The song cycle accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble is one of John Harbison's favored genres, and this CD, featuring vigorous performances by the Chicago Chamber Musicians, includes two of his cycles. Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson performs North and South: Six Poems of Elizabeth Bishop, composed in 1999. Harbison's blues-inflected settings of the two Ballads for Billie [Holliday] stand out for Bishop's vividly human portrait of her narrator and for Harbison's virtuosity in playfully flirting with popular ...
Read More
The song cycle accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble is one of John Harbison's favored genres, and this CD, featuring vigorous performances by the Chicago Chamber Musicians, includes two of his cycles. Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson performs North and South: Six Poems of Elizabeth Bishop, composed in 1999. Harbison's blues-inflected settings of the two Ballads for Billie [Holliday] stand out for Bishop's vividly human portrait of her narrator and for Harbison's virtuosity in playfully flirting with popular clichés without ever slipping into them. Hunt Lieberson's performance is artless in the best sense -- these songs come off as entirely honest and deeply felt expressions of the narrator's character, rather than as artistic "interpretations" -- and she manages to bring the same convincing sense of personality to the more abstract songs in the set. Her voice, warm, velvety, and enveloping, seems to emanate from a pool of great inner strength. Unfortunately, the recorded balance in this...
Read Less