Critic’s Notebook: An Odd Liederabend from Goerne and Kissin

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Ein Liederabend, bei dem vieles auf der Strecke blieb

R. Schumann, Dichterliebe, Liederkreis M.Goerne, V.Ashkenazy Harmonia Mundi

J. Brahms, 4 Serious Songs, 4 Songs op.32 M.Goerne, C.Eschenbach Harmonia Mundi

A Walrus in Love

The trick to turn a Liederabend from a connoisseur’s event into a big-ticket item, appears to be the addition of a pianist superstar to the singer in question. At the Musikverein’s Golden Hall, on March 13th, the magic ingredient to bolster Matthias Goerne’s already considerable draw was Evgeny Kissin. It makes sense, too, because in theory it’s much more interesting to hear, what two veritable artists come up with, as part of their collaboration, rather than simply having a singer be followed by an accompanist. I mean, no one goes to a concert to hear Helmut Deutsch – and few singers form as organic a duo with their ivory-partner, as do/does GerhaherHuber (one word)™.

In practice, that didn’t quite work out on this occasion. For starters, the Golden Hall was decidedly not built for Lieder-recitals. When Lieder-singers hit the big-time, they almost invariably become the victim of their own success, location-wise. And yes, there were smile-inducing moments from Kissin, such as his brawny-pawed opening of Robert Schumann’s “Am Strand”. But for the most part, there seemed little input from him… or if there was, it didn’t appear to be picked up on by Goerne. (Certainly his understanding with Christoph Eschenbach as his pianist, for example, suggested more of a give and take, both, on record and live.)

Also: The whole evening was full of mannerisms galore. Goerne can barrel through a song and braw like a donkey. And a lot of fun it sometimes is. On this occasion, a red-faced Goerne danced as if on tippy-toes, contorting himself, and reminded vaguely of a lovelorn walrus. Much of Dichterliebe, for example, was purred in honeyed tones but mumbled in such nasal tones, that it had to be an interpretative choice. Albeit one I did not comprehend. Half the text was impossible to understand and sounded more French than German. This approach was interrupted occasionally, such as for the blistering “Die Rose, die Lilie”, or in stentorian turns for the last of the nine Brahms op.32 songs, “Wie bist du, meine Königin”. Here, Kissin, hunched over the keyboard as though he had forgotten his reading glasses at home, provided for tantalizing contrast with his tone, ringing out clear as a bell, and his lullaby-esque take on it.

But that was too little, too late. Too much text fell by the wayside. Whatever was left had a strangely impersonal quality about it and was – and this can’t just be blamed on Brahms – somewhat brittle and wearisome.

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Critic’s Notebook: Andrè Schuen and the Lied, A Triumph of Youthfulness

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Triumph der unbändigen Jugend

F.Schubert, Die Schöne Müllerin A.Schuen & D.Heide DG

F. Schubert, Schwanengesang A.Schuen & D.Heide DG

Boisterous and rough and beloved

Hard to believe that Andrè Schuen was already a Don Giovanni in Niklaus Harnoncourt’s Theater-an-der-Wien production, a decade ago! He seems still so young; on the cusp of an (actually already great) career. And what more could he want? A lusciously-wild shock of hair, athletic build, and an exclusive contract with DG in his pocket – and a large, certainly loud voice, to boot. The Brahms Hall of the Musikverein was full for his Liederabend on December 16th, which may also been owed to the darkness of his voice, the untamed, impetuous quality about it. He had certainly scored big with that, a month earlier, when he was the youthful, guileless Schwanda in Jaromir Weinberger’s terrific Schwanda the Bagpiper (Theater an der Wien). He’s a kind of Siegfried of art song, more brash than subtle, more hero than thinker – and as such he took to Mahler and Schubert.

Is it a problem for Lieder singers, that in the age of GerhaherHuber™ (one word) we’ve come to expect goose-bump-inducing psychological explorations of song texts – to the point where merely singing very well and accurately is no longer enough? Or does it actually add to the attractiveness, to have someone simply jump into the subject matter without giving evidence of having pondered the scope and import of every syllable? The response in the Musikverein suggested as much, even as South Tyrolian Schuen put it on a little thick here and there (“Sei mir gegrüßt” – Schubert, not Tannhäuser) or went for all-out treacle (“Du bist die Ruh”). Daniel Heide was, as always, his accompanist and undoubtedly an invaluable asset to Schuen, but limited in his expression to dynamic differentiation. (Incidentally, he is also a dead-ringer for Southpark's Mr. Mackey.)

