Infinite Voyage is billed as the final album from the Emerson Quartet capping a long and illustrious career. It’s also a collaboration with Barbara Hannigan so it’s perhaps not surprising that it includes music by Berg, Schoenberg and Hindemith though Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle belongs to a rather different style.
The disk starts with Hindemith’s Melancholie, Op.13. It’s quite a sparsely scored piece and Hannigan’s treatment of the text is interesting and quite individual. There’s a rhythmic flexibility, almost caressing the words. It’s especially marked in the third stanza “Dunkler Tropfe”. I’m not familiar enough with the piece to judge how unusual Hannigan’s treatment is or isn’t but I think it really works.
operaramblings 