The countertenor makes a guitar album, while the Brooklyn foursome mix madrigals and minimalism in lockdown
An album full of pleasures’: Philippe Jaroussky, left, and Thibaut
Garcia. Photograph: James Bort
In their first joint album, À sa guitare (Erato), the French duo of
star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and classical guitarist Thibaut Garcia
give their eloquent take on music from the Renaissance to the late 20th
century. Drawing on French, Spanish, Italian and English repertoire, their
recital bursts with the unexpected: the pure sound of Jaroussky, who always
sings in the falsetto register and is best known for his expertise in baroque
opera, taking on the four characters of Schubert’s Erlkönig, Garcia’s dextrous
ingenuity making you quite forget that his thunderous part was written for
piano; the startling segue from a solo guitar piece by the Brazilian Dilermando
Reis (1916-77) to Mozart’s elegiac evening song Abendempfindung, K523.
There’s much more, from Poulenc and Fauré to
Rossini, Lorca, Purcell, Dowland and Britten. I am always dubious about the
concept of late-night music, but the pair’s smoky, sensuous version of
September by the Parisian singer Barbara has forced a rethink. Purists – do
they still exist? – might shudder at this elegant merry-go-round, but for the
rest of us this is an album full of pleasures.
The
Attacca Quartet, exuberant New Yorkers who play to the highest standard and
bring fresh perspectives to the string quartet repertoire, have mixed
Renaissance music and 20th-century minimalism on their new album, Of All Joys
(Sony). The title, appropriate for a lockdown endeavour, comes from John
Downland’s lute song Flow My Tears (Lachrimae): “And tears and sighs and groans
my weary days/ Of all joys have deprived” – included here in its softly anguished
instrumental version.
Close contemporaries of Dowland also feature:
the Miserere of Gregorio Allegri, in this arrangement, metamorphosing into a
wistful, prolonged contemplation; the madrigal Weep O Mine Eyes by John Bennet
newly poignant without the original text or voices. In complement and
contrast, Philip Glass’s well-known String Quartet No 3 “Mishima” is the
centrepiece, with Arvo Pärt’s Summa to open the disc and, as a hushed adieu,
his Fratres. Thoughtful and rewarding throughout.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/04/philippe-jaroussky-thibaut-garcia-a-sa-guitar-review-attacca-quartet-of-all-joys-mark-anthony-turnage-composer-of-week
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