Jed Wentz - Bach in Berlin - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Denny Zeitlin - Stairway to the Stars [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/08/2014

The melodrama, a genre combining recitation with music, flourished with particular vigor at the dawn of the 20th century. By that time, it had outgrown it's original 18th-century form no longer simply alternating between music and speech, late 19th-century melodramas (and their descendants) mainly consisted of texts declaimed over a nearly continuous and elaborate musical accompaniment. To avoid being overwhelmed by the accompaniment and yet remain declamation as opposed to singing, the vocal part requires a particular style and great skill, as described by composer Stanley Hawley in an essay titled Recitation-music (1912) InchAny colloquial quality of voice is undesirable, and is strongly to be condemned; something more than mere speaking is required for success. The natural conversational tones of the voice do not blend with the pianoforte, for a thin speaking voice has not sufficient body of it's own to afford support to a musical accompaniment, and moreover, cannot impart strength of rhythm to the poem. [...] The quality of the voice required is that golden mean between speaking and singing, which does not possess the monotony of a chant nor the affectation of what is best described as 'sing-song', but that sympathetic tone that can be colored by the soul; for the tone expresses feeling, words define it.Inch Wentz and Belogurov have taken Hawley's advice to heart, searching out in the melodrama a dual art that merges words with music in the hope of revealing just how moving the genre can be, why it was so popular, and how it may be revived today.

2020... Sitting at home with no performances ahead brought Linus Roth back to his notebooks, in which he had been jotting down random musical ideas over the course of many years. One of them that suddenly struck him, was an idea for a recording program made up of some of his most beloved pieces for violin and piano, all of which had in common both a virtuoso character and that they were all dances. What better way to lift the spirits than with dance music? Linus called his long term musical partner, pianist José Gallardo and five weeks later, they had the remarkable opportunity to record the album in the visually stunning and acoustically unique Library of the former monastery in Ochsenhausen, Germany, home of the Music Academy of Baden-Württemberg.