Jennifer Parker, Stephanie Wake-Edwards, Tim Parker-Langston, Jams Coleman, Genevieve Ellis, Ewan G
Release Date: 30 June 2023
Label: First Hand Records
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 5060216348148
Description
Complementing the historically important 2021 publication of the complete songs of Fanny Hensel, this album has been curated to guide the listener through the rich and varied musical life of the composer, including songs from the different compositional phases and poets Hensel chose to set.
Recorded at Mendelssohn-Haus, Leipzig where Hensel herself once lived, the 34 tracks on this recording feature many songs which have never been performed in public before, 17 of which are premiere recordings.
The album cover features a specially commissioned work by Glasgow-based artist Kirsty Matheson.
Though researchers have discovered a lot about Fanny Hensel's (Mendelssohn-Hensel) life and sourced the manuscripts she created, her music continues to be less well known. Academic enterprises have outnumbered
musical ones, and this recording seeks to go part way to remedy this.
The album unfolds chronologically, beginning with early musical experiments from Hensel's teenage years (Wenn ich ihn nur habe, Die Schonheit nicht, o Mädchen and Wohl deinem Liebling). As the years pass, Hensel's ambition can be heard clearly as her musical style develops and the expressive vocal writing becomes more assured. As the years pass, Hensel's ambition can be heard clearly as her musical style develops and the expressive vocal writing becomes more assured. Tracks 12-20 explore 1827, one of Hensel's most prolific years of song writing, featuring a selection of beautiful settings of poems by Ludwig Heinrich Christoph Hölty (1748-1776), many of which are première recordings. As the album approaches it's end, we hear songs that resemble more closely those published opuses from 1846-47, including the Baroque intoned Mutter, o sing mich zur Ruh' and Vorwurf, the latter of which was published posthumously in Hensel's Op. 10 by her mourning brother.
"[Tim Parker-Langston] sings 21 of the 34 songs, too – and very well. He has a light lyric tenor voice which he employs with elegance and feeling, taking great care over nuances.[...] this is attractive singing." – MusicWeb International
"the recording deserves five stars for vision and determination. It is well worth buying, not only to celebrate such enterprise, but to enjoy this truly beautiful music." - BBC Music Magazine
"[Tim Parker-Langston's] mellifluous tenor is eminently suited to Hensel's music. Of the two mezzos, Stephanie Wake-Edwards's soulful contralto is duly complemented on three numbers with the lighter tone of Jennifer Parker. […] Those looking for an overview of these songs need look no further." – arcana.fm
Tracklisting
Noxwode, Conor Gricmanis
Tessa Lark, Jon Batiste, Michael Cleveland, Sierra Hull, Edgar Meyer
David de Winter and The Brook Street Band
Alexander Baillie & Nigel Yandell
Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa; Alvaro Cassuto
The Flautadors Recorder Quartet
The Telling
Sarah Cahill
