Laura Aiken - Vocal Works with Orchestra - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

ORF Vienna Radio Chorus - Missa Brevis [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/17/2000

No time of day has presumably been set to music more often than the nighttime. On this album violinist Elena Denisova and pianist Alexei Kornienko are featuring nocturnal works of the 20th and 21st century. Canto crepuscolare by Gian Francesco Malipiero, dating from 1908, is still a playful impressionist composition, while the Nocturne for violin and piano by John Cage (1947) rather revels the silence. A calm and melancholic vision is painted by Helmut Rogls Ein Traum zur halben Nacht (A Dream at Midnight, 1986), whereas Notturno (2007) by Michael Colina and Incubus, Fantasy for violin, piano and electronics (2020/21) by Alfred Huber depict the eerie and scary traits of nighttime. Like the work by Huber, Durch die Nacht (Through the Night) for violin and pre-recorded electroacoustics by Dieter Kaufmann (2020/21) as well as all the darkness we can hear - all the silence we can see (2020/21) by Oscar Jockel are world premiere recordings.

Soprano Laura Catrani's highly personal journey into the world of solo voice writing continues with a new, singular project. After the widespread acclaim for Vox in Bestia, a Dante-inspired project born in 2021, Vox in femina is now released again by Stradivarius. The album, with the exception of the famous Sequenza III for female voice by Luciano Berio and Stripsody by Cathy Berberian, which respectively open and close the listening experience, brings together a range of pieces by contemporary Italian composers written especially for her. In particular, the album features original works by Leonardo Marino, Alessandro Solbiati, Matteo Franceschini, Federico Gardella, Paolo Marchettini, Fabrizio de Rossi Re, and Daniela Fantechi. A listening journey that suggests new points of interest and becomes a surprising exploration of contemporary production dedicated to vocality, accompanied by the personal interpretation of Laura Catrani, an artist who has undertaken important research and is considered by critics to be a reference voice for chamber music, twentieth-century, and contemporary repertoire.