REVIEW:

It took me a while to getting around to review this CD. The concept of a quasi-narrated work in a traditional musical format with the subject of graveyards seemed unavoidably sentimental. I should have known better. I am not by nature a mystical person, but who can deny the enormous emotional power of cemeteries? It might be a passing glance of sad, proud vets in full uniform visiting old comrades on Memorial Day, or the lyrical beauty of vast Victorian resting places such as Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill, or the awful majesty of sprawling military resting places. And then there is the simple eloquence of early American church graveyards, so rich with the rhythms of this nation’s early history, and the subject of this strong new work by Evan Chambers. 

Chambers is a sophisticated composer and teacher (he chairs the composition department at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor), but he is intensely interested in folk music. He is a prize-winning Irish fiddler, and has studied Sufi and Albanian folk musics, but has a special passion for the vernacular traditions of American music. What makes this particular work so compelling is the daring mix of style and texture that Chambers employs, both musically and in his choice of words to set. The gravestone inscriptions are extraordinary; simple yet often profoundly poetic, tightly packed little kernels of searingly intense emotion.

Chambers also uses contemporary poetry written in a complementarily spare style by four fine poets; Jane Hirshfield, Thomas Lynch, Richard Tillinghast, and Paula Meehan. One has to admire his self-confident blending of diverse literary and musical sources. The only slightly sour note for this listener is in the full-orchestra introduction and linking material, which, in its somewhat overwrought manner, seems to clash with the solemn grace of the words, and even, in that context, feels a bit pompous. But this work is very much the sum of its many interesting parts, and in that sense it is a bold success. The performances are excellent: sturdy, rich, and respectful of the darkly alluring subject matter.

FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

In this recital of Alnæs’ atmospheric songs, Eriksen, whose playing of Alnæs’ piano works can be heard on an earlier Toccata Classics CD, returns to his music in the company of Solvang, one of Norway’s best mezzos. This CD marks the 140th anniversary of Alnæs’ birth and the 80th of his death and includes a number of word premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Solvang’s lyric soprano is attractive and colorful, and she is capable of floating some lovely pianos. Very rarely she pushes it too much and the tone turns hard, but this is a minor flaw in a disc of lovely singing. Eriksen is clearly as much of an Alnæs expert as we have today—having recorded a disc of piano pieces—and he and Solvang are on the same wavelength throughout. One could not ask for better performances. The recorded sound is a bit too “airy” for my tastes—but one gets used to it quickly enough. Very informative and high-quality program notes along with complete texts and translations round out the production.

-- Fanfare

Though Anne Sofie von Otter’s Gramophone Award-winning disc remains the clear choice for a single record devoted to Grieg’s songs, this new one runs it close. Bodil Arnesen is a young lyric soprano with just the right freshness for these open-air songs (as so many of them are) of spring and hope. She is entirely firm, has a healthy glow on the upper notes, shows a nice feeling for nuance, and knows how to make the voice smile. Some limitation is felt in the few darker songs, such as the second of Op. 48, “Dareinst, Gedanke mein”, which von Otter takes at a slower pace, introducing an unearthly pallor into the tone, and providing a more weighty reminder of the link back to Schubert’s Wanderers Nachtlied and forward to Strauss’s Ruhe, meine Seele. Then in the next song, “Lauf der Welt”, von Otter has a style at once bolder and more confiding: she communicates as though to a larger audience and so on a bigger scale, enlarging what one might call the vocal gestures of intimacy to match. Yet for home-listening, especially if you are playing at a good volume, I’m not sure that such large expressiveness isn’t just a little overwhelming: certainly the return, from that, to the soprano’s relatively miniaturist style is no hardship.

The choice of songs is fine, so too the programming, in which the sequence (not chronological) is sensible and satisfying. For a proper conspectus of Grieg’s songs it is necessary to have the Haugtussa cycle, which von Otter includes and Arnesen does not; there is compensation, however, in the charming Bjornson settings (Op. 21), the two songs of Solveig, and others such as The Princess and “With a primrose” which are among the best of all. Erling Eriksen accompanies sympathetically, the balance of voice and piano is well judged and the booklet provides useful and attractive companionship.

-- Gramophone [5/1997]