After nearly six years of artistic absence from the recording studio, soprano Simone Kermes returns with an album that is both deeply personal and stylistically wide-ranging: La Luce brings together Baroque operatic art, Classical concert arias, and the film-inspired sound worlds of the 20th century, forming a carefully conceived panorama of light and shadow. Kermes is accompanied by the Orchestra of the Warsaw Chamber Opera under the musical direction of Julien Salemkour. La Luce is far more than a stylistic collage. The album unfolds a musical dramaturgy that understands light as a metaphor for hope, transcendence, and emotional revelation. Simone Kermes employs her extraordinary technical mastery not as an end in itself, but as a means of shaping highly diverse expressive worlds - from Baroque affect rhetoric and Classical soul portraiture to modern, film-inspired sound poetry. In the sensitive yet powerful accompaniment by the Orchestra of the Warsaw Chamber Opera under Julien Salemkour, a homogeneous overall sound emerges that respects historical styles while placing them in a timeless context. La Luce thus proves to be an artistically ambitious concept album that brings different musical epochs into dialogue and once again presents Simone Kermes as an exceptional bridge between tradition and modernity.

The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid were not always merely the nightmare of classical philology students. On the contrary: the great work on the transformations of figures of ancient mythology by scornful, amorous or grateful gods have been handed down to us in innumerable paintings, stories, theatre pieces and operas. The symphonies written by Joseph Haydn's colleague and friend Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf in the 1780s occupy a special place among the purely instrumental reflections of these events. Anything but programmatic in the Romantic sense, it plays with sophisticated associations that can only be discovered by those who listen attentively and can supplement the allusions with their own imagination - a rewarding endeavour, especially when sparks fly out of the classical symmetry of the gods as they do here.

Philadelphia-based period-instrument ensemble Night Music re-creates an afternoon of music making from October 1801 at the Austrian capital’s Palais Arnstein, with a flamboyant Quintet for flute and strings by Joseph Kraus, a duo by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf for the unusual combination of viola and double bass, and a chamber arrangement – by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon utilizing the same instrumentation as the Kraus Quintet – of perhaps the most notorious of symphonic surprises. NIGHT MUSIC is a Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble dedicated to exploring and performing music of the Revolutionary era, roughly 1760 to 1825. Their repertory ranges from duos and trios to large-scale chamber works combining strings and winds, such as the imaginative symphony arrangements that were so popular around 1800, to concertos, cantatas, and concert arias. The 2019-2020 season highlights include guest appearances at Kenyon College and the University of Pennsylvania’s “Music at the Pavilion” Series. Recent engagements include the PhilaLandmarks Early Music Concert Series and the Early Music at St. James series in Lancaster.

 

REVIEW:

 

The Kraus Flute Quintet makes an excellent opening, likely to make you wonder why we don’t hear more of this Swedish composer’s music. Although the flute is first among equals here, it’s by no means a showy piece for a soloist. Night Music perfectly integrate flute and strings, and the recording is also very well integrated.

 

Is Salomon’s arrangement of Haydn's ‘Surprise’ Symphony equally worthy of recording? The music makes a good effect, charming music at this scale, receiving a charming performance; as in the Kraus, the flautist and the engineers don’t allow the instrument to dominate. With such small forces, however, the feature which earned the work its nickname, the sudden change from quiet to loud in the andante second movement, designed ‘to make the ladies jump’ – Beecham used to bring it off especially well – doesn’t quite come off, despite a claim to the contrary in the booklet. That said, this is an enjoyable work in its own inevitably diminished right.

 

I can’t claim great music status for the Dittersdorf Duo, but it, too, receives a performance which brings out its attractions, and the recording captures the unusual sound of the combination very effectively.

 

– MusicWeb International

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (2 November 1739 - 24 October 1799) was an Austrian composer, violinist and silvologist. Music from this Classical period can be difficult to be positive about when it's compared to the works of Mozart, but Dittersdorf's manages to be far from boring and in fact not that far removed from the music of Mozart. All the music on this CD has a gentle and flowing nature about it, while still managing to dip into the lower/softer extremes of it's subject as well as the more intense aspects. This selection was recorded at the Calvanist Church, Budapest, Hungry, from 9th to 11th December, 1996.