LORRAINE HUNT LIEBERSON

 

Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs

 

Tracklisting

Si no fuera porque tus ojos tienen color de luna

(If your eyes were not the color of the moon)

Amor, amor, las nubes a la torre del cielo

(Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of the sky)

No estés lejos de mí un solo día, porque cómo

(Don't go far off, not even for a day, because-)

Ya eres mía. Reposa con tu sueño en mi sueño

(And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream)

Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres

(My love, if I die and you don’t-)

 

 

'Nobody who heard the voice of the American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson remained unaffected.  She had an extraordinary capacity for emotional connection, such that her performances seemed to penetrate the very marrow of those fortunate enough to witness them.  Inextricable from the passion she brought to her music was an incomparable beauty of phrasing, a matchless, velvety tone and a quality, barely definable, of rapture.  Her artistic powers were still in full and glorious flow; she was one of the greatest mezzos of our age.  A woman of immense grace, she was disarming in her candour and warmth.'  Guardian

 

On one level, this album serves as a profoundly moving tribute to the artistry of mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who passed away on July 3, 2006 after a long bout with cancer, at the age of 52.  On another, it’s a testament to the remarkable personal and musical relationship the singer cultivated with her composer husband Peter Lieberson, who adapted five sonnets from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda for this work, jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony.  Ever since its May 2004 debut in L.A., fans and critics have clamoured for its release on CD.  As Tim Page of the Washington Post wrote, following the premiere, ‘Neruda Songs - a setting of five love poems on deep and wrenching subjects such as passing delight, memory, fear of separation and transcendence beyond death - is one of the most extraordinary affecting artistic gifts ever created by one lover to another... I hope the Neruda Songs are recorded, for they are just as universal as they are shatteringly personal.’

 

Alex Ross of the New Yorker concurred: ‘This is some of the most unabashedly lyrical music that any American composer has produced since Gershwin.’  Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times declared, ‘Hunt Lieberson’s performance was like her reading to us her love letters.  Each word was given its expression.  Others will want to sing these gorgeous songs, but Hunt Lieberson is one of a kind.’  Neruda Songs had its East Coast debut in Boston on Thanksgiving weekend 2005, with James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony.  The November 26 performance is documented here.  Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe praised Neruda Songs as ‘passionate, mysterious, painful, joyous, piercingly sad, and ultimately, accepting in an all-encompassing way... Lieberson has found haunting music for Neruda’s words, music that is both direct and elusive... The music is dark in color, full of idiomatic Spanish timbres, rhythms, and vocal melismas... Hunt Lieberson sounded glorious.  Her singing is never just about singing, though her voice is lustrous and her vocalism superb.  She doesn’t create ‘effects’; instead she expresses contrasting states of being and feeling with what is apparently utter, fearless candor.’  Hunt Lieberson and the Boston Symphony brought the work to Carnegie Hall, then briefly toured with the piece in March 2006, before health issues forced Lieberson to cancel all subsequent engagements.

 

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