This Week's Afternoon CDs

I'm constantly surrounded by CDs at work.  They're sent to us for a variety of reasons, and it's wonderful to be able to just grab something totally new to listen to on an afternoon when I need to focus on the end of a task... Mind you, I'm distracted so often it takes me a whole afternoon to do one CD!

So this week, the afternoon CDs I've listened to are:

MONDAY
Stabat Mater Dolorosa
Sara Mingardo - contralto
Silvia Frigato - soprano
Accademia deglia Astrusi
Federico Ferri - conductor
(Kaleidos KAL/007)

Sara Mingardo is the big star of this CD, having grammy award winning recordings under her belt, and  the kind of awkwardly attractive look that early musicians REALLY go for.  The recording is live, and Sara totally nails it throughout with a crazily creamy but light voice that you don't get very often in a woman (countertenors make this noise all the time, it's kind of less impressive when they do). I'm not as fussed by Silvia, she sounds kind of weak, like she'd much rather be singing incredibly loudly, and is instead having to do this pretty, silvery, early sound to match Sara.

The orchestra isn't that exciting (strings not quite together, and not quite in tune), but this work isn't really about them, it's about the intertwining of the singers - particularly in the well known and TOTALLY gorgeous first movement of the Pergolesi Stabat Mater which opens the CD.

(caveat: this link is Andreas Scholl and Barbara Bonney singing it. Andreas is my number one favourite countertenor and demigod)

The rest of the CD is Vivaldi, none of which I'd come across before.  The Nisi Dominus is just a tremendous bit of music. So so so exciting, and invigorating. I'd recommend hunting it down and having a listen to anyone. You'll be blown away by what the human voice is actually capable of.

TUESDAY
Unknown Britten
Sandrine Piau - soprano
Michael Collins - clarinet
Rolf Hind - piano
Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair - conductor

This CD records for the first time several Benjamin Britten works that spent years undiscovered.  I LOVE IT and listen to it fairly regularly at work. My main addiction are the two piano works that Rolf Hind play. This is mainly because I adore Rolf Hind. He is and amazing musician and so so nice and charming. He is also brilliant on twitter (@rolfhind) where he talks about being vegan and yoga a lot :)

Amazingly, as a soprano, I had never actually listen to the first 30 minutes of the CD - the "complete" Les Illuminations for soprano and orchestra (only about 10 minutes of which is actually new, the rest is standard repertoire). This week I listened for the first time to this monster of a work. Sandrine Piau is totally wonderful, working her way round the incredibly tricky repertoire and making me fall totally in love.  I must never judge a work by the first 30 seconds ever again!

If you've ever heard the tiniest bit of Britten and liked it (or been interested in it, you don't have to LIKE it...) then I'd strongly recommend this CD, it's just fab.

Rondo Concertante played by Rolf Hind

WEDNESDAY
Schubert Winterreise
Henk Neven - baritone
Hans Eijsackers - piano

Confession - I'm a little bit in love with Henk Neven.  I first heard him in recital about a year ago and was hooked. He has a huge powerful voice, that never feels overwhelming and shouty and "oh look how boomy I can be" like so many baritones.  So when I spotted this CD on my boss' desk I lurched to listen to it first!

Schubert mastered song writing like noone else, he took it from a parlour activity for nice young ladies and gents, to being a truly dramatic artform, where the piano and the singer held equal status and worked together to create incredibly full sounds.  Winterreise is the greatest of all his song cycles, with 24 songs sung by a man forsaken by his beloved, wandering through a winter landscape, saying farewell to not only his love, but also to the cold bitter world he has come to inhabit, and sinking into further depression and madness.

It is NOT cheery.

But it is OH SO BEAUTIFUL, and Henk Neven sings with such touching sweetness and sadness that I could listen to this over and over and still be warmed and depressed by the music at the same time. It's bloody brilliant.

Henk singing Schubert

THURSDAY

En La Imaginación
Silvia Pérez Cruz & Javier Colina Trio

What can I say about the ludicrously beautiful Spanist songstress Silvia?  I first heard her when I programmed her last year when she was touring with Ravid Goldschmidt - a hang player.  They blew me away with their earthy, honest, stripped back flamenco music. 

This album is a pure jazz album with the wonderful Javier Colina Trio, a spanish jazz trio who play like a single player with wonderful inflections and touches that exist to support their star, Silvia.

Her voice is pure flamenco, with a throaty vibrato that slips between softness and raw passion which lends itself impeccably to singing jazz repertoire.  I'd not listened to this album before (she gave me half a dozen different ones when she came), and I absolutely adored it. I hate the term "easy listening" because it sounds patronizing, but my word this is easy listening. Spanish smooth from start to finish. Gorgeous.

Silvia singing Ella y yo

FRIDAY
Evita
Julie Covington
Paul Jones
C.T. Wilkinson

I LOVE THIS ALBUM. Today I am a bit hungover, and there's noone in the office, so it's a morning CD, where I resort to my staple "this will make it all good" CD.

This is the original recording, before they got the funding to put it on the stage, and so the orchestrations and some of the lyrics are different (Che has a whole subplot about inventing an insecticide...) and I adore it. I have never got on with any of the later recordings.  My parents had this on vinyl, and I taped it to put it in the car. I know EVERY SINGLE LYRIC to the full 2 hour show and can find not a single fault. I also never fail to get goosebumps at the beginning, when a film is playing and it slows to a stop so that they can announce Eva's death. I GOT GOOSEBUMPS TYPING IT.

I love Julie's not actually very good voice as Evita, and the totally wonderful (ultimate Valjean) Colm Wilkinson back when he was an Irish pop star called C.T Wilkinson and did Eurovision and the like and hadn't developed terrifyingly distorted vowels. He is just brilliant as Che.

If you must listen to the Elaine Paige or Patti LuPone versione then I will forgive you, but if you EVER pick Madonna's soundtrack over this then you should be punished. Or at least shunned by society.

Oh, and I am renowned for my frighteningly accurate impression of Tony Christie as Magaldi. It's excellent.

Ignore the dreadful video, this is ALL about Colm