Despite the near-triumphal reception, not everything was perfect. The Schubert was theatrical to a breaking point; the breathy pianissimo was daring but surprisingly unstable, not every corner was smoothly taken, and the heights sounded stretched. Mahler took better to the histrionics and yodeling, especially in a hymn of self-pity like “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”. (Which Gerhaher gave such a different spin, a few months later; review to follow.) Schuen sounded his best whenever things got boisterous, be it in the Songs of a Wayfarer or Schubert’s “Schiffer” or “Musensohn”. Encores – Mahler, Strauss, and a Ladin folksong – were de rigueur.

Photo © Clemens Fabry

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Briefly Noted: Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff Romances

Rachmaninoff / Tchaikovsky, Romances, Piotr Beczała, Helmut Deutsch (released on August 25, 2023) PentaTone PTC 5186 866 | 81'01"

Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff are not composers likely to come up glowing in my estimation. The exceptions to this rule include their songs. The temporal limits of the text to be set helped both composers avoid their usual sin of going on far too long, especially in symphonies and concertos. The late, beloved baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky owned this repertoire, but in his wake, the Polish tenor Piotr Beczała has made a strong case in this new release for a different voice type to swoon and complain of the hardships of Russian life.

Rachmaninoff's overwrought style so suited the poems he chose, such as the tender "Lilacs" and the world-weary "They answered." Beczała draws out the marrow of this sweet suffering, as in the aching rubato of "How Fair This Spot," in which he applies a dulcet, sighing head voice to the high note at the end. That is a standout in this selection of 31 romances by these two giant figures of Russian Romanticism, a series of charming miniatures, only one lasting longer than four minutes.

The nostalgic tone of many of these pieces seems apt for autumn listening. Beczała wields heroic power as well, deployed at climactic moments in Rachmaninoff's "In the silence of the secret night" and in "Do not sing, my beauty," a poem set by countless composers, of which Rachmaninoff's is the most moving. Pianist Helmut Deutsch supports his singer in every way, moving out of his way when necessary and infusing the introductions and postludes with their own poignancy, including in the most demanding accompaniment, that of "Spring Waters."

The Tchaikovsky songs account for more than half of the disc, in spite of standing out less. Most are piecemeal selections from several different sets, with the exception of the six romances of Op. 73, which Beczała and Deutsch recorded in its entirety. In these melancholy songs, Tchaikovsky turned to the poetry of Daniil Rathaus, a 20-something student who sent the composer these poems as an unsolicited submission. These songs certainly touch on the "Ambiguous Speech and Eloquent Silence" that scholar Philip Ross Bullock has noted in his assessment of the "queerness" of Tchaikovsky's songs. This mini-song cycle, the last work Tchaikovsky completed before his death in 1893, also features musical reminiscences of his "Pathétique" symphony.


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Briefly Noted: Gabriela Lena Frank Songs

Gabriela Lena Frank / Dmitri Shostakovich, Songs, A. Garland, J. Abreu, J. Reger (released on August 5, 2022) Art Song Colorado DASP005 | 68'31"

Gabriela Lena Frank has been on my radar since she was composer-in-residence with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra a decade ago. Her music draws on her family's rich tapestry of cultural backgrounds: Peruvian/Chinese ancestry on one side and Lithuanian/Jewish on the other. Like Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, she is a sort of musical anthropologist, mining folk traditions to enrich her musical style, which is varied, expansive, and sui generis. From Art Song Colorado this month comes this new disc by baritone Andrew Garland and pianist Jeremy Reger, containing world premiere recordings of some of the composer's songs.

