"When the Wigmore Hall Live label released an archival recording of a 1998 recital by the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson last year, it raised the hope of more such posthumous finds. And just as that hope had begun to fade, here comes another treasure, this one unearthed from the archives of Emmanuel Music in Boston.

As it happens, this release serves as tribute not only to Hunt Lieberson, who died in 2006, but also to her frequent close collaborator Craig Smith, the founder of Emmanuel Music, who died in November. And the material is choice: spacious arias from two Bach cantatas and extended excerpts from Handel’s oratorio “Hercules.”

The disc begins with a 1992 recording of the aria “Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder” from Bach’s Cantata No. 30: Something of a tease as the opening instrumental passage heightens the anticipation of Hunt Lieberson’s entrance, more than two minutes into the disc. But that glorious Voice, when it appears, meets every expectation.

The “Hercules” excerpts, from 1999, trace the travails of the hero’s wife, Dejanira, culminating in a harrowing mad scene.... Although Hunt Lieberson’s compelling stage presence added mightily to any performance, the voice alone amply conveys her characteristic intensity here....

Dare we hope for more?"

– James R. Oestreich, New York Times [8/10/2008]

The early death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson deprived the world of an exceptional artist and one, moreover, who left all too few commercial recordings. However, some archive recordings are now beginning to emerge and this new release, featuring previously unissued live recordings is one such. The CD also forms a tribute to one of her mentors, Craig Smith, Music Director at Emmanuel Church, Boston from 1970 until his death in November 2007 at the age of sixty.

Smith founded Emmanuel Music, which, besides fulfilling a liturgical function at the church, evolved also into a concert ensemble of no little distinction. Perhaps Smith’s greatest achievement was to inaugurate the practice whereby each Sunday between October and April, the main Sunday morning church service includes a cantata by Bach appropriate to the day. That tradition continues to this day and later this year the thirty-ninth consecutive season of liturgical cantatas will commence.

It was through Emmanuel Music that the then Lorraine Hunt took some of the first steps on her solo singing career and she maintained the connection, I believe, for the rest of her life, including appearances in the Sunday cantata series. This disc, therefore, takes us back to her singing roots.

The disc begins and ends with arias taken, I presume, from complete Sunday service performances of Bach cantatas. The aria "Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder" comes from the cantata Freue dich, erlöste schar, written for the feast of St. John the Baptist. Alfred Dürr writes thus of the cantata: "The underlying mood is joyful, relaxed and unproblematical, not only in the opening chorus but in the four arias, where a dance-like style is often clearly evident." Unfortunately, to judge by this aria at least, Craig Smith seems to have a different conception. Presumably with the agreement of his soloist, he sets and extremely slow tempo and the aria lasts 8:46.

This sent me scurrying to my shelves for comparisons. John Eliot Gardiner, in his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage performance takes a mere 5:27 but he is surely too fleet – at his pace the aria sounds like a gambol through the Elysian meadows. So that might seem to suggest that Smith is "simply" old fashioned in his conception. But turn to Fritz Werner’s 1971 performance and you find a tempo that seems to me to be just right – he takes 6:03. Beside Werner I’m afraid Smith sounds laboured. What saves the performance is the sheer beauty and inwardness of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s singing. On its own terms the performance is quite lovely and no admirer of the singer will be disappointed but I just think the basic conception is wrong.

Things are much more satisfactory in the other Bach aria, which is placed at the opposite end of the programme. This aria is from the cantata Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, which is for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. Again, Miss Hunt Lieberson’s singing is beautiful and communicative and this time the pace is much more sensible, I think. The conductor here is the composer, John Harbison, who has also had a long association with Emmanuel Music and who, in fact, is currently the Acting Artistic Director. He adopts a slow pace, but this aria can take it. Again comparisons were instructive. Eliot Gardiner’s tempo is almost identical and he takes exactly as long as does Harbison. Werner didn’t record this cantata but another celebrated Bach traditionalist, Karl Richter, did. In his 1976/7 recording he takes 9:34 but his soloist, Julia Hamari, sounds cool besides either of her rivals and she and Richter, whose direction is smooth and relaxed, convey no real sense of trepidation. Nathalie Stutzmann, for Eliot Gardiner, is perhaps a touch more inward than Hunt Lieberson but she’s equally involving and it’s only by the merest whisker that I come down in favour of this present, excellent performance.

The remainder of the disc is devoted to excerpts from Handel’s oratorio, Hercules and these excerpts contain all the music for Dejanira, the wife of the eponymous hero. I presume, though it’s not clear from the documentation, that these extracts are taken from a live account of the complete work.

