Try the closing “Agitato”, with antiphonal violins and winds unfazed by the opening melody’s twists and turns. There’s also violinist Ernst Spyckerelle’s delicious arrangement of Clara Schumann’s Drei Romanzen. The score and parts can be downloaded on IMSLP any wind or string players reading this should take a look.
The finale’s imposing introduction suggests that we’re about to hear something weighty, Farrenc performing a sudden volte-face and launching into an upbeat allegro. It’s appealing, highly tuneful music though, the second movement’s sequence of variations nicely characterised in this performance. The wind writing is as idiomatic as you’d expect from a 19 th century French composer, and there are times in the first movement when the solo strings don’t get much of a look in. 38 Nonet by Louise Farrenc, its four movements amounting to what feels like a symphony in disguise. Arc is a selection of works by female composers, the album title alluding to the stories told in individual pieces and to the bridges connecting them. The Intercontinental Ensemble’s recording of Martinů’s beguiling Nonet was one of last year’s delights, and here’s a follow-up. He writes: “The programme on this recording is designed as a journey – a fascinatingly complicated, female-led voyage.” In Owain Park’s new cycle of songs “Battle Cry”, Georgia Way’s subtle poems give new voices to heroines from mythology, fiction or historical antiquity. There are all kinds of story-lines and a cast of fascinating characters, elucidated thoughtfully in Jeremy Summerly’s extensive and eloquent programme note. It isn’t all laying to earth and lamenting, however. We also hear Dido’s Lament – the recitative “Thy hand, Belinda” and the air “When I am laid in earth” – and these deliver their message truly, deeply, affectingly in this pared-down arrangement for the duo by Toby Carr. And the last word of the song? Helen Charlston says: "The closing Hallelujah could be heard in so many different ways, but mainly it’s trying to find an answer to all of the questions that we’ve asked throughout the recording." Listen to the diction and the understanding given to every single vocal syllable, the delicious pacing and the wonderful cumulative effect. Purcell’s “Evening Hymn” is sung as slow, as low, as dark, as warmly and as touchingly as you could ever wish to hear it. Something very special indeed is going on here. This album by the gloriously expressive, vocally utterly secure and dramatically aware mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, in duo with Toby Carr’s theorbo, has to be seen already as a clear contender for vocal album of the year. What’s not to like?īattle Cry: She Speaks – Works by Purcell, Barbara Strozzi, Robert de Visée, Kapsberger, Monteverdi, Eccles and Park Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Toby Carr (theorbo) (Delphian) She’s performing at London’s Fidelio Café on June 16, her recital combined with a whisky tasting. La Dolce Volta’s production values are high class, and Berrut’s sleeve notes are a fun read. The shift from D minor to major halfway through packs a huge punch, the final minutes a twinkly delight. I like the sharper outlines she brings to the work, Schoenberg’s language all the bolder for speaking so clearly and cleanly. The coupling is Berrut’s paraphrase on Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. All three movements are a success, with playing and sound to match if you’ve ever dismissed Mahler as being too loud and overblown, you need to hear this disc. Mahler’s cowbells are implied more than heard, a magical effect. Even better is the slow movement of Mahler 6, swelling to a rapturous, clangourous climax.
It’s glorious, sunny salon music, the closing bars barely audible. The “Tempo di Menuetto” from Mahler 3 is a charmer, the music’s folksy roots so clear, the composer’s changes of metre and tempo fluidly handled. It feels totally idiomatic, and the overall running time, just short of 9’30”, is ideal. You wonder how she’ll handle Mahler’s sustained lines, so easily playable on orchestral strings, and then grin when you hear the unobtrusive, syncopated Brahmsian accompanying figure that she adds to keep the music moving forward. Emphatically not, Berrut seeing transcription as “an act of homage to the genius of a music whose essence does not change.” Berrut’s arrangement of the “Adagietto” from Mahler 5 is a brilliant reinvention, not a pale imitation. “Is transcription betrayal?” asks pianist Beatrice Berrut in her booklet essay.
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