The song cycle Cantos de Cifar y el Mar Dulce (Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea) is a work completed in multiple versions. The eight songs for baritone recorded here, premiered in 2004 and 2007, were expanded into a half-hour duet with soprano, subsequently elaborated into a version with chorus and orchestra. The texts are by Nicaraguan poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra (1912–2002), who drew on his youth sailing on Lake Nicaragua to create the character of the mystical sailor Cifar. Frank's use of the baritone voice ranges widely, including feminine falsetto, folk techniques, and speech, with the enigmatic keyboard part often in imitation of the Nicaraguan marimba and other folk instruments. Both Garland and Reger respond to these demands with daring vulnerability.

Tenor Javier Abreu joins for Las Cinco Lunas de Lorca, composed in 2016 on a hallucinatory text about the assassination of the Spanish poet, by playwright Nilo Cruz. The two voices, often singing simultaneously, weave a horrifying dream narrative. (Cruz is also the librettist of Frank's first opera, El último sueño de Frida y Diego, which will be premiered this October at San Diego Opera.) Garland rounds out the program with Frank's Cuatro Canciones Andinas (1999), a set of four poems translated from Quechua by the folklorist José María Arguedas, and Shostakovich's culture-crossing Spanish Songs.

Briefly Noted: Respighi Songs

Crepuscolo (Ottorino Respighi, Songs), Timothy Fallon, Ammiel Bushakevitz (released on June 3, 2022) BIS 2632 | 74'04"

American tenor Timothy Fallon won the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition in 2013, paired with pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. The duo released an album of Liszt songs together in 2017, which they have followed up with this diverting recital of rarely heard songs by Ottorino Respighi, both on the BIS label. This music, while certainly not unknown, is unfamiliar enough that listening to it was a delight. The performances are excellent as well, captured a year ago in a Munich studio.

Fallon's tenor has all the necessary qualities for this repertory - a floating lyrical quality (heard in "Nel giardino"), some heft on the top notes (as in the storm-tossed "In alto mare"), and a musical way with the text and expression of these often surprising songs. The album title, "Crepuscolo," comes from the last song of the opening set, Deità silvane (Woodland deities - sonnets by Antonio Rubino), where Bushakevitz's lively touch at the keyboard provides the caprine gambols of the titular "Fauni" in the first song and the sweetly clanging cymbals and flute in "Music in the Garden." Hints of Debussy and symbolism.

The selections range wide, beginning with three songs by the teenage Respighi, full of echoes of Verdi and Puccini. Respighi reveled in historical retrospection, featured by Gianandrea Noseda in his programming of the composer with the National Symphony Orchestra during his tenure. This program includes the five Canti all'antica, P. 71, with medieval poetry (by Giovanni Boccaccio, Andrea Falconieri, and Enzo of Sardinia) infused with aching suspensions, and for folk music flavor, the four Arie scozzesi, P. 143, Scots-English verse filtered through Italian romanticism. Fallon opts for a more English-leaning pronunciation of Robert Burns's My Heart's in the Highlands, which works with Respighi's charming melody.

Briefly Noted: Polish Farewells (CD of the Month)

Polish Songs, Jakub Józef Orliński, Michał Biel (released on May 6, 2022) Erato 0190296269714 | 57'14"

Not surprisingly, countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński has recorded largely Baroque music, often in partnership with the historically informed performance ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro. For this new album, the Polish singer has partnered with Polish pianist Michał Biel, his longtime friend from their student days in Warsaw and at the Juilliard School. The program is the fruit of their collaboration in song recital repertory by more recent Polish composers, all from the last 150 years, recorded in September 2021 at the Nowa Miodowa Concert Hall in Warsaw.

Some of these composers may be familiar, particularly Karol Szymanowski, although his Songs from Kurpie may not be. The words are folk texts collected by Władysław Skierkowski, a musician and priest who died in 1941 in the Soldau concentration camp. His book, The Kurpian Forest in Song, is based on his time during World War I hiding in the swampy forests of Poland's Kurpie region. Szymanowski composed beautiful musical settings for these often cryptic texts, a sort of Polish counterpart to Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs. Orliński gives the folk-style cantillation a natural ease of bends and blue notes. In the beautiful bird song (no. 2) his voice reaches effortlessly up to high E.

