Search - William Shakespeare, Henry Purcell, George Crumb :: Apparition: Henry Purcell and George Crumb

Vastly satisfying, multi-layered, aesthetic experience

Ann Athema | Connecticut | 10/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a most personal production. Ms. Schäfer produced the album itself, and her aesthetic is as intelligent, subtle, colorful, and moving as her singing. Her collaborator, the amazing pianist Eric Schneider, is a full partner in the music, and together they create a many-faceted atmosphere which combines some spoken verse and--well, not so much sound effects as sound impressions. The songs and spoken word are part of a romantic construct, a pairing of love and death with everything in between--passion, romance, renunciation, doubt, grief, an eerie serenity--the George Crumb setting of the Whitman verse,"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" still causes a frisson each time I hear it. The Purcell settings are some of Shakespeare's sonnets of romantic love, not unlike verses chosen by Sting in his recent recording of lute songs by John Dowland, but Ms. Schäfer's pure and burnished tone, her sheer beauty both of technique and interpretation, insinuate these songs into your sinews.

The album itself is a beautifully designed(by the Protean Christine Schäfer), with very droll photos as wry comment on the music, with a note to the listener from her(in which she encourages the mixing of the albums'playlist), and all the verses in English and German translation. A remarkable, unique tour de force."