art song Archive

“Heaven and Earth – A Duke Ellington Songbook” – Danielle Talamantes, sop./ Henry Dehlinger, p. – MSR

by Audiophile Audition | Sep 16, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

I’m tempted to say that if you buy only one disc this year, it should be this one. “Heaven and Earth – A Duke Ellington Songbook” – Danielle Talamantes, soprano/ Henry Dehlinger, piano – MSR Jazz MS 1617, 50:47 [Distr. by Albany] *****: Just to double check, I sought out my review of Danielle Talamantes’s debut album from 2014 on MSR Classics called Canciones espanolas. Here is what I said: “From the very first second of the very first track, Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall soloist soprano Danielle Talamantes rips into a recital of some of Spain’s greatest composers with such daring and furiously emotive singing that you hold your breath at the exuberance and seat-of-your-pants vocal dexterity coming from the speakers. Usually it takes a while for recordings to begin to make their mark, but not in this case; Talamantes besieges us with such exquisite and excitingly idiomatic vocalizing that you leave the listening session in awe.” I hate to be repetitive and verbose, but substitute “some of Spain’s greatest composers” with “Duke Ellington”, and the paragraph retains all of its truthfulness transferred to this new release. These are, of course arrangements—Ellington left few of his piano pieces completely […]