CD Review: Sonya Yoncheva’s ‘George’

George Sand is like the epitome of Parisian intellectualism: a writer, feminist, socialite, and revolutionary whose ideals resonate with compassion and societal optimism that made her an aspirational figure to the progressively oriented middle-class. Her legacy is manifold, and her alliance with spearhead musicians, including Chopin and Pauline Viardot, has greatly influenced her esteem among like-minded posterity. Sonya Yoncheva, for {…}

CD Review: Hänssler Classic’s ‘Blagoje Bersa: Lieder/Songs’

Unknown, perhaps, to a vast majority of concertgoers, Blagoje Bersa (1873-1934) ranks as a seminal figure in Croatian national musicography. His compositions, including orchestral music, opera, songs, exude all the frenzied sophistication of fin-de-siècle eclecticism that Marija Kuntaric, in her monograph on Bersa, derives “from the cantabile Italian melody, then the various masters of German Romanticism (Wagner, Mahler, R. Strauss) {…}

CD Review: George Benjamin & Martin Crimp’s ‘Picture a day like this’

Every six years or so, we’re gifted with an operatic gem from composer George Benjamin and playwright Martin Crimp. Their fourth and latest collaboration, “Picture a day like this,” is a revelation. This live recording, released by Nimbus Records, features the composer conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the work’s 2023 Aix-en-Provence Festival premiere. While Benajmin and Crimp’s colleagues on {…}

CD Review: Rachel Fenlon’s ‘Winterreise’

Rachel Fenlon’s “Winterreise” is quite extraordinary for many reasons. First, Schubert’s famously melancholy cycle was originally written for tenor, and though frequently transcribed for baritonal depths or even bass, its interpretation history remains confined largely to male voices. Secondly, Fenlon achieves a high degree of German Innerlichkeit, that somewhat obscure, culturally rooted feeling of inward expressiveness which so pervaded the {…}