CD Review: B-records’ ‘Le pays de nos désirs’

B-records’ “Le pays de nos désirs” is a somewhat uneasy listen. Its intentions are admirable, but the program of turn-of-the-century melodies and Lieder does not always come into its own. The repertory is too dense, and too diverse are its stylistic, if not technical requirements for any of the four soloists to emerge completely unscathed from some 76 minutes of playing time.

The Orsay-Royaumont AcademyAt the heart, “Le pays de nos désirs” presents like a graduation exercise, a showcase of the laureates’ artistic sophistication at the end of their month-long training at the Orsay-Royaumont Academy. Four singers with an accompanist each engage in a multilingual set of songs which, conceptually, are embedded into an interdisciplinary approach to music: Every piece, so the idea goes, resonates with an artwork from the collections of the Musée d’Orsay. In practice, this relation appears rather fraught, and it is up to one’s very own imagination to decide which perfectly Baudelairean correspondences there are between, for instance, Sibelius’ “Flickan kom” and potential museum artworks.



It is a layer of interpretation which, on CD, naturally falls short.“Youkali” – or the “Land of Our Dreams”Joël Terrin and Cole Knutson, on the piano, have the opening tracks, with Kurt Weill’s “Youkali” (“Youkali, c’est le pays de nos désirs”) setting the overarching theme of Sehnsucht in its various cultural iterations. Weill understands it differently from Duparc, Schubert, Strauss, or Isang Yun; if anything, “Youkali” or the “Land of Our Dreams” metonymically stands for a palimpsest of sorts, a utopian projection of experiential malaise and ennui.

Terrin captures the essence of it. He gracefully molds his phrasing to the sultry habanera rhythms. His interpretation is expressive, and tastefully expands on Weill’s cabaret style, putting “Youkali” at the very fringe of traditional art songs.

One notices, for instance, the dynamic shifts and the artificial strain that highlight the transition from momentary illusion to the disenchanting trifles of reality. Though his baritone has a distinctly tenoral timbre, the same sense of sympathetic nonchalance does not transpire in “Die Forelle.” The piano’s melodic ripples, for example, only find a faint echo in Terrin’s rather too uniformly tightened delivery.

The intonation lacks playfulness, as he somewhat monolithically repeats the same pattern of accents and sentiment overall. Noticeably, the use of rubato is few and far between, as both Terrin and his pianist appear to shy away from stretching the musical facture. With Schubert, this can quickly become deleterious.

“Waldesnacht” is another example; the touch of pianist Gyeongtaek Lee is slightly too hard, and his tempi are inordinately fast (comparable only to Leif Ove Andsnes, with Ian Bostridge). They tend to strap the piece’s constitutive arches into a rhythmic corset. It still allows for a relatively unpretentious rendition; yet deeply introspective it is not.

Lee and Jeeyoung Lim do better, as a pair, with the music of Duparc and – mostly – Isang Yun, whose floating sonorities do not provide so much as a conventional key structure or, for that matter, rhythmic motion. The piano writing has percussive undertones, and Yun’s sinuous, if not unstable, lines are pushing the two out of their comfort zone. As such, “Traditional Outfit” requires an uncanny elasticity (for lack of a better word) to which Lim’s grainy, cavernous bass-baritone forms an ever so stirring contrast.

Free of formalistic constraint then, the duo comes into its own.Untapped UtopiaEmma Roberts, on the contrary, is more liberal with the tempi imparted by her accompanist, Emma Cayeux. None feel rushed, and while their performance of “Befreit” is about half a minute faster than Geoffrey Parsons’, for Jessye Norman, it does not appear to hamper the unfolding of Strauss’ lyrical sweep.

Its drawbacks, if any, pertain to the physiological limits of a voice that captivates inasmuch as it evades vocal categorization; yet it also does not quite possess the ease that would enable it to weightlessly float on the melodic line. One may regret, for instance, a slight strain trying to hold together the ever expanding phrase on “Du hast sie bereitet.” Instead, Roberts’ natural inclinations seem more congenial to the dramatic than to the ethereal.

Accordingly, Sibelius’ “Flickan kom” provides a fairer measure of her flourishing capabilities.The intersection with the operatic is prolonged in “Was Du mir bist.” The first of Korngold’s “Drei Lieder,” it is rich in harmonic shifts, and its sentiment replicates much of the moribundity from “Die tote Stadt.

” Iida Antola picks up on its pitfalls, the balance between power and intimacy, and the sweltering melancholy seconded by Anni Laukkanen, on the piano. Their dialoguing works fine, and the delivery is sprinkled with quite an empathetic – one might say, anachronistic – flutter to the soprano voice. Yet if a fil rouge there is, it lies in the interpretation, ad litteram, of musical, notational shackles that time and again, prevent “Le pays de nos désirs” from realizing its utopian potential.

After all, the Orsay-Royaumont Academy is but a stepping stone on the long and meandering paths to “Youkali” – the “Land of Our Dreams.”The post CD Review: B-records’ ‘Le pays de nos désirs’ appeared first on OperaWire..