The other composers are less known outside of Poland and yield fascinating discoveries. Henryk Czyż (1923-2003) may be better known as a conductor, especially for his championing of the music of Penderecki in many recordings. He was also a gifted composer, on display in Pożegnania (Farewells), a set of three gorgeous songs on Pushkin poems translated into Polish by Julian Tuwim. The style is unabashedly Straussian, with lush chromatic turns similar to the delectable music of Joseph Marx. Tadeusz Baird (1928-1981) contributes four songs on Shakespeare sonnets translated into Polish, in a pretty, neoclassical style but perhaps with serial techniques underlying it. As a teenager Baird did a period as a forced laborer for the Nazis, eventually surviving internment in a concentration camp. The last of these songs is somber and gorgeous, and Orliński plies his silken voice to the sighed downward portamenti.

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909) is represented by the largest number of songs, a dozen rather short piece, drawn mostly from two sets. His style is late Romantic and poignant, akin to Tchaikovsky, whom he admired. Some are especially fine, as the slow, aching melody of "Na spokojnym, ciemnym morzu." Sadly, Karłowicz died young, a victim of an avalanche while skiing in the Tatra Mountains. The only living composer included on this disc, Paweł Łukaszewski (b. 1968), has one song, "Jesień" (Autumn), on a striking text by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, the "Polish Sappho" active in the years between the two world wars. One hears the autumn rain falling in the long piano introduction, slowly dripping with splashing dissonances rebounding, just one example of Biel's sensitive work at the piano. The stark vocal writing features odd, jagged intervals, humming, portamenti, and other austere effects. The program concludes with two songs by Stanisław Moniuszko (1819-1872), often described as the "father of Polish opera."

Briefly Noted: Alice Coote Schubertiade

Schubert, Songs, Alice Coote, Julius Drake (released on May 6, 2022) Hyperion CDA68169 | 71'36"

At the end of March here in Washington, Alice Coote was the best part of the National Symphony Orchestra's performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, led by Michael Tilson Thomas. The British mezzo-soprano recorded this selection of twenty-one Schubert songs, back in December of 2017, in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, in London. The program is a mixture of rather simple strophic songs and more complex pieces, some relative rarities alongside some of the most often heard songs in performances with new ideas to recommend them.

Coote's wheelhouse is in the dramatic songs where she can open up her considerable vocal power, as in "Der Zwerg," which sets a truly bizarre poem about a dwarf who murders his mistress, a queen, by lowering her into the sea from a ship. Drake supports her with technical assurance, releasing from the Steinway under his fingers a broad swath of sound. Similar examples include a truly thrilling "Rastlose Liebe" and an equally restless "Der Musensohn."

Drake often works with singers to devise ingenious recital selections. In this case the program is a sort of chiasmus in structure, opening with one setting of Goethe's "An den Mond" and ending with another. This quasi-palindromic pattern is extended with other songs or themes heard at the opening of the recital and then in reverse order at the end: Schubert's "Wandrers Nachtlied I" and "Im Frühling," second and third in order, are balanced by "Frühlingsglaube" and "Wandrers Nachtlied II" in antepenultimate and penultimate positions, and so on. Coote's sometimes active vibrato is perhaps less effective in softer, less dramatic songs like these, but she is so musical that they all work.

This clever construction is not as exact beyond that, but the plan does put two famous songs in opposition to one another, yielding interesting results in comparison. In "Der Tod und das Mädchen," Coote summons up radically different vocal qualities for the terrified maiden and the comforting specter of Death. The latter features her extensive and shadowy low register (similar in some ways to her striking "Urlicht" in the NSO's "Resurrection" symphony). "Erlkönig" also involves the confrontation of a young person with the fear of death. Of the multiple vocal characterizations in this dramatic song, the haunted child is the most striking, for whom Coote lightens her tone straightens her vibrato a bit. Drake's accompaniment is not the most steady in those difficult repeated octaves, a rare shortcoming.

Briefly Noted: Lise Davidsen and Leif Ove Andsnes

E. Grieg, Haugtussa / Songs, L. Davidsen, L. O. Andsnes (released on January 7, 2022) Decca 00028948526543 | 75'32"

Soprano Lise Davidsen lifted my spirits during the pandemic, with an extraordinary recital for Vocal Arts DC that, even though it was virtual, was one of my favorite performances of 2021. That program included a wonderful rendition of Edvard Grieg's Sechs Lieder, op. 48, on German poetry and in a German romantic vein. As it turned out, it was also a tease for her new release, a beguiling recital of songs by Norway's most beloved composer. To seal the deal, the Norwegian soprano partnered with Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. The two musicians, working together for the first time, recorded the album last September in the town of Bodø in the Arctic Circle, where a new cultural center, the Stormen Konserthus, opened in 2014.

