Search - Sibelius, Katarina Karnéus, Julius Drake :: Sibelius: Songs

By rights, Sibelius should be up there with the big boys--Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf--in the song stakes. He has such a formidable ability to convey the meaning of a text through his music, transporting the listener into another world. Here, we find the young Swedish mezzo, Katerina Karneus, tackling some of his greatest offerings in the genre (the Op. 50 set in particular). Karneus first made waves when she won Cardiff Singer of the World in 1995, and in this repertoire she's entirely at home, particularly as most of Sibelius's songs use Swedish texts, the language of his childhood. Her rich, creamy mezzo is expressive but never overbearing, and it's particularly effective in such numbers as "Sigh, sedges, sigh," which demands brilliance on the part of the pianist as well as the singer. That she's versatile is demonstrated by her mastery of songs as dissimilar as the pent-up, glowering "Watersprite," the stately grandeur of "The March Snow," and the rapturous "First Kiss." And in those later, German text Op. 50 songs, where Sibelius's language has become even more economical, even more potent, Karneus is at one with the tone of supposed lost love in "In the field a maiden sings" and the sparse, Schubertian "The Silent Town." Throughout, Julius Drake is splendid, and the recording brings the performers comfortably into your living room. --Harriet Smith