>Osvaldo Golijov
>
>*  Oceana (1996, rev. 2004)
>*  Tenebrae (2002, rev. 2003)
>*  Three Songs (2001-2002)
>
>Luciana Souza, vocals
>Scott Tennant & John Dearman, guitars
>Dawn Upshaw, soprano)
>Gwinnett Young Singers
>Kronos Quartet
>Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/Robert Spano
>DG B0009060-02  Total time: 68:57

It's a rare day when I find myself in disagreement with Steve, and here
too he has a point. Like him, I was knocked out by the first Golijov I
heard, in my case "Ayre"; and seeing (I use that word advisedly!) the
"Luke Passion" at the Barbican Centre in London a year or so back was
a great experience.  Again like Steve, I've found that Golijov's music
often yields diminishing returns, and that he does have a tendency to
repeat successful formulae.  There is sometimes, as perhaps with the
Lorca opera "Ainadamar", a sense of The Modish Mixture As Before.  The
showman sometimes obscures the composer.

And yet Golijov in Big-Bow-Wow form really does have a way of getting
through the intellectual defences, and this disc is no exception.  I
also think that it makes a great introduction to his technicolor, nightmare
Latin-Klesmer universe: anyone unfamiliar with Golijov's sophisticated
"music with the dirt left in" could do much worse than try this CD for
starters.

The Neruda setting, "Oceana", is not a Song Cycle in the customary mode.
Its contrasted sections alternate and/or combine a small, combo group
with solo female vocalist against a massive full orchestra and chorus,
but somehow it still feels intimate.  The words are indeed used as a
catalyst rather than meant to communicate for themselves, and Golijov's
sound-world - the chamber group with Latino-jazz vocalist strikingly
close in essentials to the Spanish instrumental combos used to accompany
"tonos humanos" songs in 17th century zarzuela - is fascinatingly varied,
in-your-face, and colourful.  With its haunting synthesised backing track
of tidal ebbs and flows, this is very much music of today, and whatever
it's replay value, it certainly grabs the listener first time round.

The short "Tenebrae" for string quartet is a diptych of reflective,
dark, minimalism which passes innocuously enough; but the star-turn on
the disc is "Three Songs", artfully put over by Golijov's "muse" Dawn
Upshaw.  A pendant to the more extended and theatrical "Ayre", these
nocturnal songs form a triptych.  On one side is the violent and gritty
Yiddish setting of Sally Potter's fantasy love-poem "Night of the Flying
Horses", on the other a tender, yearning version of Emily Dickinson's
"How Slow the Wind" (sharing a feeling of timelessness with Takemitsu's
very different chamber evocation).

At the centre sits the ravishing "Lua descolorida", a rapt meditation
on lost love under the colourless moon, already familiar from its pivotal
place as the Virgin's lament after the crucifixion in the Luke Passion.
It's just as mesmerising here.  Someone has said that they don't know
another C major piece which moves one to tears quite so sweetly, and I'm
tempted to agree.  Upshaw is enjoying an Indian Summer with Golijov, and
she is once again on inspired form.  These Three Songs are, for me, an
involving and beautiful experience.  High Art?  I don't know!

I've nothing to add to Steve's praise of the engineering.  The whole
album is lovingly presented, and though Golijov may not be the new
messiah to carry Real Music out of the desert and back onto Main Street,
let's be grateful for a composer who can communicate his vision so
strongly, and richly.

Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK
http://www.zarzuela.net
"ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site

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