What you're about to read is a collection of pointers to some of the music I've discovered on the iTunes Music Store, music I like enough that I want to share it. If you're an iPod owner and an iTunes fan (and if you aren't, what are you doing here?), maybe you'll find something new. Click on any of the CD covers to bounce over to the store and sample a few tracks. And then maybe stop by my other blog for a few well chosen words (and maybe a random snark or two).RSS feed
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Mon, 17 Oct 2005

Golijov: Ayre & Berio: Folksongs / Dawn Upshaw & Andalucian Dogs
Even in miniature, cover art matters. This is a case in point; the little bit of Hebrew and Arabic on the cover got my attention and made me curious. I'd heard of Dawn Upshaw, an operatic soprano I knew for her appearances on National Public Radio, often over some popular music project. So I didn't know what to expect; would this be classical music or something more accessible?

A little of both, as it turned out. Ayre, a new work by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, combines Jewish, Arab Christian and Palestinian source material into a work for orchestra and Ms. Upshaw's voice. With so many influences, it's hard to characterize: sometimes gentle, sometimes wistful, sometimes soaring. Folksongs is an older but similar work by Luciano Berio, who took traditional songs from the U.S., France, Italy, Armenia and Azerbeidjan and assembled them into a torture test for the vocalist but not, thankfully, for the audience. Both compositions move between strange and familiar almost from moment to moment.

And no, in case you were wondering, I didn't know any of this before I started writing this review. Amazing what you can find with a Google search or two. Or, in this case, twelve...

Golijov: Ayre & Berio: Folksongs
[ Category: Classical | 1 comment | Link ]


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