Svyatoslav Lunyov: “Panta Rhei” (Ukrainian Live Classic) Valentyn Silvestrov: “Requiem for Larissa” (Ukrainian Live Classic) Alla Zahaykevich: “Nord-Ouest” (Ukrainian Live Classic) Over the last week, I’ve jotted down several aphorisms from composer Svyatoslav Lunyov, in slapdash, automated translations from their original Ukrainian. “The artist is like a spider,” he told the Kyiv Daily. “To catch […]
Tag: Vocal Music
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Roadrunners
Martin Achrainer, Maki Namekawa: “Philip Glass: Songs” (Orange Mountain Music) Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini: “Daylight: Stories of Songs, Dances and Loves” (Naïve) Roderick Williams, Roger Vignoles: “Mirages: The Art of French Song” (Champs Hill Records) There comes a point when, driving down a long stretch of highway, you get hit with a disorienting feeling of […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Movement in the Shadows
Sabine Devieilhe, Raphaël Pichon, Pygmalion: “Bach & Handel” (Erato) Sean Friar, NOW Ensemble: “Before and After” (New Amsterdam) Anthony Roth Costanzo, Justin Vivian Bond: “Only an Octave Apart” (Decca) All easygoing years are alike; each exhausting year is exhausting in its own way. For 2022, I can place my breaking point at West Elm Caleb. […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Natural Instincts
Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard: “Mendelssohn Symphonies 1 & 3” (BIS) The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin: “Florence Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3” (Deutsche Grammophon) Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin: “Sibelius 3” (ATMA Classique) Yu Kosuge: “Four Elements: Water, Fire, Wind, and Earth” (Orchid Classics) Sarah Kirkland Snider, Gallicantus: “Mass for the Endangered” (New […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Vintage Prada and Snow
Lise Davidsen, Leif Ove Andsnes: “Grieg” (Decca) Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt: “Beethoven: Sonatas, Op. 30” (Ondine) Adam Tendler, Jenny Lin: “Liszt: Harmonies poétiques et religieuses” (Steinway) A line from Phoebe Stuckes that has (for lack of a better word) stuck with me in the turnover of a new year: “I want to be stinking drunk […]
Posted inI Know, But
I Know, But: Handel’s “Messiah”
“The effect is horrible: And everybody declares it sublime,” said George Bernard Shaw of the massed “Messiah” performances of the Victorian age. “Handel is not a mere composer in England: he is an institution…the audience stands up, as if in church, while the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus is being sung. It is the nearest sensation to the […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
Every Classical Singer’s Christmas Album, Ranked
I love Christmas: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that. The register of my joy at this time of the year is secured by the glühwein, the television specials, the tree markets, and the carols. I love Christmas like Kanye loves Kanye. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of […]
Posted inInterview
The Dreams of Others
When you mention alto Dina König in front of her former colleagues, they insist on her musical excellence. That’s because, in September 2020, König gave up her burgeoning career as a singer of early music. Instead, she decided to become a tram driver with the local public transportation system in Basel, Switzerland. Musicians often view […]
Posted inInterview
Building That Foundation
There’s an inescapable delight that comes with listening to the Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous 1997 single “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” wrapped up as the song is in Diana Ross samples, the Clinton-fueled optimism of ’90s America, and Biggie’s unapologetic lyrical grandstanding (“Jig on the cover of Fortune, 5-double-O. Here’s my phone number, your man ain’t got […]
Posted inInterview
Natural Consequences
English countertenor Tim Mead’s voice is clean, serene, and direct, with a chameleon-like ability to remain subtly expressive in music from Handel to George Benjamin’s opera “Written on Skin,” in which Mead sings a queasily erotic and effective Boy. When I talked to Mead this month, he had just finished singing a project in Malta, […]