Fatma Stated: Lieder (Warner Classics)
★★★★★
The Egyptian soprano, based mostly in London and Berlin, had a mixture of Western and Arabic classical songs on her debut album, illustrating musical connections across the Mediterranean. Her ease in each ethnicities was enviable. To alter tracks from microtonal maqam precision to the lushness of Ravel’s Shéhérezade was a hair-raising act of cultural transcendence, achieved with out a hair misplaced.
Fatma Stated’s new album is pure German: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. Laborious to inform which she adores most. The opening observe, ‘Ständchen’, has an arresting liquidity, solely to be outshone by ‘Auf dem Wasser zu Singen’. Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Suleika’ has genuine romanticism, irrefutable in its naive analogy of younger lovers and the west wind. Fanny Mendelssohn’s much less acquainted ‘Suleika’ gives a pin-perfect counterpoint, as apt as it’s recent.
I believed Brahms’s ‘Immer leiser’ may be my favorite observe, just for it to be outdated by Schumann’s ‘Liebeslied’. Reduce to the chase: whoever signed off the working order on this choice has immaculate style. Three excellent pianists are credited with accompaniment – Malcolm Martineau, Yonatan Cohen and Joseph Middleton – together with the Arod Quartet, evergreen clarinetist Sabine Meyer, harpist Anneleen Lenaerts, a male refrain and baritone Huw Montague Rendall. Fairly a crowd, however no jostling.
It appears like music-making in a Biedermeier drawing room.
Having written this evaluation, I discover myself replaying one track or different every morning for sheer sensual pleasure. Not because the younger Bryn Terfel have I so cherished a recital album. Don’t delay: pay money for a duplicate earlier than everybody else raves about it.
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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 in opposition to human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.
