Joyce & Tony: Live at the Wigmore Hall
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Label: Warner
Cat No: 2564610789
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 28th August 2015
Contents
Works
The Wizard of OzAmor
Non ti scordar di me
Love in the Dictionary
Beautiful Dreamer
Arianna a Naxos, cantata, Hob.XXVIb:2
Leave it to Jane
Babes in Arms
La danza
I canti della Sera
Magdalena
Artists
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)Antonio Pappano (piano)
Works
The Wizard of OzAmor
Non ti scordar di me
Love in the Dictionary
Beautiful Dreamer
Arianna a Naxos, cantata, Hob.XXVIb:2
Leave it to Jane
Babes in Arms
La danza
I canti della Sera
Magdalena
Artists
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)Antonio Pappano (piano)
About
To open its season is a special honour for a musician, and in September 2014 that honour went for the second time to American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Her pianist for the occasion was none other than Sir Antonio Pappano, who generally devotes his time in London to his duties as Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Times described the pair as “mezzo diva supreme” and “golden maestro and piano accompanist to the stars”.
These two CDs were recorded live at the Wigmore Hall season-opener and at the repeat concert two days later.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Haydn - Arianna a Naxos
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2Rossini - Belta crudele
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3Rossini - La danza
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4Santoliquido - L'assiolo canta
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5Santoliquido - Alba di luna sul bosco
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6Santoliquido - Tristezza crepuscolare
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7Santoliquido - L'incontro
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8de Curtis - Non ti scordar di me!
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9Foster - Beautiful Dreamer
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10Kern - The Siren's Song
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11Kern - Go Little Boat
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12Nelson - Lovely Jimmie
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13Dougherty - Love in the Dictionary
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14Kern - Life Upon the Wicked Stage
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15Moross - Lazy Afternoon
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16Bolcom - Amor
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17Villa-Lobos - Food for Thought
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18Kern - Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
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19Rodgers - My Funny Valentine
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20Kern - All the Things You Are
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21Berlin - I Love a Piano
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22Arlen - Over the Rainbow
Europadisc Review
Taking up the whole of first disc, the concert's first half is a generous nod to the Italianate repertoire in which Ms DiDonato excels. Opening proceedings is the evening's most substantial work, Haydn's cantata Arianna a Naxos for voice and piano. It's an appropriate choice, for although it was composed in 1789 at Eszterháza, its first documented performance was in London's Portland Place, just a short walk from Wigmore Street. The cantata's modest dimensions are deceptive, for this is a work operatic in its intensity, belying Haydn's reputation as a composer lacking dramatic instinct. The familiar story of the abandoned heroine is compacted into a pair of accompanied recitatives and arias encompassing a gamut of emotions from delusion and hopefulness to scorn and despair. For the performer, the challenges are more expressive than technical, and DiDonato responds with an extraordinary variety of tone, from gleaming full voice to an almost whispered intensity. At the keyboard, Pappano is equally impressive, teasing out significance from the slightest motif while always retaining a sense of overall momentum.
After the Haydn, we move to Italy proper, with a pair of Rossini songs including a dazzling rendition of the quicksilver patter-song La danza, and a sumptuous quartet of Canti della sera (evening songs) in neo-Puccinian vein by Francesco Santoliquido. A melting performance of the waltz-song Non ti scordar di me by Santoliquido's fellow Neapolitan, Ernesto De Curtis, brings the first half of the recital to a close in high style.
The second half takes the listener to lighter territory and across the Atlantic to the New World, with a selection of works from the Great American Songbook. Kicking off with a suitably dreamy account of with Stephen Foster's 19th-century classic, Beautiful Dreamer, the programme settles down to a selection of 20th-century favourites centring on Jerome Kern, but also including such witty numbers as Celius Dougherty's Love in the Dictionary, William Bolcom's Amor and Villa-Lobos's Food for Thought. In a more reflective mood are Havelock Nelson's Lovely Jimmie and Jerome Moross's Lazy Afternoon.
The performers clearly enjoy themselves, and their rapport both with one another and with the audience is palpable, not least in some well-judged ad libs which transfer surprisingly effectively to disc. Ms DiDonato's word projection is exemplary throughout, and she slips effortlessly between full-throated and more parlando delivery as the music demands. Three well-chosen encores – Kern's All the Things You Are, Irving Berlin's I Love a Piano (more ad libbing from Pappano) and Harold Arlen's Over the Rainbow – bring the evening to a memorable conclusion, to the evident delight of the audience.
There are colour photos of the occasion in the accompanying booklet, which also includes useful notes on the programme by Paul Griffiths. The nicely detailed recording beautifully captures the Wigmore Hall's acoustic, and the whole amounts to not just a fine memento of an exceptional concert, but a splendidly varied recital album in its own right.
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