Search - Roberta Alexander - soprano;Tan Crone - piano :: Leonard Bernstein: Songs

Only Roberta

D. Wijngaarden | Nijmegen, The Netherlands | 12/02/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Roberta Alexander is right on top of this recording. She has a beautiful and strong voice, but more importantly, she has perfect command of the music and idiom of these and Ives' songs. The emotional range of the songs is very wide, ranging from playful to thoughtful to sorrowful but she makes all of them sound very natural.The Five Kid Songs express the imagination of a small child (Jupiter has seven moons, or is it nine? Saturn has a million billion trillion sixty-nine) and it would be very easy to perform them in a childish way, talking down as many adults do - the composer expressly stated that they should not be performed this way and in fact Alexander sings them with a perfectly natural innocence. La Bonne Cuisine is sung with a strong drive, and although it's hard to imagine what anyone should do with excerpts from a cooking book it's still compelling music. The other songs are also nice but not as memorable - as for the songs from Candide, they are beautiful but get the complete recording on Deutsche Grammophon, directed by Bernstein himself (there are two; I prefer the live version, ASIN B000001GD2).Tan Crone does more than just provide a background; she adds her own interpretation on piano to add even more feeling to the music.Bernstein's songs do not have the depth of Ives', but this is still a very nice collection. I will have to check out the Barber and Copland recordings on the same label as well."

Great singing

Luka J. deKelaita | Chicago, IL United States | 02/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Roberta Alexander is stunning in these songs of Bernstein. Her voice simply shimmers. Really beautiful."