Debussy, Messiaen: Extase (Pentatone)
★★★★☆
There’s a line of magnificence that runs by French vocal music, from Debussy to Messiaen to Boulez, which exists to the exclusion of all else. While you pay attention, it seems that no different French songs exist — no Ravel, no Poulenc, no Jacques Brel — nothing however this ethereal house by which every consonant is positioned with aesthetic precision, like raspberries in a patisserie, or boules in a city sq..
Singing on this style can sound valuable and showy. Not on this album, nevertheless.
Madalena Kozena speaks Czech as mom tongue, English and German at residence. Whereas her recital French is flawless, what she brings to Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis is an surprising contact of Janacek within the night time — that inimitable darkish zone between singing and talking that turns a chanson into overheard dialogue on an intercity practice. It’s notably efficient in two units of poems by Baudelaire and Verlaine, gossipy, intimate and greater than a bit disreputable.
Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi are chaste, stuffed with Church and Christ, and slightly gray by means of tonal color. They have been written for his first spouse within the mid-Thirties across the time of their marriage. Kozena sounds virginal, free of impure ideas. Mitsuko Uchida’s pianism, jewelled as a marriage robe, guarantees bliss on the finish of the bower. The mutual instinct is immaculate. At no level are you able to inform which ones, pianist or singer, anticipates the opposite. It’s good communion.
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Norman Lebrecht is among the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s an everyday presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Avenue Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning towards human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.