Respighi: Songs

“…These performances are very fine … His [Bostridge] performance sounded more enjoyable when I listened with headphones. While he does still seem fussy and too interpretive, his careful attention to text is illuminating, with judicious use of contrasting dynamics and effective changes of vocal coloring. His soft singing is ethereal. The more I listened the more these artists opened the beauty of these songs to me. I found myself surprised at how much I enjoyed them. The piano writing is generally far more interesting than the vocal line, but Bostridge breathes life and energy into the words in a way that makes them shimmer. The partnership between Bostridge and Georgini comes across as two artists in wonderful accord…”

**** Excellent Album

Recording of the Month

“.. That sense of partnership and original thought is never finer than in Respighi’s best-known songs – the hypnotically tolling Nebbie (Mists) and the exquisitely perfumed garden of Notte (Night), both to texts by Ada Negri – which here come up fresh as daisies. And I defy anyone’s spirits not to be lifted by their jaunty flings in the company of the bonnie lads and lassies of When the Kye Come Hame and The Piper of Dundee. A truly perfect and revelatory recital.” *****

“… Vocally, an echt British singer such as Bostridge might seem an unlikely interpreter … Soon he establishes a strong sense of cantabile, serving the rhapsodic qualities of the Italian text, reimagined with his own singular vocal resources…”