Somm Recordings launches its new re-issues and historical label, Ariadne, with a spell-binding collection of songs by Edvard Grieg performed by the legendary husband-and-wife team...

Somm Recordings launches its new re-issues and historical label, Ariadne, with a spell-binding collection of songs by Edvard Grieg performed by the legendary husband-and-wife team of soprano Carole Farley and José Serebrier conducting the London Philharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras. Released by Dinemec Classics in 1998, ‘Carole Farley sings Grieg Songs’ follows Somm’s acclaimed recording of Grieg’s Piano Concerto and Piano Concerto No. 2 by Mark Bebbington. Sensational American soprano Carole Farley brings enormous passion and exquisite poetry to intensely personal songs originally composed for piano accompaniment but here richly orchestrated by José Serebrier. Sung in Norwegian, the sublime result showcases Grieg at his most evocative, Farley at her most expressive and Serebrier at his most nuanced. Grieg orchestrated only a handful of his 180 songs although they lend themselves readily to the broader palette of a symphony orchestra. José Serebrier says: “My choice of songs for orchestration was dictated primarily by the character of the writing. In most cases, the orchestration seemed so obvious, it almost literally jumped out of the page. I took great care to orchestrate them idiomatically”. Carole Farley says: “The idea for this recording was to make these under-performed songs available to a wider public. The poetry is so very evocative and the marriage of the words and the music makes these songs absolutely unique”. Carole Farley shot to fame as Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera in 1977. Now a respected vocal coach, she continues to perform around the world, most recently touring Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine in the United States and Europe. One of the most recorded classical artists in history, conductor-composer José Serebrier has received 46 Grammy nominations and won the Latin Grammy Award for his own Carmen Symphony in 2004.