SUMMER CLASSICS - GREATEST HIT

BEETHOVEN: FOLK SONG ARRANGEME

OFRA HARNOY COLLECTION VOLUME

SWINGTIME! CANADIAN BRASS

The first countertenor to win the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Brian Asawa is also the recipient of a career grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation. Asawa enjoys an international career and excels in the music of the Baroque as well as the contemporary. This recording features the countertenor in an eclectic collection of songs with a particular focus on the form known as the vocalise. A vocalise is a wordless vocal study sung to one or more vowels, and Asawa breathes new life into the form.
Perhaps the most famous vocalise is the haunting Pavane, Op. 50 by Gabriel Fauré. Asawa brings great sensitivity and style to the Vocalise and four other Fauré songs. Asawa's superb musicianship and melting tonal beauty is well suited to the remainder of the program which includes music by Nicolai Medtner, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Sergei Rachmaninov. The Academy of St. Martin In The Fields under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner provide lush orchestral accompaniment.

Robert Schumann's first song cycle, the Op. 24 'Liederkreis,' is almost always sung by men-in part no doubt because the romantically tortured protagonist is male. Nathalie Stutzmann now joins the list of women who have essayed the cycle as a sort of "trousers" role, to which her rich and versatile voice-a true, deep contralto-readily lends itself. The impetuousness of youth is conveyed more naturally here than by the many baritones who have recorded the work; and Stutzmann brings great tenderness to the more lyrical songs of the cycle.
The remainder of this volume in Stutzmann's ongoing Schumann series is concentrated on a sometime overlooked subset of German romantic song. The composer designated several of his song sets as 'Romances and Ballads,' rather than the more familiar 'Lieder,' drawing on a more ancient tradition of narrative song, often related to medieval topics. It is a pleasure to hear all of songs in these forms assembled as they are here, for it highlights their difference from the more introspective Lied. Here Stutzmann becomes the bard or storyteller, a role that suits the qualities of her voice even better, and she brings great variety to the tales of tragedy, history, and mystery that Schumann and his poets tell.

OFRA HARNOY COLLECTION VOLUME

Kasarova brings an impeccable sense of style to the title role in this authoritative account of Tancredi, which includes additional music Rossini composed after its premiere.

The renaissance of Rossini’s serious operas continues apace, thanks mainly to the annual festival in the composer’s birthplace, Pesaro. Tancredi has had a number of productions, there and elsewhere, in recent years, and deservedly so, for it is Rossini’s earliest great opera seria, a work which, given singers able to cope with its demands on their virtuosity, can hold the stage today as effectively as when it was first performed in 1813. The action of its complicated plot takes place in Syracuse in 1005AD. The music is fresh and vigorous throughout, and Rossini never wrote a more delectable tune than the contralto hero’s ‘Di tanti palpiti’ (which Wagner parodied in the Tailors’ Song in Die Meistersinger). Vesselina Kasarova brings a rich chest register, firm top notes, great flexibility and an impeccable sense of style to the role of the warrior Tancredi, Eva Mei’s supple soprano has no difficulty with the music of the much put-upon heroine Amenaide, and Ramòn Vargas in the tenor role of her father, Argirio, is more than adequate. Roberto Abbado conducts an authoritative account of the score, which here includes the additional music Rossini composed for the opera’s second staging in Ferrara, only weeks after its Venice premiere, when the libretto was altered to accord more closely to the tragedy by Voltaire on which it was based.

-- Charles Osborne, BBC Music Magazine

TITO SCHIPA- MOZART, MASSENET,

Track Listing
1. Stormy Weather
2. What Is This Thing Called Love?
3. Ill Wind
4. Man I Love, The
5. Where or When
6. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
7. Mad About the Boy
8. Moanin' Low
9. As Long as I Live
10. I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues
11. I Didn't Know About You
12. One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)
13. Suddenly It's Spring
14. Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me
15. I'll Be Around

Personnel includes: Lena Horne (vocals); Lou Bring, Horace Henderson (conductor); Illinois Jacquet (tenor saxophone); Dave Barbour (guitar); Lennie Hayton (piano); Big Sid Catlett (drums).

Principally recorded in Hollywood, California between 1941 & 1944. Includes liner notes by Richard Dyer.

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Personnel: Lena Horne (vocals); Dave Barbour (guitar); Illinois Jacquet (tenor saxophone); Lennie Hayton (piano); Big Sid Catlett (drums).

Recording information: Hollywood, CA (12/15/1941-11/21/1944).

Illustrator: Ruth Marten.

Lena Horne became an international celebrity as a teenager -- making her first record at 18 with Noble Sissle and his orchestra -- and in many ways her star never faded. Because her success as a singer and actress paved the way for so many African-American divas in later decades, it's easy to overlook the simple vocal magic that got the legend rolling. This is one of the new Bluebird series' best compilations, a compendium of early-'40s classics that define the era. Sometimes her approach was ironic. Even if the mood of "Stormy Weather" is dark, the innocence of her voice conveys a rich optimism and whimsy. On these selections, which include "What Is This Thing Called Love?" and a hypnotic take on the Rodgers & Hart gem "Where or When?," her tone is light and flowing, with a gentle, sexy lisp in certain spots. The last three tracks, from January 1944, are so rare and obscure that the location of the recording and the backing orchestra are unknown. A must for the Horne fan or for folks who think Judy Garland and Billie Holiday were the only vocal standard setters of the time. ~ Jonathan Widran

ENCORE! LEONARD SLATKIN, SAIN

DOMINGO - OPERA DUETS WITH MIL

Personnel includes: Frank Sinatra (vocals); Tommy Dorsey (conductor, trombone).
Compilation producers: Bill Kirchner, Barry Feldman.
Includes liner notes by Bill Kirchner.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
This is part of Bluebird Records "Bluebird's Best" series.
Fourteen of the 87 songs that Frank Sinatra recorded with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra between 1940 and 1942 at the start of his career are featured in this entertaining and instructive best-of. The band's versatility is matched by Sinatra's youthful energy--the singer switches expertly from upbeat material like "Oh! Look at Me Now" to smooth love songs like "I'll Never Smile Again," and his intimate delivery on the romantic "Night and Day" and "Say It" heralds his later immense popularity among younger audiences.

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 62 -

This double-CD from French RCA in their Jazz Tribune series (a reissue of an earlier double-LP) gives one a good overview of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke's Victor recordings. More serious collectors will want to acquire this music as part of a more complete series (since all of his solos are significant), while beginning collectors are advised to pick up his Columbia reissue CDs (which feature Beiderbecke in smaller groups) first. The 36 performances on this two-fer mostly focus on his sideman's appearances with the large dance orchestras of Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman during 1926-28, although there is one 1924 track ("I Didn't Know") with Goldkette, and a few later sessions from 1930. Highlights include "Clementine," "San," "There Ain't No Sweet Man," "From Monday On," and "You Took Advantage of Me."

-- Scott Yanow, AllMusic.com