Kirkby

Emma Kirkby, doyenne of the Early Music scene, here shows that she's just as comfortable in music of a more recent vintage. Amy Beach was a woman ahead of her time, performing as solo pianist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra by the age of 18. The same year (1885), she married Henry Beach and, no longer able to perform publicly (it would have gone against her social status), she instead settled down to composing. And delightful stuff it is, too, as Kirkby and friends demonstrate in this charming recital. A number of the songs add violin, cello, or both to the piano and voice combination. "Ecstasy," for instance, has a most effective violin part that is an ideal foil to the purity of Kirkby's voice. Other highlights include the Schumannesque Browning Songs and the amiable Shakespeare Songs (the last of which, "Fairy Lullaby," is irresistible). The final item here, "Elle et moi," is an upbeat little number that suits Kirkby's lithe soprano to perfection. Occasionally, in some of the more lushly textured songs, such as "A Mirage" and "Stella Viatoris," perhaps a fuller voice would have been preferable, but then sample "Chanson d'amour" (written when Beach was only 21 and with a wonderful cello part in addition to the piano) and try to imagine it being better sung. The purely instrumental items are played with unfailing sensitivity and elegance. The Romance is straight out of the salon, while the much later Piano Trio (though actually based on early material) packs plenty of emotion and variety into its 14 minutes. The recording is exemplary, as are the concise notes and texts and translations.

Widely considered as one of the leading exponents in early music, Emma Kirkby is renowned for her purity of production, clarity of diction and extraordinary degree of vocal control. From this release it is obvious that Emma Kirkby's artistic vigour and sense of discovery are undiminished. Alongside her incomparable performances of well-loved works such as Bach's cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, she uses the esteem in which she is held by musicians and audiences alike to champion long-forgotten repertory such as William Hayes's The Passions. Emma is accompanied by Cantillation and the Orchestra of the Antipodes conducted by Antony Walker.

When English soprano Emma Kirkby began her professional career in the mid-'70s, period performance practice was just beginning to make its way into the realm of vocal music. Kirkby, mentored by Jessica Cash, became a pioneer of period practice for Renaissance and Baroque vocal soloists. She studied classical literature at Oxford and took vocal lessons, but did not plan on becoming a singer. She joined the Taverner Choir in 1971, and a couple of years later, she began a long-lasting collaboration with the Consort of Musicke.[ [/quote]

Yes indeed, the Divine Miss Em has still got it. It was the late 1970s when Emma Kirkby first became the leading diva of the early-music revival. More than 20 years on, as this disc of mostly lesser-known Handel treats demonstrates–a follow-up to volume I–Kirkby remains a spectacular Handel singer. The pure tone, control over vibrato, astonishing agility, and immaculate delivery that made her world famous are all still in place; if anything, two decades of experience have made her even more brave and imaginative in the way she embellishes a da capo aria. It must be said that Kirkby also retains a somewhat restricted palette of vocal color. As Ted Perry of Hyperion Records has put it, "She sounds like a nice person, and she is."

Emma Kirkby - Magnificat - Orchestra of the Antipodes, Cantillation, Antony Walker (2006) {ABC Official Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (prestoclassical.co.uk) -> 308 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 148 Mb
Full Artwork (jpg+pdf) -> 5 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2006 ABC Classics | ABC4765255
Classical / Vocal Music / Choral / Baroque

Widely considered as one of the leading exponents in early music, Emma Kirkby is renowned for her purity of production, clarity of diction and extraordinary degree of vocal control. From this release it is obvious that Emma Kirkby's artistic vigour and sense of discovery are undiminished. Alongside her incomparable performances of well-loved works such as Bach's cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, she uses the esteem in which she is held by musicians and audiences alike to champion long-forgotten repertory such as William Hayes's The Passions. Emma is accompanied by Cantillation and the Orchestra of the Antipodes conducted by Antony Walker.

Emma Kirkby & Anthony Rooley - Honey from the Hive: Songs by John Dowland (2005) {BIS-SACD-1475}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 288 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 154 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2005 BIS Records AB | BIS-SACD-1475
Classical / Renaissance / Vocal Music / Lute

If the court of Elizabeth I could be compared to a bee-hive, John Dowland was one of its workers, tirelessly bringing in news from the Continent which he constantly visited, and as tirelessly producing the spiritual sustenance vital for the court's existence. It is this honey that Emma Kirkby and Anthony Rooley have gathered in an imaginative recital that focuses on Dowland's relationship to his various patrons – among them Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex.

BIS have come up with that seasonal rarity: the intelligent, considered and beautifully presented Christmas album. Emma Kirkby's pure tone, keen intelligence and utterly natural musicality need no introduction - she has, after all, been delighting us all for decades now. No admirer of either baroque music or Emma Kirkby will want to miss this impeccably programmed disc. The short Böddecker piece acts as a perfect warm-up. It is gentle and pure - the ideal vehicle for Kirkby's voice. Listening to the Cantatas of Alessandro Scarlatti takes us to another, altogether more exalted world.

Emma Kirkby always has been an excellent Handel singer, from her two 1985 recordings–Italian Cantatas with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (L'Oiseau Lyre) and German Arias with Charles Medlam and the London Baroque (EMI)–and 1987's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, again with the London Baroque (Harmonia Mundi) to this new, exemplary program of Latin motets. Kirkby retains a remarkably youthful sound, exhibiting all of her admired agility and intonational accuracy, but with more richness in the lower register than in her younger days.