Dame Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton have teamed up for another interesting recital album. It’s quite varied. It starts with Chausson’s La Poème de l’amour et de la mer which is actually two songs with a piano interlude. It’s very fin de siècle chanson with the piano line rather more interesting than the vocal line but pretty decent stuff, if a bit emotionally overwrought.
Barber’s Three Songs Op.10 are quite well known, especially the last; “I hear an army”. They are dark and dramatic and suit Connolly’s voice very well. Next is the often heard Debussy piece Trois Chansons de Bilitis which purports to be settings of translations of actual Sapphic texts but which sound exactly like a 19th century Frenchman would imagine a Sapphic text to be; i.e languorous. Nicely done though. Next we come to a pair of declamatory songs by Copland; “The world feels dusty” and “I’ve heard an organ talk sometimes”. Definitely a welcome change of pace. Continue reading
The final programme of Confluence Concerts season took place at Heliconian Hall on Wednesday night. It was billed as The Confluence Songbook and, if there was a theme, it was about doing live versions of music that had been streamed during the Plague. But really by the time we saw it it had outgrown that. For, in addition to the full line up of Confluence artistic associates there was a raft of guests which resulted in a fairly lengthy and very eclectic programme. 
Serious Cabaret is an album by singer Mary Carewe and pianist Philip Mayers who is also responsible for the arrangements. It’s an eclectic mix of cabaret material from the 1920s to the 1970s. There’s classic material from the Weimar Republic, including songs by Hollaender (“Oh just suppose”) and Spoliansky (“Maskulinum/Femininum”, “It’s All a Swindle”) and one I hadn’t heard before; Zemlinsky’s “Herr Bombardil” about a man who eats until he explodes. 
My review
Mélodies Passagères is a new CD from Montreal based duo soprano Marianne Lambert and pianist Julien LeBlanc. Toronto folks may remember the latter as the music director/pianist for Against the Grain’s 
operaramblings 