Sabine Jemeljanovna

This release by hot French soprano Sabine Devieilhe has multiple strengths that propelled it onto the charts right out of the box, so to speak. Appreciation for Devieilhe's manifest vocal gifts should not obscure the superb work done by recording and mixing engineer Hugues Deschaux, working in the Salle de répétition no. 1 of the Philharmonie de Paris. Especially on the orchestral tracks featuring the group Les Siècles under François-Xavier Roth, Deschaux creates a mysterious sound environment in which Devieilhe seems to hover alluringly in the distance.

28 mai 1996. Sabine Dardenne, 12 ans, est enlevée par Marc Dutroux sur le chemin de l'école. Ce monstre a déjà tué quatre enfants. Ce que va subir Sabine Dardenne est effroyable. Pourtant, après quatre-vingts jours d'horreur, elle va être sauvée de la mort dans des circonstances extraordinaires. Sabine Dardenne a attendu huit ans pour nous raconter ce qu'elle a subi …

Christian Wolff was once the baby of the New York School, only 19 when he cast his lot with John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown; in 2008, he is the last man standing. Solo piano music is central to Wolff's output, and on Neos' Christian Wolff: Piano Pieces, German pianist Sabine Liebner performs a nice cross section of his efforts in this medium from 1969 to 2006. It takes a pianist with some amount of insight to realize Wolff's compositions, all to some degree open ended, and he does not spell out all of the details.

As its title suggests, John Cage's ASLSP is to be played "as slow as possible," though this sparse keyboard work could take anywhere from the 64:05 timing Sabine Liebner gives it on this Neos release, to the 639 years it is calculated to last in the much-publicized performance given on the organ in St. Burchard Church in Halberstadt, Germany. Because Liebner takes this piece at a comparatively brisk tempo, it is possible to detect some shape in the work, and to feel a degree of connectedness in it, even though each pitch or chord is separated by extremely long silences.

Morton Feldman's late period was characterized by works dedicated to friends, his "For …" pieces. One of the best-known and most frequently performed is the piano piece For Bunita Marcus, who was a composition student of his. The work consists of single notes and short patterns of notes spatially notated, without precise rhythmic values. The effect is of a very leisurely improvisation, using a limited number of pitches, played in apparently random manner over the whole expanse of the keyboard. Listeners expecting a structured musical experience governed by conventional musical logic would probably find the piece infuriatingly scattered and pointless.