It is much too common to view the Holocaust simply as a kind of horrible statistic -- millions dead in Nazi gas chambers. Gershon Kingsley's CD "Voices From the Shadow" avoids this problem. It is a cycle of 17 songs, with texts in various languages (with translations) written by prisoners in the death camps. It introduces us to a 16-year-old girl dreaming of her first dance and waking up "still a captive." It offers a macabre children's song ("we're riding in a funeral march") -- a lullaby for an infant whose brothers are all dead. The statistics become individuals, and all the harrowing, intensely human reality of the Holocaust overwhelms the listener.
Kingsley, who is equally at home in classical and popular styles, conducts his own ensemble and seven gifted soloists in this music, which includes a pair of jazz psalms and excerpts from two liturgical works. The disc is part of the monumental Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, which will eventually include more than 50 CDs, and is being distributed by Naxos.
Other recent discs of special interest:
• "Les Travailleurs de la Mer: Ancient Songs From a Small Island" (Harmonia Mundi, with texts and translations). The islands of Guernsey in the English Channel have been for eight centuries an independent nation with a distinctive maritime culture. Its language is a dialect of French. Its music, as reflected in this brilliant collection, is essentially timeless but often has a medieval flavor. It is hard to imagine a better performance than that by soprano Clara Sanabras and baritone Paul Hillier, with the Harp Consort directed by Andrew Lawrence-King.
• "The Origin of Fire: Music and Visions of Hildegard von Bingen" (Harmonia Mundi, with texts and translations). Hildegard did not claim credit for composing her mystic, visionary music. It came, she said, directly from God, and listening to the perfectly idiomatic performances by Anonymous Four, it is hard to disagree. If any ensemble "owns" Hildegard's music, it is these four young women, who are now pursuing separate careers but may get together in the future for special projects.
In Hildegard's music and visions, as in one of the most dramatic episodes of the New Testament, fire is associated with the Holy Spirit, and this association has guided the group in selecting the material for this CD, mostly but not exclusively by Hildegard. Like the limpid singing, the booklet accompanying this disc is a model of lucidity.
• "The Classical Underground" (Koch). The five young African Americans of the Imani Quintet have resolved not only to preserve but to revivify the classical woodwind ensemble tradition with bright, alert performances of standard material and a vigorous infusion of new material by such composers as Astor Piazzolla, Paquito D'Rivera and Lalo Schifrin. On the evidence of this disc, they are fulfilling their goals. The sound blends smoothly but provocatively, the rhythms are sharply defined and effective, the experience refreshing.
• "Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder and Arias" (EMI, with texts and translations). Kirsten Flagstad earned a prominent place in EMI's "Great Artists of the Century" series, with a voice as beautiful as it was powerful and an incomparable affinity for the music of Richard Wagner. The music on this disc is chosen with care, including a good selection of Brunnhilde's and Isolde's arias and Elisabeth's Prayer from "Tannhauser."
• "Passion" (Analekta). Violinist Angele Dubeau has a flamboyant but well-controlled technique and a talent for emotional expression that fully justify her disc's provocative title. With her chamber orchestra, La Pieta (a partnership that has produced a half-dozen best-selling titles in Canada), she lavishes these gifts on a suite from "Carmen" and one from "Porgy and Bess," Enesco's "Romanian Rhapsody" No. 1, Falla's "Seven Spanish Popular Songs" and other equally appealing high-energy material.
