CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

CD Review | Etienne Dupuis in Massenet’s Hérodiade

By Pascal Blanchet on 14 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews

Massenet : Hérodiade Nicole Car, soprano; Clémentine Margaine, mezzo-soprano; Etienne Dupuis, baritone; Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Orchestra and Chorus of Deutsche Oper Berlin; Enrique Mazzola, conductor Naxos, 2024 In 1881, more than 20 years before Richard Strauss, Jules Massenet wrote an opera starring the biblical heroine Salomé, but the work was named after her mother, Hérodiade. At the time, Massenet was still considered a young composer, having achieved good success with Le roi de Lahore (1877), but his first big success, Manon (1884), was still to come. Commentators criticized the libretto of Hérodiade for being too disparate and cluttered, mixing up…

CD Review | Flórez: Zarzuela

By Pascal Blanchet on 13 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews

Flórez: Zarzuela Composers: José Serrano, Ruperto Chapí, Federico Moreno Torroba, Amadeo Vives, Pablo Luna, Géronimo Giménez, Agustín Pérez Soriano, Pablo Sorozábal, Rafael Calleja & Tomás Barrera, Reveriano Soutullo & Juan Vert; tenor: Juan Diego Flórez; Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra and Choir; Guillermo García Calvo, conductor Florez Records, 2024 The zarzuela, that typically Spanish operatic genre, alternates singing and spoken dialogue, treating less dramatic subjects than one usually finds in Western European opera. It is roughly the equivalent of German Singspiel or French opéra comique, but these comparisons perhaps do not do justice to works that are more complex…

CD Review | Reynaldo Hahn Mélodies, Bruno Laplante

By Hassan Laghcha on 12 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews

Reynaldo Hahn Mélodies: Chansons grises, Études latinesBruno Laplante, baritone; Janine Lachance, Rena Sharon, Marc Durand, pianoNouveau Théâtre Musical, 2024 “Si mes vers avaient des ailes” (Victor Hugo), “L’heure exquise” (Paul Verlaine) and “L’énamourée” (Théodore de Banville). These are standouts among the 30 or so songs reissued on this album by French-Canadian recitalist Bruno Laplante. In this first volume of his Livre d’or de la mélodie française, the baritone performs songs by Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) set to some of French literature’s most iconic texts. Elegance and precision. These are the two key words that come to mind when…

CD Review | Brahms Cello Sonatas, Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan

By Justin Bernard on 12 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews

Brahms Cello Sonatas Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Inon Barnatan, piano Pentatone, 2024 Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan return with an album devoted to Brahms: three famous sonatas, one of which is an arrangement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in G major. “This project is a celebration of our shared artistic vision and the mutual respect that has developed over many years of playing together,“ says the cellist in the liner notes. To play Brahms, you need an understanding and a balance between each of the parts that only a long collaboration can provide. In the Sonata No.…

CD Review | The Mata Hari Songbook, Patricia O’Callaghan

By John Gilks on 8 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews

Burge/Walker —The Mata Hari Songbook Patricia O’Callaghan, soprano; John Burge, piano Centrediscs, 2024 The Mata Hari Songbook, with music by John Burge and lyrics by Craig Walker, began life as a two-act stage show One Last Night with Mata Hari that played in Kingston, Ont., in 2017. The CD features 10 of the songs from the show, bookended by piano pieces from Burge’s Mata Hari Suite. Burge is at the piano with Toronto’s multi-genre chanteuse Patricia O’Callaghan as Mata Hari. Mata Hari, on the evening before her execution, relates her life story. She recounts her journey from being mistress to…

CD Review | Rachel Fenlon, Winterreise

By Gianmarco Segato on 8 November 2024 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Vocal

Schubert: Winterreise Rachel Fenlon, soprano & piano Orchid Classics, 2024 Franz Schubert’s devastatingly confessional song cycle, Winterreise (1828) charts the journey of a spurned narrator through 24 songs set to poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is a pinnacle of Romanticism and foundational to the German Lied (Song) tradition. Although more associated with male singers, it was recorded by German mezzo-soprano Elena Gerhardt as early as 1928 and, in more recent times, by mezzos Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender and contralto Nathalie Stutzmann. What makes Canadian soprano Rachel Fenlon’s new traversal unique is that she acts as her own accompanist, the first…

2024: The Year in Records

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 8 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews, La Scena Online, Scena Jazz

As 2024 comes to an end, let’s take a look (and a listen) to those releases we may have missed this year… The Sky Will Still Be There TomorrowCharles Lloyd, saxophone; Jason Moran, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Brian Blade, drumsBlue Note Records At 86, Charles Lloyd could claim the title of “Grand Old Man of the Tenor” but maybe he is too idiosyncratic for that… On his latest for Blue Note, he is reunited with pianist Jason Moran and bassist Larry Grenadier, but it’s the presence of Brian Blade (on his first recorded meeting with Lloyd) that makes this one…

Cecil Taylor in Warsaw in 1984 by Matthias Creutzinger

Cecil Taylor, Dark and Luminous

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 8 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews, La Scena Online, Scena Jazz

In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylorby Philip FreemanWolke Verlag, 2024, 344 p. Like his contemporaries and fellow avant-garde masters Bill Dixon and Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor (1929-2018) was not the easiest subject to approach for a music writer. Enigmatic, frequently baffling interviewers and critics who tried to approach him, he could be almost hostile at times—or at least a bit condescending. (This reviewer recalls an uncomfortable dialogue where Taylor tried to express to a French documentarist what it means to be born “on the wrong side of the tracks.”) At other moments, Taylor just enjoyed…

Lebrecht Weekly | Diyang Mei plays Bowen and Walton’s Viola Concertos Like Heifetz on Roller-Skates

By Norman Lebrecht on 18 October 2024 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Strings

It is nothing short of a scandal that not one concerto for viola and orchestra has broken into the standard concerthall repertoire. There are at least fifty violin concertos that get regularly played and half a dozen for cello and orchestra. Yet, among a plethora of viola concertos by good composers – from Arnold to Bartok, Schnittke to John Williams – not one gets as much as a half-chance for public attention. In any other field, this would be considered illegal discrimination. The present release is a dazzling ear-opener. York Bowen, slightly younger than Ralph Vaughan Williams, was a shy chap…

CD Review | freezing — Emily D’Angelo

By Gianmarco Segato on 17 October 2024 CD and Book Reviews

freezing Emily D’Angelo, mezzo-soprano; Sophia Muñoz, piano; Bruno Helstroffer, electric guitar; Jonas Niederstadt, synthesizer & bass guitar Deutsche Grammophon, 2024 The album freezing is Canadian mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo’s second release for Deutsche Grammophon, following on the success of 2021’s enargeia. That album explored a wide range of composers spanning Hildegard von Bingen through Missy Mazzoli, in tracks one would still categorize as classical. In freezing, D’Angelo pushes the envelope of what we conventionally expect from a contemporary, trained opera singer. She explores old folk songs, newer works that sound folksy and truly old pieces where the mezzo’s expression of text…

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