“Being Beauteous” = BRITTEN: Les Illuminations, Op. 18; HENZE: Being Beauteous; SCHOENBERG: Foliage of the Heart, Op. 20; NICCOLO CASTIGLIONI: Terzina; SZYMANOWSKI: The Cherry Trees, Op. 46b – Anu Komsi, sop./ Ostrobothian Ch. Orch./ Juha Kangas/ Uusinta Ch. Ens./ Sakari Oramo – Alba multichannel SACD ABCD 331, 58:15 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
Finnish soprano Anu Komsi, wife of conductor Sakari Oramo, has now appeared in a number of recordings, one of which has garnered a lot of praise, the triptych of songs by Kaija Saariaho (Ondine). That album suddenly catapulted interest in this firebrand of a singer, notable for deadly-accurate high notes and piercingly fast vibrato, sometimes redolent of times gone by. Her voice is immediately recognizable and easily adaptable to the sort of textual nuances that give rise to radiant and unique performances, not always those you want to live with every day, but definitely something memorable.
That’s pretty much the case with the pieces on this disc, but luckily most of them aren’t well known enough to suffer day by day comparisons in most record collections. Britten’s opus is a sparkler that molds itself well to performances that try to go over the top. This one is a crackerjack for sure, as colorful and exotic as any I have heard, and maybe even the best I have ever heard. It captures the senses from the word go and illuminates Illuminations in a way that so many readings fail at—a fear of dancing with the words themselves. Komsi is fearless in the way she challenges the poems, and completely makes them her own.
Les Illuminations contains a poem called “Being Beauteous” that was also set by Hans Werner Henze, three times the length of Britten’s setting and three times complex as well. The unusual scoring, for four cellos, soprano, and harp, give an unusual sonority to the piece that revels in the lower timbres. Schoenberg’s song, originally written in 1911 and not premiered until 1923, packs loads of expression into its three minute length, Maeterlinck’s words providing a hothouse atmosphere that concludes all too soon.
Not many people know Niccolo Castiglioni, but many will want to hear this devotional Terzina, a poem of straightforward manner and consequent musical expression, tonal and reverently beautiful. Finally, Szymanowski’s The Cherry Trees skirts tonality but still remains impressively ensconced within it while using a dashing and bold romantic idiom that never hesitates to draw extensively on the folk song genre. These five poems are superb examples of his art, while Anu Komsi brings her focused and in-depth interpretative skills to new heights in this small masterpiece.
The orchestral playing is first rate, the surround sound very good indeed. While the unusualness of the voice sometimes gets to me, I can’t berate Komsi for that—we use the gifts God gives. Let’s hope her further selection of material is as bold and interesting as what she has done so far.
—Steven Ritter
Kenny Barron, Ray Drummond, Ben Rilen – So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon – Elemental Music
Jazz piano trio sophistication at its best…
