vilaine fille alter ego Marion Lignana Rosenberg picked Newsday's top ten CD's of 2005. Here is the Newsday link; below is the text of the article, with postscripts and extras—in particular, links to Barnes & Noble for your shopping convenience. (I also chose three of the top classical performances of 2005; more on those later.)
1. Song of the Lodz Ghetto. Brave Old World (Winter & Winter)
This haunting work interweaves songs of hope and defiance from Lodz, where some 250,000 Jews awaited slaughter during World War II, with musical glosses by klezmer and new Jewish music band Brave Old World. Plaintive yet also a kick in the teeth of death, it is the must-have CD of 2005.
P.S. This recording is so powerful and moving that I can barely compose sentences about it. You must hear it. At one point, I hid it in my scarf drawer for several weeks because the music was burning a hole in my heart.
I need more time to organize my thoughts about Song of the Lodz Ghetto, but in the meantime, please listen to excerpts at Brave Old World's website. Read Ruth Ellen Gruber's beautiful IHT article about the disc, the JVL entry on the Lodz Ghetto, and the Jerusalem Post report on a new book of poems and short stories by Avraham Cytryn, who was imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto before being gassed in Auschwitz. I invite you, too, to check out an illuminating article by Alan Bern of Brave Old World, From Klezmer to New Jewish Music.
2. Schubert: Die Winterreise. Russell Braun, Carolyn Maule (CBC)
A searching musician, Braun also has one of the world's most beautiful baritone voices. He brings a poet's soul and a young man's bewildered grief to Schubert's shattering cycle of solitude and loss.
P.S. How does this Winterreise compare with other versions? Don't ask me: I can barely live through Die Winterreise once. Twice in a row would finish me off, and sampling is out of the question.
Braun's sound does not have the cragginess of a Hotter or a Hynninen, or even the stealthy darkness that vilaine fille's darling husband brings to these songs. It is a younger man's voice, warm and soulful, wedded to a great heart and blissfully poised artistry. And there's no pecking at words, either—just poetry and heartbreak and gorgeous music-making.
3. Mugam Sayagi: Music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)
Azerbaijani composer Ali-Zadeh inhabits an enthralling sound-world, where the drip of water and the murmur of the wind can rip open into thick, shuddering surges of chaos. As played by Kronos and friends, her music challenges, unnerves and thrills.
P.S. I reviewed this disc for TONY.
I am so looking forward to Kronos's Notes from Azerbaijan concert at Zankel in March!
4. Campra, Couperin: Salve Regina. Les Arts Florissants (Virgin)
This program of 17th century "petits motets"—liturgical works for solo voice and continuo—shows that less really is more. Spare and (with one exception) shadowy, inward yet smoldering with piety, they mesmerize, wrought of sighs and whispers by tenor Paul Agnew, William Christie at the organ and a handful of inspired soloists.
P.S. If you know and love the viol suites of Marais and Saint-Colombe and Charpentier's Leçons de ténèbres—music that ravishes vilaine fille's soul—you will adore this CD.
5. Puccini: Tosca. Mstislav Rostropovich, Orchestre National de France (DG)
Other recordings of Tosca get the hype, but this darkly passionate 1976 set, available on CD for the first time, may top them all. As tender as she is imperious, Galina Vishnevskaya makes sparks fly opposite Franco Bonisolli's red-blooded Cavaradossi and Matteo Manuguerra's suave and sinister Scarpia.
P.S. I normally wouldn't include a reissue on a year-end best-of list, but this Tosca smokes, oozing sex and blood and shadowy menace. It's the only recording that made both my Newsday ranking and my USItalia holiday gift guide. Though the packaging is appalling and the sound is rather hissy, you'd be a fool to pass up this set.
6. Du temps et de l'instant. Jordi Savall (AliaVox)
The peerless violist Savall and a consort of family and friends offer a ravishing selection of Renaissance vocal and instrumental music, Catalán and Sephardic melodies, jazzy improvisations, and dances from Afghanistan and around the Mediterranean. Exquisitely performed, as motley and unpredictable as life itself, this program bewitches from first note to last.