The role of Dejanira is an exceptionally demanding one, both vocally and emotionally. She is, in Craig Smith’s words, a "monumental character." I can well imagine that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was a pretty formidable presence in the performance of the oratorio for these extracts show us a vivid character portrayal.

In her first aria, "The world when day’s career is run," she is fully the grief-stricken wife, yet she still retains dignity. Much of Dejanira’s music is in moderate or slow tempo but when swifter music arrives, in "Begone, my fears, fly, hence, away," Miss Hunt Lieberson excels in the passagework.

As her jealousy of the captive princess, Iole, begins to take hold and her certainty that Hercules has been unfaithful increases there’s great sadness in the aria ‘When beauty sorrow’s liv’ry wears’ and that is splendidly conveyed here. Particularly outstanding is the account of "Cease, ruler of the day, to rise," where the singing is particularly expressive. Writing of this disc elsewhere, but of another aria in the programme, the critic Michael Kennedy spoke of Miss Hunt Lieberson’s "power to humanise every note and bring the music to new life." How I agree and I’d say that this comment applies even more strongly to this deep aria.

The final excerpt is the Mad Scene. Here Miss Hunt Lieberson is intensely dramatic without ever going overboard. This is extremely demanding music and she performs it vividly and, once again, when the divisions arise she displays fine vocal agility. Hers is a tremendous performance of this recitative and aria and, unsurprisingly, it sparks an ovation from the audience who, otherwise, are commendably silent throughout.

These extracts contain some superb Handel singing. Frequently I was reminded of Dame Janet Baker’s assumption of Handelian roles and I can pay no higher compliment than that.

Despite my reservation over the one Bach item – a reservation that does not concern the singing per se – this is a superb disc that all admirers of this much-missed singer will want to have. And if you’ve not heard Lorraine Hunt Lieberson before, buy this disc and discover for yourself what all the fuss is about.

– John Quinn, MusicWeb International

In conjunction with the Orchestra's 30th Anniversary Season, Music Director Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announce the launch of the ensemble's own recording label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions. The label's début release showcases the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in a live 1995 recording of Berlioz's Les Nuits d été and a live 1991 recording of arias from Handel's Giulio Cesare, Ottone, Arianna, Radamisto, and Agrippina. Hunt Lieberson had a long and fruitful relationship with McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque. The Berlioz is the last of seven acclaimed recordings she made with the orchestra and the first time she ever sang the full Berlioz song cycle in performance. Lorraine was in her element, and the result was splendid. These incredibly moving performances are now available to a wide audience for the first time.

Bach’s cantata BWV 199 begins “My heart swims in blood/The results of my sins/Transform me into a monster,” and ends, “And through my grief and pain/No longer am I excluded/From His bliss or His heart.” Serious, pious, introspective stuff, indeed, and this recording, in superb sound, features the lamented Lorraine Hunt Lieberson performing the cantata live in Los Angeles in 2003.

The disc’s brief playing time (the cantata takes just 28 minutes) should not put you off: there is a lifetime of great and deep music-making here. Lieberson’s flawless tone, utterly even and capable of a dozen shades of dynamics and colors, along with her almost uncanny ability to convey feelings as rich as those expressed here, turns this half hour into an almost intimate experience, as if one were hearing the confession of a dear friend or a dear soul. Her simplicity is epic, to coin an oxymoron; she can drive one to tears. I’m unaccustomed to gushing like this, and my connection with devout anything, let alone Christianity, is less than tenuous, but I was stunned by the beauty of the singing, playing, and sincerity and so will you be. It’s like listening to the truth.

A quick, sharp performance of Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg serves as a curtain-raiser. The solo violin (Margaret Batjer is the leader and soloist) takes a wild ride in the last movement, and throughout, the performance is brilliant and exhilarating.

-- Robert Levine, ClassicToday.com

This deluxe, 21st anniversary reissue of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's legendary recording of the character Irene's arias from George Frideric Handel's Theodora - plus the composer's cantata La Lucrezia and the evergreen aria "Ombra Mai Fu" from Serse - evokes vivid memories of the mezzo-soprano's galvanizing musicianship and opens the ears of a new generation of music lovers to appreciate the timelessness of Lorraine's poignant interpretations. Specially remastered for this CD and newly available digitally in Dolby Atmos, the longevity of these performances is a testament to Lorraine's unique voice and soul. Conductor and leading Baroque specialist Harry Bicket recalls the immediate musical connection he and Lorraine shared from the time they first met in 1996 during rehearsals for Theodora at Glyndebourne. When Peter Seller's staging of the cantata was revived in 2003, it seemed obvious to go into the studio to record Lorraine's Theodora arias. A maverick musician and a riveting performer, Lorraine died in 2006 due to complications from cancer at the far-too-young age of 52. This recording, one of her last, preserves her consummate musical persona for posterity. The New Yorker's classical columnist Alex Ross characterised the album as "pull-down-the-blinds, unplug-the-telephone, can't-talk-right-now beautiful. She's singing it again; I have to go."

