Nachtigall

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Birdsong, a fascinating crossgender exploration of art songs associated with the female voice by baritone Roderick Williams, accompanied by pianist Andrew West. The recital features signature songs from the height of Romanticism by Brahms and Clara and Robert Schumann alongside a more recent quartet of sensuous songs by Sally Beamish. In his revealing foreword, Williams recalls having his choice of Brahms’s Sapphische Ode refused by competition organisers because it was “a woman’s song”. Returning recently to the work prompted him to question why some songs are considered gender specific. Birdsong is his response.

Simon Keenlyside has the instrument, the technique, and the intelligence required of great lieder singers. His burnished baritone is large, but he can deploy it with tenderness, as well as power, and he has the flexibility to bring a broad array of colors to the songs' varied moods. This is especially impressive in Schumann's Dichterliebe, where the songs have an emotional arc with an implied narrative, and Keenlyside captures the mercurial shifts with passion and integrity. Even in a song as brief as "Ich grolle nicht," the subtlety of the lover's evolving feelings come across honestly and with precision.

Rudolf Buchbinder, the doyen of Austrian pianists, plays Max Reger’s rarely heard, lovingly crafted transcriptions of his idol Johannes Brahms’s most beautiful lieder, about which Reger said: “In the case of such masterpieces, any embellishment and any attempt to introduce a note of brilliance would be an unheard-of act of vandalism. I mean to adopt a different approach by bringing out the vocal line and, where possible, retaining the original accompaniment in the most faithful way that I can!”

The stage name of German actress and musician Senta-Sofia Delliponti, Oonagh (the name is derived from a legendary faerie queen of Celtic origins) specializes in evocative, new age, Celtic-infused, fantasy dance-pop…