Dawn Upshaw
Ayre

*  Osvaldo Golijov: Ayre (2004)
*  Luciano Berio: Folk Songs (1964)

Dawn Upshaw, soprano
The Andalucian Dogs
DG 4775414 Total time: 62:00

Summary for the Busy Executive: A modern classic and one that might be.

Luciano Berio, I suspect, looms in most music-lovers' minds a bit like
the cartoonist Koren's shaggy monsters.  One doesn't look forward to
spending time listening to him.  I admit I don't care for some of his
work, but in general, he strikes me as an extremely lyrical composer,
nowhere more so than in his Folk Songs (1964).  It was, of course, the
era of the folk song, particularly of the "urban" folk movement, the
heirs of Seeger and Guthrie, like just about anybody on the old Elektra
label plus Joan Baez.  Berio tuned in, but not quite so Anglo-centrically.
For him, a transplanted Italian, folk music roamed a bit more widely.
He set tunes not only from his native Italy, as well as Sicily and
Sardinia, but also from France, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the United
States.  He composed the piece for his then-wife, the super-mezzo Cathy
Berberian (hence the Armenian and Azerbaijan songs), one of the great
singers of the century.

Folk Songs starts out in the Appalachians, with not exactly folk music,
but two classic tunes by John Jacob Niles: "Black is the color of my
true love's hair" and "I wonder as I wander." We open with a gorgeous
viola solo evoking the mountain fiddle, and the voice coming in and
proceeding senza misura, ad lib if you prefer, almost disembodied, the
singer singing to herself.  They pull together with "I wonder" as the
harp joins in.  Throughout the entire work, Berio draws an extraordinary
variety of sounds, from winsome to lush, from the instrumental ensemble
- flute, viola, harp, clarinet, cello, and percussion.  The small group
proves versatile and capable of, on occasion, a very full sound indeed.
Oddly enough, the Italian songs sound more Spanish than anything else,
and Berio's arrangements remind me of Falla, around the time of El Amor
Brujo.  The composer also sets one of Canteloube's selections from Chants
d' Auvergne - the one that says essentially, "Wives!  Ya can't live with
'em, ya can't live without 'em." For me, this counts as one of the most
beautiful vocal works of the Twentieth Century.  If you don't know it,
you should.

Argentinean Osvaldo Golijov, of Eastern European Jewish family, doesn't
have to travel around as much as Berio to get variety.  He's practically
a United Nations all by himself.  In Ayre, he pretty much confines himself
to the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Golden Age.  The title itself
calls to mind the great era of Elizabethan lute song.  Golijov sets
Sephardic texts, Arab Christian texts, Spanish Christian texts, and,
memorably, a gorgeous, Lorca-like poem by Palestinian poet Mahmoud
Darwish.  Almost every song speaks of either violence, loss, or displacement.
To a tune that sounds like a lullaby, for example, a woman eats the body
of her son.  If there's a specific message underlying any of this - and
it wouldn't surprise me - I have little idea what it could be.  Right
now, the piece comes across as a gigantic vague hint.  The instrumental
ensemble, slightly larger than Berio's, seems somehow a bit more
constricted, but it includes digital electronics and an amplified
accordion.  The sound it makes draws largely on what I'd call Mediterranean
Pop, perhaps because of the accordion.  Two of the numbers were actually
composed by long-time Golijov collaborator, the guitarist Gustavo
Santaoballa, who also produced the recording.

The piece starts out full of beans.  For the first four numbers, Golijov
convinces you that you are hearing a masterpiece.  Then the vim seems
to leave and return fitfully (excepting the Darwish setting), although
Golijov recovers by the end.  Right now, after several hearings, I don't
know whether the piece will grow on me or another, stronger performance
(although I find it difficult to imagine a better one) will blow away
my reservations.

I admire Dawn Upshaw tremendously for her interest in contemporary
music.  It's yielded some wonderful albums.  She doesn't have the greatest
voice in the world, but she's intelligent as hell and communicates like
gangbusters.  Unfortunately, in the Berio, she competes with one of the
finest singers of modern times, Cathy Berberian, who quite simply owned
the work.  Berberian recorded it for RCA in the late Sixties (I bought
the LP) with Berio conducting (RCA transferred the performance to CD).
She brings so many shades of meaning to these songs, that she obscures
the straightforward Upshaw.  Upshaw operates at Berberian's level in the
Golijov, but not in the Berio.  The ensemble and the recording are
first-class.

Steve Schwartz

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