Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Elisa Williams Bickers, George Frideric Handel, Cecilia McDowall, Felix Mendelssohn, Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi
Performer: Bach Aria Soloists
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Reference
Catalogue: FR-750
Release: 2023
Size: 929 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Monteverdi: Si dolce è’l tormento (from Libro Nono di Magrigali e Canzonette)
Handel: Messiah
02. Rejoice Greatly
Mendelssohn: Organ Sonata No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 65 No. 4
03. I. Allegro con brio
Handel: Neun deutsche Arien, HWV202-210
04. No. 3, Süsse Stille, sanfter Quelle, HWV 205
Bach: Cantata BWV204 ‘Ich bin in mir vergnügt’
05. No. 4, Die Schätzbarkeit der weiten Erden
Bach: Violin Sonata in G major, BWV1021
06. I. Adagio
07. II. Vivace
08. III. Largo
09. IV. Presto
McDowall: Shakespeare Songs
10. No. 1, What ’Tis To Love
11. No. 2, Give Me My Robe
12. No. 3, How Should I Your True Love Know?
13. No. 4, First Rehearse
14. Bickers: La follia Variations
Reference Recordings is proud to present a very special new release! Entitled Le Dolce Sirene to represent the all-women force of Bach Aria Soloists, this exciting new album includes works by Monteverdi, Handel, Mendelssohn and Bach, alongside a new transcription by BAS of Cecilia McDowall’s song cycle Four Shakespeare Songs. Hailed for producing ‘surprising and brilliantly innovative collaborations,’ Bach Aria Soloists delivers each year their acclaimed concert series presenting the genius and relevance of Johann Sebastian Bach, his contemporaries, and those he inspired. BAS consists of Founder/Artistic Director and violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane, GRAMMY-winning soprano Sarah Tannehill Anderson, Elisa Williams Bickers who plays Harpsichord, Organ and Piano, and cellist Hannah Collins.
The “dolce sirene” of the title of this album are not figures in the compositions presented but rather the four performers of the Bach Aria Soloists. The group unites diverse talents from the Kansas City, Missouri, area and gives them a program that focuses on Baroque music but does not exclude music of other periods. Keyboardist Elisa Williams Bickers is showcased on harpsichord, piano, and organ in one of Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas, and soprano Sarah Tannehill Anderson has a delicate, agile voice that she adapts to the various kinds of repertory here. Sample the last of the Four Shakespeare Songs of Cecilia McDowall, a work arranged for the Baroque configuration of voice, violin, and continuo (or piano), to hear her talents. Nothing here is exactly objectionable, but the program lacks cohesion. It features artistic director Elizabeth Suh Lane in an entire Bach sonata, and the keyboard parts in McDowall’s Shakespeare Songs are given two to the harpsichord and two to the piano for no easily audible reason, although it is true that the composer approved these arrangements. Lane has intonation problems in the Bach sonata, and in general, the album has little sense of moving through any kind of narrative. The sound engineering doesn’t help. The location is not specified, but it is perhaps a church or museum space with an organ that is shown in the graphics. Whatever the space is, it makes the music remote and disturbs its connection with the listener, which is tenuous, to begin with.