Decades: A Century of Song Vol. 2 1820 - 1830
John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Luis Gomes (tenor), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Anush Hovhanissyan (soprano), Sarah Connolly (mezzo), Christopher Maltman (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano)
The singers have been well chosen. Portuguese tenor Luis Gomes is impassioned in Bellini’s small domestic substitutes or operatic arias, while Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan brings vitality...
Decades: A Century of Song Vol. 2 1820 - 1830
John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Luis Gomes (tenor), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Anush Hovhanissyan (soprano), Sarah Connolly (mezzo), Christopher Maltman (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Purchase product
The singers have been well chosen. Portuguese tenor Luis Gomes is impassioned in Bellini’s small domestic substitutes or operatic arias, while Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan brings vitality...
About
The second volume in this major recording series, across which a host of world-renowned singers draw listeners, decade by decade, through a century of song, from 1810 to 1910. Each volume features a carefully planned, varied programme performed by household names, whilst the series overall creates a comprehensive survey of song right through the nineteenth century – an invaluable teaching asset, as well as a joy for listeners.
Includes songs from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, by Vincenzo Bellini, Mikhail Glinka, Carl Loewe, Felix Mendelssohn, Louis Niedermeyer, Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann.
The three principal singers for this second volume are mezzo Sarah Connolly, tenor John Mark Ainsley and baritone Christopher Maltman, who are joined by tenors Robin Tritschler and Luis Gomes, and Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan, accompanied by the series’ creator, pianist Malcolm Martineau
Of special note is Sarah Connolly’s performance of Schubert’s three ‘Ellen Songs’, including a glorious rendition of the classic ‘Ave Maria’, Christopher Maltman’s vivid portrayal of Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’ in Loewe’s setting, and John Mark Ainsley’s beautifully crafted renditions of songs by Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn
Extensive presentation includes 64 page booklet with authoritative liner note in three languages by renowned song expert and series consultant Prof Susan Youens, with full texts and translations.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
July 2017
The singers have been well chosen. Portuguese tenor Luis Gomes is impassioned in Bellini’s small domestic substitutes or operatic arias, while Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan brings vitality and personality to Glinka…Sarah Connolly is grand yet subtly inflected in Schubert, Irish tenor Robin Tritschler dramatic in Niedermeyer’s Le Lac…Malcom Martineau is superb, technically immaculate and consistently imaginative
June 2017
the range is wide and unpredictable, embracing seven composers and four languages … [Glinka songs] thrillingly caught by the flame-toned Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan ... John Mark Ainsley brings thoughtful, shapely phrasing … Christopher Maltman, with his histrionic flair and colouristic range, is in his element … tenor Luis Gomes has the right vibrant, Latin timbre … Sarah Connolly’s deliriously impassioned singing … Malcolm Martineau, recorded with welcome prominence, is the most observant and imaginative of pianist partners
May 2017
The second instalment in a perceptively assembled and uncommonly interesting survey of art songs
15th May 2017
Maltman and Connolly’s Schubert performances are beguiling and deliciously nuanced; Hovhannisyan is gorgeously dusky in her Glinka songs; Tritschler is endearing in Louis Niedermeyer’s Le Lac; passion oozes from Gomes’ Bellini arias; Ainsley is light and delicate in Schumann’s rippling Sehnsucht. Martineau’s empathetic pianism is the steadying omnipresence.
Record Review 17th June 2017
It’s a very clever cross-section: it’s taking that decade and going across the continents … it gives you a real snapshot … collating them together, and not necessarily going for the obvious ones, that’s what I love about this collection.
