comes “Canciones Argentinas,” certainly the year’s – literally – most colorful release. Bernarda Fink and her bass-baritone brother, Marcos, are accompanied by Carmen Piazzini (who recently finished recording the complete Haydn sonatas) in songs by Carlos Gustavino, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Lopez Buchardo, Luis Gianneo, Abel Fleury, Angel E. Lasala (his duet Tropilla de estrellas one of the many highlights), Manuel Gómez Carrillo, Floro M. Ugarte, and the underrated but great Argentinian composer Alberto Williams.

Melancholic, musical, moving, these are songs for any time or occasion – of appeal whether one just listens to the sound or enjoys the poems and texts upon which they are based. (Translations in German, English and French are, albeit imperfectly, provided in the generous booklet.) Bernarda Fink really needs no introduction; her work with René Jacobs (best Così, ever), John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Mozart and Verdi Requiem, Bach), etc., etc., her Dvořák songs, Frauenliebe und -leben (one of the most pleasing) – all that should have her be well known to us. If not, get to it – you might as well start here. What is quite a surprise is her brother, Marcos, whose deep, rich baritone is a complete delight also. Dark chocolate with (eerie!) notes of Plácido Domingo. There are moments that listening to Marcos Fink sounds like listening to Domingo’s deeper-voiced brother, so similar can the character of their voices be. Worse things could be said about a singer.

Packed with 26 songs (running to over 74 minutes), most of them nothing but delightful, this disc is not one of those that, like a box of chocolates, offers little bits while the consumption of all its contents at once would be perilous. Far from it, this recital works as a whole and I challenge anyone who puts it on to turn it off prematurely.

Los pájaros perdidos (Mario Trejo) Amo los pájaros perdidos que vuelven desde el más allá, a confudirse con el cielo que nunca maá podré recuperar. Vuelven de nuevo los recuerdos, las horas jóvenes que di, y desde el mar llega un fantasma hecho de cosas que amé y perdí. Todo fue en sueño, un sueño que perdimos, como perdimos los pájaros y el mar, un sueño breve y antiguo como el tiempo que los espejos no pueden reflejar. Después busqué perderte en tantas otras y aquella otra y todas eran vos; por fin logré reconocer cuando un adiós es un adiós, la soledad me devoró y fuimos dos. Vuelven los pájaros nocturnos que vuelvan ciegos sobre el mar la noche entera es un espejo que me devuelve tu soledad.

The Lorn Birds I love the lorn birds That return from far away To melt into the sky Which I shall never be able to regain. They return once more, the memories, The hours of my youth I spent, And from the sea emerges an apparition Of things once loved, then lost. It was all a dream, a dream we lost, As we lost the birds and the sea, A dream as short, as old as time, That the mirrors can’t reflect. Ever since I’ve tried to lose you in so many others, And that ‘other’, and all, were always you; At last I’ve come to understand when a good-bye is a good-bye, Solitude consumed me and we were two. Returned once more, the birds of night, That fly blindly over the sea. The whole night is a mirror Casting back your solitude at me.

HMU 901892