Susanna Elevation

Luca Francesconi is one of the most prominent Italian composer of his generation with a substantial and varied output to his credit. The release under review provides a good idea of his output although all the works recorded here are already some ten or twenty years old. Da Capo (1986) for small ensemble is the earliest work here and is probably one of Francesconi’s best-known and most popular. It is not difficult to understand why. It is a brilliantly scored, colourful piece full of nice instrumental touches and lively rhythms, although it opens and ends in a rather subdued manner. The other works were all composed at about the same time: between 1994 and 1995. They, too, display a considerable variety of means and moods. Etymo is the most substantial both in length and in content. The title, Etymo (as in etymology) is about the search for the origin and development of language. It sets texts from various poems from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal for soprano, large ensemble and electronics. The final words are drawn from Baudelaire’s Carnets intimes.

‘The Siren’ is a fresh breath of air from Estonian singer, Susanna Aleksandra. Elegant songs celebrating the strength and charm of women, love’s infinite power to heal and accepting past errors, all infused with Susanna’s naturally warm vocals and inherent positivity. ‘The Siren’ features a wide range of original compositions, and two covers, Finnish folk song ‘A Rose of the Valley’ and the classic standard ‘Blame It On My Youth’.

On two highly praised discs, Susanna Mälkki and her players in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra have released recordings of Béla Bartók’s three scores for the stage – The Miraculous Mandarin, The Wooden Prince and Bluebeard’s Castle, all written before 1918. The team now takes on two of his late orchestral masterpieces. Composed in 1936 for the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is one of the purest examples of Bartók’s mature style, with its synthesis of folk music, classicism and modernism. One immediately striking feature is the unusual instrumentation: two string orchestras seated on opposite sides of the stage, with percussion and keyboard instruments in the middle and towards the back.

Composed in 1911, Bluebeard’s Castle is Béla Bartók’s only opera – a radical masterpiece which has secured a place alongside the other innovative music dramas of the same period, from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande to Berg’s Wozzeck. Planning to write a one-act opera, Bartók settled on a libretto by Béla Balázs with the kind of surreal and/or macabre themes that would soon feature in his two ballets, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin.

The Bangles are an American pop rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1981. The band recorded several singles that reached the U.S. Top 10 during the 1980s, including "Manic Monday" (1986); "Walk Like an Egyptian" (1986); "A Hazy Shade of Winter" (1987); "In Your Room" (1989); and "Eternal Flame" (1989). The band's classic line-up consisted of founding members Susanna Hoffs (vocals and rhythm guitar), Debbi Peterson (drums and vocals), and Vicki Peterson (lead guitar and vocals), together with Michael Steele (bass and vocals).[3] As of June 2018, the band consisted of Hoffs, Debbi and Vicki Peterson, and bassist Annette Zilinskas.

Composed in 1911, Bluebeard’s Castle is Béla Bartók’s only opera – a radical masterpiece which has secured a place alongside the other innovative music dramas of the same period, from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande to Berg’s Wozzeck. Planning to write a one-act opera, Bartók settled on a libretto by Béla Balázs with the kind of surreal and/or macabre themes that would soon feature in his two ballets, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin. The main source for the libretto text was a play by Maeterlinck, a retelling of Perrault’s gruesome tale of Barbe-Bleue, the sinister yet strangely seductive wife-killer.