This collection supplants what was up to this point my reference recording for the Grieg songs, by Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg from the 1990s. This disc, like that one, is anchored on Grieg's only song cycle, the mysterious Haugtussa (The Fairy Maid), with poetry by Arne Garborg in Nynorsk, the New Norwegian that had been reinstated after Norway had finally regained its independence from Denmark. Davidsen sings with both shimmering transparency and, where needed, overwhelming power, incarnating the voice of Veslemøy, the young Norwegian girl with psychic powers. Andsnes accompanies with sensitivity and variety of tone, including magical flourishes upward in "Det syng," impetuous shifts of mood in "Blåbær-Li" and "Killingdans," and tender longing in "Møte." The lover's betrayal of the girl and her suicide in the brook in the final two songs are heart-breaking.

Grieg's nationalist reputation lies in his interest in Norwegian folk music, but living as he was in the period just after Norway's independence, this song cycle and other songs in Nynorsk are just as important. The other songs on this disc range widely in style, from the forlorn "En Svane" to the rousing "Og jeg vil ha mig en Hjertenskjær," where both Davidsen and Andsnes test the forceful dynamic power of their respective instruments to thrilling effect. In addition to gorgeous excerpts from various collections, the album comprises complete performances of the folk music-inspired Five Songs, op. 69, including the very moving poem and music for "Ved Moders Grav" (At Mother's Grave) and the playful "Snegl, Snegl!" (Snail, Snail!). The aforementioned six German songs, op. 48, are just as poignant as remembered from Davidsen's virtual recital, but with more powerful contributions from Andsnes at the keyboard.

On ClassicsToday: Schubert in Love (or gone Wild?)

Schubert Gone Wild

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Here’s a recording the success of which depends entirely on how you approach it. If you think of it as a classical Lied recital that experiments, you’ll likely regard it as an experiment gone wrong. Come to it as a folk-blues-country-jazz-crooner album (or whatever genre you might associate it with) that happens to pay homage to Schubert–or better still, with no expectation whatsoever–it might just tickle you in all the right places... [continue reading]

Briefly Noted: No. 9, No. 9, No. 9...

Monteverdi, Madrigals, Book 9 / Scherzi Musicali, Delitiæ Musicæ, M. Longhini (released on March 8, 2019) Naxos 8.555318 | 74'37"

We noted the first part of Marco Longhini's complete recording of the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi over a decade ago. That project has finally come to its conclusion with this final volume, recorded in 2006 but oddly only made available now. Longhini's cycle is unusual in that he leads an all-male vocal ensemble, with excellent support from a small consort of instruments. The results may not be perfect musically, but the effect is quite charming to the ear.

Longhini's edition of these last madrigals, as well as the sometimes madrigal-like "jests" of the collection called Scherzi musicali, thus had to accommodate the range of male voices. Countertenor Alessandro Carmignani has to reach to the top of his range (at least up to E, for example in Bel pastor, or Handsome Shepherd, whose fair eyes) and bass Walter Testolin down to the basement of his. All six men are versatile and skilled in adding daring ornaments to their lines, including in elaborate scales.

In a way, given the masculine viewpoint in the texts of these pieces, even when written in a woman's voice, the all-male voicing seems apt. The instrumental playing is, if anything, even better, starting with a sinfonia by Biagio Marini that opens the disc. Two violins are including not that frequently, but the continuo realization, divided among harpsichord, organ, theorbo, and Baroque guitar, adds considerable variety. Longhini's direction focuses on rhythmic vivacity and clarity of polyphonic imitation, making for many dancing delights.

On ClassicsToday: Gerhaher in Top Form for Schumann!

