Songs from Japan and Europe — a relationship in music (TYXart)
★★★★☆
🎧 TYXart
Like each reviewer I like surprises, and nothing has shocked me extra in a month of Easter Sundays than this delicate and good pairing of Japanese and Viennese classical songs. The album notes are skimpy and largely in Japanese so I’m guessing right here, however I’ll credit score the choice of songs in addition to the efficiency to Misaki Kobayashi, apparently a soprano within the Berlin radio choir.
The pairings are so good they’re virtually symbiotic. Kobayashi opens with a springtime music by Rentaro Taki (1879-1903) and matches it with Beethoven’s little-sung Ich liebe dich. Who’d have thought? It really works brilliantly.
Subsequent up is similar spring theme composed by Akira Nakada (born 1951) and W. A. Mozart. I preferred the Nakada significantly better. It had extra zest. One other chap known as Nakada is twinned with a Zemlinsky waltz. Keep in mind Zemlinsky? Arnold Schoenberg’s solely trainer. It simply will get higher and higher.
If I used to be an enterprising impresario in Berlin I’d be pulling Misaki Kobayashi out of that radio choir and giving her a solo recital, or a job within the workplace. Or taking her to dinner. She has a really unique thoughts and a candy, gentle soprano voice with no trace of wobble. The pianist is Matthias Veil and the label is off the overwhelmed observe, in a village known as Nittendorf.
Surprises all spherical.
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Norman Lebrecht is among the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s a daily presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning towards human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.