On rue de Verneuil in Paris’s elegant 7th arrondissement, two buildings stand roughly opposite each other. At number 5 bis is the home in which Serge Gainsbourg lived out his…
This immensely enjoyable chamber music recital afforded a rare opportunity to experience the evolution of the piano trio across three distinct musical epochs.
A fugue on both our houses to know we inhabit these different worlds counterpointed, in contrasting modes. Yours, warmth and colour and light and enchantment; mine, icy winds and ruins rising from a winter’s loam whose cadences are minor.
This is a Mass in B minor where chamber-like sonorities go together with dramatic gestures as elegant as they are powerful, and where the instrumental and vocal soloists alike are allowed a high degree of latitude in expressing their individuality within the context of a highly disciplined vision of a highly variegated work.
John Potter (tenor), Christopher O’Gorman (tenor), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor) Hyperion CDA67998. Released December 2013 This fascinating and beautiful release is the second in a three-volume series growing out of Cantum pulcriorem invenire:…
Here as throughout, soprano Frances Cooper proves the most able and beguiling of interpreters, her diction crystal-clear, her voice sweet and steady, her expression attuned to the subtlest affective potential of both music and the poetry.
What at first glance seemed like an eclectic mix of disparate works made perfect sense when you dug a bit deeper. A Canadian outsider’s view of an ancient land. Two Ukrainian exiles. A Russian composer who fell foul of the Soviet authorities. An American Jewish composer whose music resists easy classification.