No Question: The Finest in Schumann Lieder

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: 10

Sound Quality: 10

If you think that language, text, and story matter above all when it comes to fully enjoying art-songs and Lieder, there is only one singer that will fully satisfy you: Christian Gerhaher. Over the last 10, 15 years Gerhaher and his ingenious partner on the piano, Gerold Huber, have set a new, entirely unrivaled standard for the interpretation of Lieder. (That’s not to dismiss Matthias Goerne—who comes across more readily on disc than Gerhaher—or Florian Boesch et al.)... continue reading here [insider content]

On ClassicsToday: Daft Name, Great Recital - Groissböck's Cardiac Arrest

Becoming Darkness: A Bass Lied Recital

by Jens F. Laurson

Famous Lieder cycles—two of which we usually know with mezzos and altos—are here interpreted by Günter Groissböck, a still fairly young bass who has made a name for himself with his physical stage presence and civilized, dark, virile-but-warm voice. On the stages of the Salzburg... Continue Reading

Briefly Noted: Gade in German

N. Gade, Erlkönigs Tochter (Elverskud) / Fünf Gesänge, S. Junker, I. Fuchs, J. Weisser, Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Concerto Copenhagen, L. U. Mortensen (released on March 15, 2019) Dacapo 8.226035 | 54'11"

Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890) contributed some wonderful music to the ballet Et Folkesagn (A Folk Tale), performed so memorably at the Kennedy Center by the Royal Danish Ballet in 2011. Gade's father-in-law, composer J.P.E. Hartmann, composed the fairy music in the second act. Around the same time Gade wrote this dramatic cantata, Elverskud, inspired by the Scandinavian folk ballad Elveskud.

The story concerns a young man, Oluf, on the eve of his wedding. Not heeding his mother's warning, he is lured into the Elf-Hill, where the Elf-King's daughter invites him to dance with her. When he refuses to dance with her, she curses him so that he will die the next day. He rides home and dies in his distraught mother's arms. A variation of this story, known in many different versions, inspired Goethe's poem Erlkönig, set so memorably to music by Schubert.

Lars Ulrik Mortensen conducts his early music ensemble Concerto Copenhagen in the first recording of this piece in the German translation that Gade conducted many times around the German-speaking world, making him famous. They perform the 1864 expanded orchestration, which Gade used in the performances he conducted but did not incorporate into the published versions of the score.

The women's chorus for the elf-maidens is quite wonderful, drawing on the Mendelssohn fairy-music scherzo style, with the Elfking's Daughter sung by the evanescent soprano Sophie Junker, including some satiny, sighing high notes. Mezzo-soprano Ivonne Fuchs is a concerned, matronly Mother, and baritone Johannes Weisser a cloddish Oluf. The Danish National Vocal Ensemble sings the extensive choral part, also featured in the less pleasing Five Songs, choral pieces set to German poetry, included on the disc.

No texts or translations were printed in the booklet, a major disappointment, crowded out by a fine essay by Niels Bo Foltmann, editor of the Gade Edition, printed in English, Danish, and German. One can, however, download the texts separately.

Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Lied-And-Mélodie Beauties From Viktor Ullmann

...Christina Landshamer’s song recital on Oehms has two short cycles by Austrian composer Viktor Ullmann (1898 – 1944) embedded in selected Robert Schumann songs. You could take the CD as a business card of Christina Landshamer’s, a young and fast-rising all-purpose soprano from Munich, presenting a bit of the conventional with Schumann alongside the unusual with Ullmann (fair enough) and celebrating her youthful, neutral, natural voice – channeled and slightly accelerated through an artificial narrowness – in the process...

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Lied-And-Mélodie Beauties From Viktor Ullmann

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Forbes Review: Oh, Only The Best Schöne Müllerin Ever!

...When GerhaherHuber started out recording for the Munich based upstart Arte Nova label[1], the two major Schubert cycles, Müllerin and Winterreise, were an obvious choice. But the Duo hadn’t quite arrived at its peak mutual artistic maturity yet. Both cycles are very good and easily recommendable, but they are not indicative of what puts that duo into a league of their own. I always recommended them with the caveat that the ‘real deal’ was much more impressive, still. When the two performed Die Schöne Müllerin at the 2013 Salzburg Festival, however, they had clearly arrived:...

-> Review: Oh, Only The Best Schöne Müllerin Ever!

