Reginald Mobley - Solitude - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

During the long era when Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were creating the musical canon of Western Europe, the songs of African slaves resounded in the colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, expressing pain and longing, but also joy and the desire for freedom. The American countertenor Reginald Mobley - a rising figure in baroque music, notably under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner with whom he sings very regularly - and the French pianist Baptiste Trotignon, winner of numerous awards (Victoires du Jazz, Django d'Or) have combined their talents and sensibilities to celebrate these spirituals and the music of Black composers including Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) and Florence Price (1887-1953), whose beautiful transcriptions and melodies blend with Baptiste Trotignon's subtle arrangements of the famous Sometimes I feel like a motherless child or I got a robe... The melody InchBecauseInch, composed by Florence Price on a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, inspired the title of the album Because I had loved so hard (...) Because I had loved so vainly... Why this album? Because

James Gilchrist's theme for this recital, Solitude, is reflected in varied and contrasting ways by the four works. In his booklet note, he describes solitude as 'A state of being that we need, that perhaps we overlook too easily, that is harder to achieve and harder to endure and understand than we expect'. Henry Purcell's O! Solitude, my sweetest choice (in the arrangement by Benjamin Britten) focuses on twin themes of solitude the peace found in the meditative state and the pain felt by being separated from loved ones. Schubert's Einsamkeit represents the importance of solitude as an important theme in the German romantic tradition yearning for homeland, the lonely wanderer, and separated lovers appear again and again in the poetry, prose, and music of this era. In Under Alter'd Skies, Jonathan Dove explores the unwanted solitude of grief and loss. The cycle sets excerpts of In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson's response to the sudden death of his friend Arthur Hallam. The programme closes with Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs, settings of the marginal jottings of mediaeval Irish monks as they copied or illuminated manuscripts. These extraordinary texts show the anonymous men, who chose a life of solitude and devotion to God, to be every bit as human as the rest of us!

Solitude was the state I found myself in along with the rest of the world in 2020. Concerts were suddenly postponed and I was left eerily by myself at home. The following year, when the time had come to record the album, Lockdown was reinstated. Joo Yeon Sir used this period of self-reflection, to discover new works for solo violin, and to revisit firm favorites. Walking through strangely empty streets to the first recording session, she felt a raw loneliness alongside the familiar comfort of going to work with her instrument. The experience of playing was intensified. Solitude is a musical time capsule of an artist alone, overcoming the shock of being deprived of audiences, the company of fellow musicians and finding solace in the music for solo violin.