When brand new, this CD’s reputation preceded it: winner of many rave reviews, it has already received the initial WQXR Gramophone American Award. It is dedicated to the memory of the composer’s mother, Birgitta Lieberson-Wolfe (1917–2003), who was known professionally as Vera Zorina, but the disc is being viewed widely as a memorial to mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who passed away in July 2006, at the height—or could it have been only the beginning?—of a great career. No singer since Callas has been so idolized, but her life and her achievements remind me more of Kathleen Ferrier’s. In a moving encomium in The New Yorker (September 25, 2006), Alex Ross makes the cogent point that conventional adjectives simply do not apply to Hunt Lieberson, but that we must fall back on them because there are no words in the language which can do her justice. I, too, fell under her spell on several occasions. She was radiant as Didon in Les Troyens, and then bitterly hurt and angry at being abandoned by Enée, feelings projected throughout the giant Metropolitan Opera House. In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby and Harbison’s opera thereof, Myrtle Wilson is hardly more than a convenient plot device, yet Hunt Lieberson brought her to life; such a change could upset the balance of a work but in this case added nuance and depth to a work that needed both. Her singing of Britten’s Phaedra with the New York Philharmonic was so devastating that I had to reconsider everything I thought I knew about the work. The final time I heard her was in her husband’s lyrical, loving Neruda Songs, with Levine and the Boston Symphony; she was beauty itself. These occasions could have been four different singers, if such singers existed.

Peter Lieberson, the son of a composer, has been at least three composers in one: he writes works related to his “long-standing practice of Tibetan Buddhism;” he has written exciting, complex music that mirrors such earlier teachers as Babbitt and Wuorinen; and—under his wife’s influence—has recently written lyrical, expressive vocal music. It is the complex music (call it difficult, if you must) that appeals most strongly to me—viz., a thrilling recent DG disc, 457 606, titled Raising the Gaze. I am too ignorant of Buddhist beliefs and ceremonies to appreciate that side of the composer; although some of his most heart-felt music falls into that category, I have seldom been able to understand its statements or follow its procedures. These categories begin to overlap in the instrumental works on this disc. The Six Realms (1999–2000) mixes complexity with Buddhism. Written for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, its movements reflect “the six realms described in Buddhism . . . a highly detailed portrait of our human consciousness” (the quotations are taken from the composer’s program notes). Yet he also refers to the piece as “my concerto.” Written for solo cello and a large orchestra often sparingly used, its 27 minutes cover a wide range of emotional (presumably religious) and musical expression. After a bumpy start (mine), The Six Realms is now beginning to reveal its depth and power.

The Horn Concerto (1998–1999) is more conventional, as much so as anything I have heard from Lieberson. Lyricism meets complexity, each making room for the other. It consists of two roughly nine-minute movements, the first of which recalls concertos of Schoeck and Hindemith, the second Stravinsky, especially his Symphony in Three Movements. Fine models all, but surprising for Lieberson (who knew Stravinsky as a child). As the piece progresses, the writing for horn becomes more vibrant, more exciting, and no doubt very difficult to play. William Purvis rides it like a champion.

But the pieces de resistance here are the five Rilke Songs (1997–2001), taken from The Sonnets to Orpheus. Lieberson’s straightforward music seems to equate simplicity with truth. Music and performance transport us into Rilke’s world and involve us in his musings; that the vocal line is lyrical and the voice beautiful is almost incidental. While the performances of the two instrumental works are excellent, that of the songs is so ideal as to disappear. Pianist Serkin and the composer have been friends from birth and collaborators for decades; the singer was wife, inspiration, and artistic advisor; the three are one artistic whole. It comes as a shock to hear an eruption of applause; the audience at the Ravinia Festival must have been holding its collective breath for these 18 minutes. So was I.

Every one of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s recordings is a treasure. Every Peter Lieberson disc ought to be treasured; Oliver Knussen called his music “the real thing.”

FANFARE: James H. North