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CD Reviews: Carolyn Sampson

Charles T. Downey, Recording reviews: A limpid soprano’s chance to soar
Washington Post, February 3

A Verlaine Songbook, C. Sampson, J. Middleton (released on November 18, 2016) BIS-2233 | 80'

Carolyn Sampson is known for her radiant performances of baroque music, having recorded widely with the world’s leading early-music ensembles. The British soprano’s voice combines limpid clarity with laser-focused precision, but with any possible harsh edges softened in a smooth finish. It is also beautifully suited to the corrupt delicacies of late Romantic French mélodie, as demonstrated in Sampson’s recent song recital recording on the BIS label, with the accomplished pianist Joseph Middleton.

All of the songs here are settings of poetry by Paul Verlaine. Some of the early works were inspired by Verlaine’s love for Mathilde Mauté, the young girl with the “Carolingian name,” as he put it in his collection “La Bonne Chanson,” set as a cycle by Gabriel Fauré. Verlaine married Mathilde, but not long after she had borne him a son, he ran off with a young poet named Arthur Rimbaud. Their scandalous love affair provided much of the material for his collection “Romances sans paroles,” including the poems set by Debussy in a set called “Ariettes oubliées.” After time in prison, Verlaine ran off again with Lucien Létinois, a 17-year-old student at the Jesuit school where Verlaine taught.

Multiple composers have composed songs on the same Verlaine poems, which makes for interesting comparison of musical settings. Sampson pairs Debussy's “Fêtes galantes” with songs on poems from the same collection by Poldowski, the nom de plume of Belgian-born pianist Régine Wieniawski. Individual songs by other composers, including Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Charles Bordes and Reynaldo Hahn, round out a most attractive program. Songs such as Déodat de Séverac's “Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit” and Josef Szulc's “Clair de Lune” are major discoveries.

Throughout, Sampson produces an elegant ribbon of sound, couched in refined French pronunciation, that can hang in the air — for instance, a long, exquisitely soft high G at the end of Chausson's “Apaisement.” The only minor setback is that when pushed to louder dynamics, Sampson’s voice loses some of its satiny quality, turning strident, but this is rare in the songs here.

***

Mozart, Great Mass in C Minor / Exsultate jubilate, Carolyn Sampson, Olivia Vermeulen, Makoto Sakurada, Christian Imler, Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki (released on December 9, 2016) BIS-2171 | 65'52"

When Masaaki Suzuki reached the end of his epic traversal of Bach’s sacred cantatas with Bach Collegium Japan, he turned to Mozart. The Japanese conductor's authoritative recording of Mozart's Requiem was one of my favorite discs of 2015, and opened up a new line of specialization for his ensemble beyond the music of its namesake. Shortly after its release, Suzuki conducted another Mozart Mass, the “Great” C minor, with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in an astounding performance. Now, his recording of this work, with Bach Collegium Japan, is out on the BIS label.

It was hoped that Suzuki’s Requiem was the start of a recorded reexamination of Mozart’s music for the Catholic church. Mozart left the “Great” C minor Mass, like his Requiem, unfinished; he began it in Vienna as a complete setting of the Latin Ordinary but performed only parts of it on a honeymoon visit to Salzburg, Austria, with his wife, Constanze, in 1783. Suzuki has used the musicologist Franz Beyer’s careful reconstruction of the score, and the relevant historical details are laid out in a superlative booklet essay by Christoph Wolff.

Suzuki takes the opening “Kyrie” at a most satisfying, slow, grand tempo, like a dignified, crisply organized funeral march. The “Qui tollis” section of the “Gloria” has an equally cathedral-filling sound from both chorus and orchestra.

Mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen, tenor Makoto Sakurada and bass Christian Imler ably take their parts in the quartet of vocal soloists. The star of this score, though, is the first soprano, a part written for and premiered by Mozart’s wife. It seems tailor-made for Carolyn Sampson. In the extended showpiece “Et incarnatus est” in the “Credo,” she interweaves her immaculate soprano with the intricate woodwind lines, sweet and tender.

