Various Artists - Summer s Distillation - Music & Performance - CD

Product information for Various Artists - Summer s Distillation - Music & Performance - CD

With SUMMER S DISTILLATION Joseph Summer as composer offers a new look at the timeless texts credited to William Shakespeare. As artistic director Summer presents settings by Brahms R. Schumann and Benjamin Pesetsky curating an overall impressive collection of works for voice harp and horns. Sonnets V and VI for voice horns and harp is raw and unfiltered-in a complex tonal language which illuminates stark text is the foreground. Sonnet CIV is an art song for mezzo soprano wherein the harp accompaniment plays the role of a lute or acoustic guitar. It is simultaneously heavy and graceful. Sonnet XCI for voice and horns on the other hand is regal and declamatory. Sonnet LXXIII for vocal ensemble harp and horns paints a dark forest scene-a cacophony of textures as soloists take turns yet no voice or instrument is background. Finally Sonnet CXXXIII a duet for tenor and soprano against the scene painting of harp and horns is a complaint about the interminably long delay between Summer s proclamation of adoration for his (eventual) wife Lisa Summer and her prorogued agreement to accept his offer of love. If by Your Art from The Tempest is a through-composed soprano aria with atmospheric harp accompaniment. The harp s echoed scale fragments guide the thoughts of the actress-starting in pain and finishing in sweet respite. O God That I Were a Man from All s Well That Ends Well is a monologue running the gamut of emotions from I would eat his heart in the marketplace to she is undone. This is balanced by music of centuries later with Robert Schumann s Drei Gesänge (Three Songs) Op.95 for soloist and harp presenting settings of texts by Karl Julius Körner and three of the Hebrew Melodies by Lord Byron. Some of the highest inspiration for this album is Brahms Vier Gesänge Op.17.