Fernandez/williams/edellion - Habanera Music For 8 Cellos [CD]

Multi-part musicfor the same instrument, dating back to Elizabethan consorts of viols,remains outside the typical orchestral repertoire nowadays, butas ever, SOMM remains true toits stellar reputation for presenting rare and singular releases.Habanera, Music for Eight Cellos and Voiceisa joyous recording thatgrewout of a collaborationbetween baritoneRoderick Williamsand cellistJoely Koos, joint Artistic Directors at the 2023 Endellion Summer Music Festival.The camaraderie enjoyed by the artists and theEndellion Cellistswas particularly strong, and a special concert was devised for cello ensemble and voice featuring British-Spanish soprano Ana Beard Fernandez.Now, SOMM presents the formidable Endellion Cellists, soprano Ana Beard Fernandez, and baritone Roderick Williams in a recording of these two artists' uniquely colourful arrangements. The musicians are led by award-winning choral, orchestral, and operaticconductor William Vann. As an added bonus, Roderick Williams plays eighth cello, and recorder-player Iain Hall joins the artists for this recital of shared pleasure and a sense of fun that is palpable. The programme opens with the most famous original composition for cello ensemble: Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 for soprano solo and eight cellos. From the set of nine Bach-inspired Brazilian pieces by Heitor Villa-Lobos, its two movements are a haunting A\u0301ria and a Danc\u0327a inspired by a Brazilian saudades song. When the Spanish composer and pianist Manuel de Falla was asked by a soprano for his advice about Spanish songs, he was inspired to arrange some himself. The result was Siete Canciones Populares based on seven folksongs from different parts of Spain, for which he composed wholly original accompaniment, here transcribed for eight cellos. The best-known works by Spanish composer Xavier Montsalvatge are born of his fascination for the music of the Antilles and West Indian music. His Cinco canciones Negras came out of this aesthetic, and are among the finest examples of late twentieth-century Spanish art-song. The individual songs that make up the second half of this recital include the haunting Vocalise-etude en forme de Habanera by Maurice Ravel, who was born in Basque country near the Spanish border. Three varied songs collected as Tres Canciones include I am madness by the seventeenth-century French composer Henri du Bailly; an anonymous song, So the Oak; and Black Shadow from Six Galician Ballads by the nineteenth-century Spanish composer Xoan Montes. Two twentieth-century Russian songs are the much-transcribed Vocalise by Sergei Rachmaninoff from his Melodies; and a relatively unknown gem by Dmitri Shostakovich, Farewell, Granada, from Six Traditional Spanish Folksongs. By way of a rambunctious encore, the recital closes with the duet, Forets paisibles (Peaceful forests) by the eighteenth-century French master Jean Philippe Rameau from his opera-ballet Les Indes Galantes.