P.S. Don't you just love how someone got Georges de la Tour to photograph Maestro Savall?
One French critic sniffed that this is Maestro Savall's first "pop" CD. Yeah, whatever. I leave casuistry to others: I don't hear what separates Die schöne Müllerin from In the Wee Small Hours or Want Two; or how Der fliegende Holländer is fundamentally different from South Pacific ("there ain't nothing like a dame!"). Call it what you will: Du temps et de l'instant is a program of seductive, hip-swinging, infinitely refined music.
7. Baltic Voices 3. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Harmonia Mundi)
Paul Hillier leads this superbly sung program of works mostly from the past decade. They range from Kaija Saariaho's intoxicating "Nuits, adieux," which layers trills, hisses and inchoate moans, to Erkki-Sven Tüür's "Meditatio" for choir and saxophone quartet, whose gasping rhythms and dense harmonies depict humanity's fraught encounter with the divine.
P.S. When will the Met perform Saariaho's L'amour de loin, preferably with Russell Braun as Jaufré Rudel? (Gerald Finley would do quite nicely, too.) And who wants to go with me to Paris in the spring to hear Adriana mater? (Pipe dreams, alas—though it looks like there will be a France Musique broadcast. Vive la France !)
8. Bach: The Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Gidon Kremer (ECM)
Going on 300 years old, Bach's violin sonatas and partitas traverse soundscapes that shock, disorient and command unconditional awe. Beautiful but never ingratiating, scorching yet also austere, Kremer's playing captures the eternal newness of Bach's music.
P.S. I refer you once again to brother Charles's magisterial review of this set. (In addition to the recordings that he and brother Jens recommend, may I put in a good word for Henryk Szeryng's spacious and meditative reading?)
9. Reflejo Medieval. Alexandra Montano (One Soul)
Mezzo-soprano Montano lavishes luscious, pliant tone on troubadour and sacred songs from the 13th century. Whether keening and sighing over a departed lover or soaring in praise of the Virgin Mary, she is eloquently supported by an ensemble including oud (lute), bansuri (bamboo flute), and rabeca (violin) that evokes the Arab roots of European music.
P.S. I reviewed this CD for TONY. The link above is to the One Soul website, where you can hear excerpts from this bewitching disc. One caveat: There is a d*mn twittering bird on one track. It's tasteless, and it makes the feline of whom I am blessed to be the biped claw at my Celestions.
10. Reich: You Are (Variations). Gershon, Los Angeles Master Chorale (Nonesuch)
Steve Reich's "You Are (Variations)" stirs up a dizzying cloud of sound through which peek marimba and vibraphone splashes and gnomic texts on the nature of time and thought. The tense, driving "Cello Counterpoint" for soloist and seven pre-recorded tracks is forcefully played by Maya Beiser.
P.S. I have to catch a train. While the CD length is skimpy, this is prickly, jabbing, challenging music—great stuff.
*blush*
v.f.
Posted by: vilaine fille | 30 December 2005 at 21:17
No, nothing like that. I just
meant you're so wonderful, and
if you've already been scooped
up by Mr. Famous singer guy,
it would be too unfair.
Posted by: Tom Clear | 30 December 2005 at 18:36
Why do you say that? Have you been mean to Jos van Dam? If so, I will track you down and pound nails into your head. (I mean that in the nicest possible way, a va sans dire !)
Posted by: vilaine fille | 30 December 2005 at 06:56
Whew! What a relief!
Posted by: Tom Clear | 29 December 2005 at 18:52
Yes. Jos van Dam really is my husband, and my parents are Dalida and Paolo Conte. John Kerry and John Edwards are President and Vice President of the United States, and hot man-love rules the land. Tino Martinez, Andy Pettite, and Alfonso Soriano never left the Yankees, who have reigned as world champions since 1998.
Wouldn't it be nice?
Posted by: vilaine fille | 28 December 2005 at 02:20
Oh my! Are you really married
to Jose van Dam?
Posted by: Tom Clear | 27 December 2005 at 18:10