De Pasión Mortal - Songs from Two Golden Ages
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Linn Records
Magazine Review Date: 08/2024
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 73
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CKD746
![CKD746. De Pasión Mortal - Songs from Two Golden Ages](https://reviews.azureedge.net/gramophone/media-thumbnails/CKD746.jpg)
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Te recuerdo Amanda |
Victor Jara, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Silencio |
Rafael Hernandez Marín, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Cucurrucucú paloma |
Tomas Méndez, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Tempo la cetra |
Claudio Monteverdi, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
(An) Evening Hymn on a Ground, 'Now that the sun hath veil'd his light' |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Preludio |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: If love's a sweet passion |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
(9) Fantasias, Movement: G, Z742 |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Wedding Ode, 'From hardy climes and dangerous toil |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
In the black dismal dungeon of despair |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Birthday Ode, 'Now does the glorious day appear', Movement: By Beauteous Softness Mix'd with Majesty |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
O! fair Cederia, hide those eyes |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Alfonsina y el mar |
Ariel & Felix Ramirez & Luna, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
La gaviota |
Silvio Rodriguez, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Hoy mi deber |
Silvio Rodriguez, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Ojalá |
Silvio Rodriguez, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Óleo de mujer con sombrero |
Silvio Rodriguez, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Retrato de un médico violinista |
Nico Rojas, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Archlute Music for a While Nicholas Mulroy, Tenor Toby Carr, Guitars |
Author: William Yeoman
Reminiscent of the cross-cultural crossover projects of L’Arpeggiata and Hespèrion XXI, this imaginative, deliciously sombre recording brings together 17th-century English and Italian Baroque and 20th-century Latin American songs whose composers and poets find common ground in love and war. All the Latin American songs here, such as Jara’s ‘Te recuerdo Amanda’ and Méndez’s ‘Cucurrucucú paloma’, are iconic and have been performed over the decades by singers as various as Joan Baez, Caetano Veloso and Mercedes Sosa. The direct simplicity of words and music often belies darker personal and political undercurrents.
For example, in ‘Te recuerdo Amanda’, the story of two young lovers snatching intimate moments during lunchbreaks before they are parted as the man is called to arms reflects Jara’s painful separation from his wife. By contrast, the subjects of the texts set by Monteverdi and Purcell are more classically idealised, more remote, even abstract. It is the music that moves them down to earth, moving our passions in the process.
Not just the music, but tenor Nicholas Mulroy’s glorious singing, the diction clear, the phrasing natural, the voice supple and multi-hued. Just listen to Purcell’s ‘By beauteous softness’, its affective languor contrasting with Mulroy’s crisp dramatisation of the composer’s ‘In the black dismal dungeon of despair’.
The Latin American material is just as successful, and perhaps even more compelling for being presented in such a novel context: witness Mulroy’s lucid tenderness in ‘Cucurrucucú paloma’, Marín’s bolero ‘Silencio’ and Silvio Rodríguez’s ‘La gaviota’, with which the programme ends.
Toby Carr (modern and baroque guitars and theorbo) and Elizabeth Kenny (archlute, baroque guitar and theorbo) transcend stylistic categories to bring surprising colours, expressive textures and a wistful intimacy to the songs, whether solo or together. The aptly named quartet of strings Music for a While aren’t heard often enough. But when they are, as in the Purcell ritornelli, their eloquence is dazzling.
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