DANIELPOUR: Elegies; Sonnets to Orpheus.(Review)

CHORAL AND SONG

DANIELPOUR: Elegies; Sonnets to Orpheus

[] Huang, von Stade; Hampson; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Perspectives Ensemble, Nierenberg. Texts. Sony SK 60850

Six weeks before Frederica von Stade was born, her father, an American soldier, was killed in a landmine explosion in World War II Germany. Richard Danielpour's Elegies, for mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists with orchestra, features texts by Kim Vaeth based on letters von Stade's father wrote to her mother. There is little direct quotation from them but instead more generalized meditation on separation, searching and connection. Unfortunately, though a few stray words are comprehensible, whole sentences are not clear until the last stanza of the second movement. Whether the fault lies with soloists, engineering or composer is resolved at this point, when Thomas Hampson (possibly with a smaller orchestra) puts the paragraph across cleanly. Words are paramount again in the central third movement, "Benediction," which has an effective hovering quality, well caught by Hampson. (It would be a pleasure to come across this section at a Memorial Day concert.) But on the whole, Danielpour's music, relying on parallel string chords, rocking figures in the high woodwinds, and Schwanmeresque percussion, is not individual. He might have trusted the voices more. The fourth movement has a welcome passage where the ...