Sunday Special: Divine Redeemer

Church of the Gesù, Milwaukee

Any album covering Bach to the twentieth century can seem riskily ambitious. But Christine Brewer and Paul Jacobs offer an engaging recital of sacred music for voice and organ, demonstrating the diversity of this repertoire. The vast spaces of Milwaukee's Church of the Gesù create resonances that were occasionally odd, to my ear, but this may be in part because because I expect to hear these pieces performed in different spaces from each other. Also, the church appears to be much bigger not only than that of the average parish, but than that of the average parish with a pipe organ. Seeing the album cover blazoned with the names of composers from four centuries and multiple traditions, I wondered about the cohesion of the disc. In the event, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the exploration of unfamiliar works alongside pieces frequently performed, if more seldom with this high level of musicianship.

Jedermann: Sibelius meditates on mortality

Gentle Readers, I suggest that we banish the phrase "hidden masterpiece." Agreed? Good. Leaving that meaningless cliché aside, I can go on to happily discuss why Sibelius' 1916 music for Hofmannsthal's Jedermann (1911) is really worth a listen. Atmospheric and harmonically rich, it's a treat in its own right, doing interesting things with musical form. Rarely performed or recorded, it has a new and engaging recording from the Finnish forces of the Turku Philharmonic under Leif Segerstram, and the Cathedralis Aboensis Choir. Sibelius composed the work to adhere exactly to stage directions, a prescription that the CD leaflet speculatively blames for its rare performance. I can't hear that, myself. The piece is not symmetrically composed, but it's richly allusive, lively and meditative by turns. Sibelius may have been annoyed that the devil never came in on cue, but there's plenty to enjoy in the piece without its accompanying morality play. The work is rounded out, on the disc, by thematically similar works of the composer from around the same period.

Love, Loss, and the Sea: Soile Isokoski sings French art song

Soile Isokoski's album of lush French art songs resists easy classification. It doesn't have a title; its design doesn't seem to strive for a particular atmosphere. It is in many ways a slowly unfolding disc, subtle and richly layered. The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of John Storgårds, provides a delicately nuanced reading of some of the nineteenth century's more ecstatic outpourings. While far from averse to a bit of musical decadence, I appreciated the unusually intellectual approach of Storgårds and Isokoski. Although I anticipated that Les Nuits d'Été would form the centerpiece of the disc, I found the very philosophical ecstasies of Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer to be its unexpected standout.

Liedsommer in autumn: Michaela Schuster's Morgen!

Michaela Schuster, photographed by Nikola Stege

I could just tell you that this CD is endorsed by Brigitte Fassbaender and have done, Gentle Readers. But I can't pass up an excuse to enthuse about lieder, and I also wholeheartedly recommend Michaela Schuster's creative, intimate, and sensual recital disc, Morgen! The ambitious selection of lieder--generous samplings of Brahms, R. Schumann, Reger, and Strauss--along with Schuster's reputation as a Wagnerian, led me to expect sweeping magnificence. What Schuster presents, partnered by Markus Schlemmer on the piano, is something much more intimate, and invariably interesting. The disc was recorded during the Eppaner Liedsommer of 2012, and the production process does not appear to have been aggressively interventionist. (Either coughing has been edited out, or the audience was silent with a quasi-miraculous silence.) Voice and piano are sweetly resonant, with spontaneity in interpretation taking precedence over polish. I wish I knew enough about the technology of recording to explain this better; I only know that suddenly hearing Brahms as though performed in a living room was so unexpectedly soothing that I practically melted into the sofa.

(Un)Orthodox Transcendence: Rachmaninov's Chrysostom Liturgy

Nave of the Auenkirche, Berlin-Wilmersdorf

As a self-described liturgy nerd, I jumped at the chance to review a new recording of Rachmaninov's setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The Rundfunkchor Berlin has a truly glorious sound, but the first thing that strikes the ear on this disc are the acoustics. These are also glorious. Berlin's Auenkirche gives great resonance to single voices and the ensemble, and the excitingly space-filling sound comes through well and cleanly on the recording. The layers of sound are gorgeous, serving Rachmaninov's harmonization and sometimes unconventional vocal writing well.

Jonas Kaufmann's Puccini album: making the familiar unexpected

Does the world really need another Puccini album? Probably not. But opera-lovers as a group are very ready to cry, with Lear, "O reason not the need!" And Jonas Kaufmann, together with Antonio Pappano, has recorded a disc that is more than just another Puccini album. This is, in no small part, due to the luxury of having the very fine orchestra and chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia on board with the project. Under Pappano's baton, the orchestral contributions to this album do much to set it apart. This is no mere window-dressing or accompaniment, no mere setting for the voice; this is drama and commentary at once, blood and bones and breath. Kaufmann's work is also very fine, and, in places, nothing less than hair-raising. Although the album includes several of the most famous staples of the dramatic tenor's repertoire, it is in the lesser-known pieces, and in some unexpected moments, that Kaufmann's artistry is most interesting, and most effective.

Liederabend Special: Thomas Quasthoff

After pondering Lieder puns for far too long, Gentle Readers, I present to you the first post in a planned series exploring my library of art song discs, and the reasons they've made it into my modest collection. These reasons vary from careful selection, to discount-bin serendipity, to my inability to resist a mezzo-soprano singing Mahler. In the case of Thomas Quasthoff's A Romantic Songbook, it's a case of me looking at DG's First Choice series and declaring internally, "Why yes, this is indeed the thoughtfully curated and expertly performed German Lieder disc I need in my life!" Thanks to Quasthoff's mastery, and the subtle, surprising, knowing accompaniment of Justus Zeyen at the piano, this CD is often what I want for an unhurried, cliché-free tour of the German art song repertoire of the long nineteenth century.