The last of this season’s Recitals at Rosedale was on the theme of the the Seven Deadly Sins.  It was an interesting and enjoyable afternoon, perhaps notable as much for what it had to say about the state of the industry as for the music making.  The format was four singers moving fairly rapidly between short (more the most part) songs linked by a one or two sentence chosen text.  The effect was to keep things moving along swiftly and even to generate a kind of narrative arc.  There was no time for applause between numbers for example.  It was a very different feel from the traditional art song recital where one or two singers sing sets of related songs.  It was also quite operatic.  All the singers chose to act physically and with the voice.  Again, a far cry from the art song tradition where a raised eyebrow is considered over acting.  Overall I thought it worked and in a city where the music commentariat has been lamenting the death of the art song recital for years somebody has to try something!

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