Pathos

Hans Zimmer's melancholy yet romantic The House of the Spirits captures the magic realism of Isabel Allende's source novel with a clarity absent from the accompanying film adaptation. Accenting his brooding synthesizers and ghostly strings with elements of South American music, the composer brings to life the tragic downfall of an aristocratic Chilean family with uncommonly poignant precision. Zimmer confronts head-on the human suffering at the heart of the film, and at times his richly textured themes seem to marinate in sadness. He never stoops to heart-tugging pathos or histrionics, however, instead instilling The House of the Spirits with a dignity perfectly matched to its characters.

If not at the beginning of the opera, then surely with the well-known prisoner chorus “O welche Wonne!” everybody will recognise the outstanding quality of this Fidelio. Leonore’s “Töt erst sein Weib!”, sung by the soprano Anja Silja, is only one out of many deep emotional moments of this studio production of the Hamburg State Opera, recorded in 1968 under the artistic direction by Rolf Liebermann. This very natural set and unostentatious production goes without any wrong pathos and lives through its simple beauty, strong emotions and great musical moments. A reunion with great opera stars: Anja Silja as Leonore, Lucia Popp as Marzelline, Richard Cassilly as Florestan, Hans Sotin as Don Fernando und Theo Adam as Don Pizarro.

Talented jazz pianist, but best known for her wizardry as a composer/arranger of big band music since the 1950s.
Having mastered the art of blistering speed and dynamic and then the opposing art of tonal sophistication and phrasing, by 1957 Toshiko set out to combine the approaches, making the album title more than just a random marketing move. The Many Sides of Toshiko, indeed. It might even make the best all-around introduction to her work provided you can find a copy.
The Gershwin classic ‘The Man I Love’ starts the album with a return to the swoonworthy romantic piano of ‘Laura’ off the first album - a captivating choice for the leadoff track and bookended by the choice of ‘Imagination’ for the final number…

Cosi fan tutte"Of the numerous recordings of Cosi fan tutte in the catalogue, many of them excellent, I don't think there is any that has moved me as intensely at the work's ultimate climax, the Act 2 finale, as this new one of John Eliot Gardiner's. Nowadays we recognize, of course, that Cosi is not the frivolous frolic at the expense of womankind that it was long supposed to be, but something much more serious and (in my view at least) deeply sympathetic to women. Gardiner takes much of the finale at a rather steady pace, allowing plenty of time in the canon-toast for a gorgeous sensuous interplay of these lovely young voices, then carefully pacing the E major music that follows, pointing up the alarmed G minor music after the march is heard and sustaining the tension artfully at a high level during the denouement scene: so that, when their vow of undying love and loyalty, 'Idol mio, se questo e vero', is finally reached, it carries great pathos and emotional weight, and the sense too that all are chastened by the experience is evident in the ensemble that ensues.