If You Love For Beauty - songs by John Adams, Chausson, Handel, Mahler / Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

If You Love For Beauty - songs by John Adams, Chausson

Label: Yarlung
Catalog No: YARL 14148
Format: CD
Release Date: 2012-09-25
Number of Discs: 1
Running time: 1 hr. 8 min.
Mono/Stereo: Stereo
UPC Code: 885767141483

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Notes & Reviews:

Showcasing Metropolitan Opera and GRAMMY Award-winning mezzo-soprano Cooke, and The Colburn Orchestra led by Gilad. The recording includes Mahler's "Ruckert-Lieder," the aria Am I in Your Light? from Doctor Atomic by John Adams, Chausson's sweeping Poème de l'amour et de la mer, all with full orchestra, and two Handel arias, Scherza infida and Ombra mai fu performed with chamber orchestra. The members of The Colburn Orchestra create a distinct orchestral sound (a great one), and Maestro Gilad elicits sensitive and lyrical interpretations of the repertoire. This recording won the Audio Oasis Award even before it was released, at THE SHOW in Newport, 2012.

American Record Guide, March / April 2013
Mahler's Rückert Lieder conclude the program. Her singing of those five songs is commendable. The competition is great here: many superior readings of the Mahler songs are available. The chief reason to get this is to hear a fine singer with a rich voice who shows herself at home in English, French, Italian, and German. Texts and translations and notes about the performers.

Notes & Reviews:

Recording information: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School (02/05/2012-02/07/2012).



Reviews

Mezzo's mixed bag
It is a Truth universally acknowledged, that a singer in possession of a good voice must be in want of An Album. Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke tackles music from four centuries on hers, in as many languages, with varied results. She leads off with an aria from the John Adams opera "Doctor Atomic," which brought her to wide attention at the Met and ENO--it's sung in English, so why is it completely unintelligible? Things go much better in the Chausson "Poeme," but then there's a lugubrious trudge through "Scherza Infida" by Handel, with the singer hitting all the notes and missing all the emotions. (It might help if the conductor kept a steadier pulse...) Finally, in Mahler's Ruckert Lieder, Cooke tends to finesse the softer high notes rather than sing them, but she seems more engaged here than by anything else on the disc. At least the recording is nicely engineered, the orchestra giving us plenty of detail, and only once (at the climax of the Mahler) overpowering the voice.
Submitted on 11/06/12 by Jim D. 
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Works Details

>Adams, John : Doctor Atomic :: Am I in Your Light?
  • Performer: Sasha Cooke
  • Conductor: Yehuda Gilad
  • Ensemble: Colburn Orchestra
  • Notes: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School (02/05/2012-02/07/2012)
  • Running Time: 5 min. 45 sec.
  • Period Time: Contemporary
  • Form: Opera/Operetta
  • Written: 2004-2005

>Chausson, Ernest : Poème de l'amour et de la mer, Op. 19
  • Performer: Sasha Cooke
  • Conductor: Yehuda Gilad
  • Notes: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School (02/05/2012-02/07/2012)
  • Running Time: 28 min. 15 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Vocal
  • Written: 1882-1893

>Handel, George Frideric : Ariodante :: Scherza infida
  • Performer: Sasha Cooke
  • Conductor: Yehuda Gilad
  • Notes: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School (02/05/2012-02/07/2012)
  • Running Time: 9 min. 1 sec.
  • Period Time: Baroque
  • Form: Opera/Operetta
  • Written: 1734

>Handel, George Frideric : Xerxes :: Ombra mai fù
  • Performer: Sasha Cooke
  • Conductor: Yehuda Gilad
  • Notes: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School (02/05/2012-02/07/2012)
  • Running Time: 4 min. 10 sec.
  • Period Time: Baroque
  • Written: 1738

>Mahler, Gustav : Rückert Lieder (5)
  • Performer: Sasha Cooke
  • Conductor: Yehuda Gilad
  • Notes: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School (02/05/2012-02/07/2012)
  • Running Time: 19 min. 22 sec.
  • Period Time: Post Romantic
  • Form: Vocal
  • Written: 1901-1902