Paul Riley finds balm for the soul in soprano Ruby Hughes’s latest imaginatively programmed album
CHORAL & SONG CHOICE
End of My Days
Works by Tavener, Dowland, Ravel, Brian Elias, Caroline Shaw, Errollyn Wallen et al
Ruby Hughes (soprano); Manchester Collective
BIS BIS-2628 66:30 mins
Imaginative, sensitive programming has been a constant feature of Ruby Hughes’s collaborations; and this latest with the perennially adventurous Manchester Collective is no exception. A product of the first lockdown, it’s a meditation on life and death whose title is taken from Wallen’s setting of her own poem, which stares mortality in the face with vivacious equanimity.
Predictably eclectic, the disc unites John Dowland and Tavener, and makes fellow travellers of Debussy and Caroline Shaw, Brian Elias and Mahler (the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony’s ‘Urlicht’ movement surprisingly resilient when repurposed for soprano and string quartet rather than the refulgence of full orchestra). Then again, some of the most affecting numbers are pared back: whether to voice and violin in Vaughan Williams’s plangent Housman-setting Along the Field or, for voice alone, in Elias’s innocent, fluid Meet me in the Green Glen .
It’s offset by the citrussy instrumental spritz of Shaw’s Valencia. An evocative arrangement of the old Shetland folk song ‘Da Day Dawn’ perfectly sets the scene for Ravel’s dolorous Kaddisch. Hughes floats seductively over Jake Heggie’s sultry fleshing out of Debussy’s Trois chansons de Bilitis (see ‘Background to’, p81) – rising powerfully to their few but fastidiously-plotted climaxes. And although enrapt understatement is often her default mode, Hughes unleashes a chilling outburst in the first of Tavener’s Akhmatova Songs. A disc to concentrate the mind and enfold the soul.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
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Fanny Mendelssohn • Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn: Die erste Walpurgisnacht; Vom Himmel hoch;
Fanny Mendelssohn: Hiob; Gartenlieder
Julia Doyle (soprano), Jess Dandy (contralto) et al; Crouch End Festival Chorus; London Mozart Players/ David Temple Chandos CHSA5318 (CD/SACD) 71:53 mins
Of the many current recordings to pair the sibling composers Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, this is one of the most unusual yet, featuring