Rounding out the recording is Mozart’s famous cantata “Exsultate, jubilate,” from a decade earlier, although here Sampson’s fast runs are not quite pristine. As a lagniappe, Suzuki has added Mozart’s slightly revised version of the first movement — more a curiosity than an absolute necessity.

An Imposing Orchestrated Winterreise from Günther Groissböck

‘Winterreising’ just with a piano accompaniment is out. Vocal travelers these days, perhaps aware of the need to stand out and offer something extra to draw audiences to a Lied recital, opt for alternatives. Günther Groissböck – on a most appropriately wintery, biting cold January night in Munich’s Prinzregententheater – certainly went all out for his Liederabend of this song-cycle of song-cycles: Franz Schubert/Wilhelm Müller’s Die Winterreise was presented in a version for chamber orchestra (not just piano trio, for example, as Daniel Behle has recently recorded; see Classical CD Of The Week: Winterreise Threesome) and, adding yet another

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Lawrence Brownlee, classical voice

Donizetti & Bellini: Allegro io son, L. Brownlee, Kaunas City Symphony, Kaunas State Choir, C. Orbelian (2016)

The Kennedy Center is skewing toward more popular forms of entertainment. It has turned out to be the hallmark of the tenure of the organization's new president, Deborah Rutter. In a formula familiar from many concert presenters, Renée Fleming has been called in to offer some star advice, for a set of concerts unimaginatively called "Renée Fleming VOICES." (Capital letters make it different!) The new series kicked off with its sole classical performance, by tenor Lawrence Brownlee. The rest of the season features jazz, musical theater, and cabaret.

It always takes my ears a few moments to adjust to the active vibrato in Brownlee's voice. Not unpleasant in any way, it is a prominent flutter, tightly coiled, but after some time passes my ear adjusts to it and can still perceive the center of the pitch. True to form Brownlee's strongest work came in arias from bel canto operas. Brownlee hit the first big high notes of the evening in "Seul sur la terre," from Donizetti's Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal. That vibrato, among other advantages, gives a high-energy buzz to Brownlee's notes off the top of the staff, which do not sound floated, in the sense that there is intensity and effort in them. This was more apparent in the even higher notes in "Terra amica," from Rossini's Zelmira, which was truly thrilling as Brownlee showed off the virtuosity of his runs and top notes. A close second was the closing set of spirituals, in classic arrangements by H. T. Burleigh.

A set of Strauss songs was more successful than seemed likely given Brownlee's strengths. The German diction was not always clear but especially in subtle songs like "Breit' über mein Haupt" he brought the same silky clarity and gentle phrasing that make his bel canto singing so pretty. With "Morgen" and "Die Nacht" pianist Justina Lee, for much of the evening merely a competent accompanist, was integral to the beauty of the performance. Finally with "Cäcilie," both artists cranked up the excitement for the song's dramatic climax, which was thrilling. An opening set of Liszt songs, some of which were heard more beautifully from Angela Meade in August, impressed less. With all due respect to i nostri amici italiani, if I never hear a set of these Italian art songs again for a decade, that would be fine by me. All was forgiven, however, by the choice of encore, a plangent rendition of Donizetti's Una furtiva lagrima.

The best news of the evening is that the Kennedy Center has fixed the buzzing sound that plagued concerts in the Family Theater earlier in the fall. The sound, something like a vibrating light fixture, was absent on Tuesday evening, although there was still just a whisper of unwelcome noise, perhaps from the ventilation system.

Lawrence Brownlee stars in Washington National Opera's upcoming production of Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment (November 12 to 20, but in only five of the eight performances), in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Mark Padmore returns to Washington

Beethoven, An die ferne Geliebte, M. Padmore, K. Bezuidenhout (2015)

Charles T. Downey, Mark Padmore displays sublime artistry at Library of Congress
Washington Classical Review, October 18

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Mark Padmore and Jonathan Biss give intoxicating performance (Washington Post, October 13, 2014)

---, Briefly Noted: Padmore's HIP 'Dichterliebe' (Ionarts, August 9, 2012)

---, Mark Padmore's Dowland Songs (Ionarts, January 23, 2008)

Joyce DiDonato, Brentano Quartet open Fortas series

Charles T. Downey, Brentano Quartet and DiDonato team up in Strauss and Heggie
Washington Classical Review, October 6