Affinity March 2015

Pianist Julia Hülsmann and singer Theo Bleckmann, in a first – and long-awaited – collaborative recording, celebrate the “unsung Weill” alongside the master’s best-loved works including “Mack The Knife”, “Speak Low” and “September Song”, adding also Julia’s settings of Walt Whitman, with whom Kurt Weill felt an affinity. The project came together at the instigation of the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau in 2013 and since then has gained new life on the road and been fine-tuned in this studio recording made in Oslo in June 2014 with Manfred Eicher as producer. It marks a musical advance for the Hülsmann group at a number of levels, and these recastings of Weill open up new imaginative possibilities for the players. English trumpeter and flugelhornist Tom Arthurs, who made his debut with Hülsmann on In Full View is fully integrated on A Clear Midnight.

Royal PO's performance is outstanding in many ways. Menuhin has deep understanding of Elgar's music and its innermost yearning. Every movement displays his genuine affinity with the inspiration and characterisation of the music. Tempi are perfectly judged throughout, the famous 9th variation Nimrod, for example, is neither too fast nor too slow, achieving maximum grandeur and dramatic effect without losing forward momentum. The fast variations are bursting with energy and verve, the slow variations are played with amazing subtlely and heart warming intimacy. The additional organ in the last variation amplifies the scale of the monumental finale.

Emanuel Moór was a composer, a pianist and organist, who was discovered by Pablo Casals and had a remarkable career as a composer in his own era. The composer‘s attraction towards the cello can also be attributed to Casals and the famous cellist, Anatoly Brandukov. According to expert opinions he had a special flair for composing for this instrument and his affinity was paired with extraordinary productivity.

Possibly the biggest success story in the history of Finnish heavy metal, Nightwish celebrated their second chart-topping album in their homeland with 2002's Century Child, which eventually collected numerous awards and went double platinum (60,000 units in Finland) within a year of release. The group's fourth LP overall, Century Child wisely repeated its predecessors' winning characteristics: symphony-enhanced power metal laced with accessible pop sensibilities (mostly straightforward song structures and romantic lyrics), distinguished by the operatic voice of classically trained singer Tarja Turunen…

On his third solo effort, Eric Vloeimans employs a similar post-Miles Davis approach to the trumpet as Wynton Marsalis. Featuring pointillistic compositions accented by slippery diminished runs, Bitches and Fairy Tales is a nice drink of fuzzy, straight-ahead jazz with Vloeimans often adding a little avant-garde triple sec into the mix. While comparable to Marsalis in his use of operatic bent tones punctuated by the occasional growl, Vloeimans more often settles into his warm, foggy tone like another trumpeter who had an affinity for the Netherlands, Chet Baker. Backing Vloeimans on piano is the Bill Evans-influenced Brit John Taylor. Joey Baron on drums and Marc Johnson on bass round out the group.