“Le 15 août”. France is on holidays (isn’t it always?). What better time would there be to start working on my website… Where to start? Well, why not with my latest listen and review:
Elena Firsova: The Mandelstam Cantatas: Forest Walks op. 36 (1987), Earthly Life op. 31 (1984), Before the Thunderstorm op. 70 (1994). Ekaterina Kichigina (soprano), Studio for New Music Moscow, Igor Dronov. Megadisc Classics MDC 7816 (2004)
And then, where else to start than with the As? They’re first, and, unlike the Bs and Cs and Ds, they’re not too abundant. And I loooove the music of Georges Aperghis, I think his Récitations are a brilliant and witty piece of contemporary vocal virtuosity, and his Sextuor (which I saw live around the time of its premiere) a superb, witty and imaginative piece of music theatre. So I re-posted my Amazon.com reviews, with, for Récitations, a substantial re-organization and more precise info on the various reissues, thanks to the barcode information and online cover photos.
Georges Aperghis: Récitations (excerpts). Martine Viard. Disques Montaigne CD 782007 (1992) originally posted on Amazon.com, 28 April 2009
Georges Aperghis: Sextuor – L’Origine des espèces, on texts by François Régnault and Georges Aperghis. Elena Andreyev (cello and speaker), Emmanuelle Zoll (soprano 1), Donatienne Michel-Dansac (soprano 2), Françoise Degeorges (soprano 3), Valérie Joly (mezzo-soprano), Frédérique Wolf-Michaux (contralto). Musique française d’aujourd’hui MFA 216004 (1995) originally posted on Amazon.com, April 27, 2009
Since I mentioned Heiner Goebbels’ “Ou bien le débarquement désastreux” in my review of Aperghis’ Sextuor, I went ahead and imported my Amazon review of that one too.
Heiner Goebbels: Ou bien le débarquement désastreux. André Wilms (voice), Sira Djebate (vocals), Boubakar Djebate (kora, vocals), Moussa Sissoko (djembe), Yves Robert (trombone), Alexandre Meyer (electric guitar, table-guitar, daxophone), Xavier Garcia (keyboards, sampling and programming), Heiner Goebbels (sampling and programming). ECM New Series 1552 (1995) originally posted on Amazon.com, 25 April 2009