Metropolitan United Church that is. Not the other place. Anyway, it was a very pleasant Thursday lunchtime recital in which Maeve was accompanied on piano by Helen Becqué. It was essentially a “turn of the century” (as in around 1900) programme.
The first set was Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliees. The six songs are very Debussy. Maeve sang them idiomatically, in excellent French and with a fair amount of variation in emotional intensity from quite restrained to exuberant. She does “exuberant” rather well. Equally excellent and idiomatic playing from Helen who also provided a bit of a break between song sets with pieces drawn from the Preludes Op. 12 of Luise Adolpha Le Beau.
It’s an interesting idea for a CD to couple an exuberant early Strauss tone poem with a extremely introspective Mahler song cycle and that’s what L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal have done for their upcoming release with conductor Rafael Payare. I’m not especially familiar with Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben Op. 40 but it sounds suitably Straussian and it gets a full blooded treatment from Payare with the solo violin part played quite beautifully by Concertmaster Andrew Wan. 
It’s an interesting idea for a CD; couple the well known (and original) orchestral version of Richard Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder with the less well known piano version (the first three songs are arranged by Max Wolff and Im Abendrot by John Gribben). It’s exactly the sort of bold, slightly off the wall idea one might expect from Asmik Grigorian. So how well does it work?
Decca have just released a 3CD set of previously unreleased recordings made by the late Jessye Norman between 1989 and 1998 with various orchestras and conductors.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to in February plus a few gigs I can’t make:
operaramblings 