One of the highlights of this disc is Barbara Bonney’s Sallie Chisum Remembers Billy the Kid; another is the same singer’s rendition of Vocalise, a piece that’s also included in a beautiful alternative version for piano and cello on her recent Decca compilation, The Radiant Voice of Barbara Bonney (see reviews). Perhaps Bonney’s strength in these songs lies partly in the fact that composer André Previn wrote Sallie Chisum for her, and that he seems to know exactly what works for her lyric soprano voice. Unfortunately, his settings of Isak Dinesen’s text, The Giraffes Go to Hamburg, and three lovely Emily Dickinson poems could have used Bonney’s more subtle, carefully nuanced expression and more artful singing rather than Renée Fleming’s heavier, darker, big-opera-voice treatment, unceremoniously decorated with swallowed tones and oodles of scoops.
Previn’s music–all of these pieces are presented on disc for the first time–has personality, the kind that draws you to it and keeps you staying around because it’s smart, never pretentious, tuneful, never cheap or condescending, and engagingly complex yet easily accessible. Only The Giraffes Go to Hamburg strays off into a slightly fidgety and prickly mode that probably suits the text but makes for restless listening (not helped at all by Fleming’s meandering style). The opening work, a four-movement piece for orchestra titled Diversions, is full of ideas–good ones–that put the orchestra through its paces while giving soloists–clarinet, cello, piccolo, horn, trumpet, bassoon, oboe, flute–some lovely, technically challenging (listen to that French horn and trumpet!), skillfully written music. The Vienna musicians take to it enthusiastically, especially relishing the dashing, wild, quick-changing moods of the third movement and the work’s quiet, dreamy conclusion.
Sonically, there is some variation due to the different locations and conditions: Diversions is from a concert performance at Vienna’s Musikverein, and alternates between spotlighted soloists and an edgy, more distant full orchestra; the songs, recorded in New York’s acoustically acclaimed American Academy of Arts & Letters and London’s Abbey Road Studios, are clear, natural, and well-balanced. Don’t let my dislike of Fleming’s singing deter you from this otherwise excellent disc–a testament to the work of a composer whose music deserves a wider audience. [8/4/2001]
