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HomeClassical MusicLEBRECHT LISTENS | Soprano Misaki Kobayashi Delights With Songs From Japan And...

LEBRECHT LISTENS | Soprano Misaki Kobayashi Delights With Songs From Japan And Europe


Soprano Misaki Kobayashi (Photograph courtesy of the artist)

Songs from Japan and Europe — a relationship in music (TYXart)

★★★★☆

🎧 TYXart

Like each reviewer I really like surprises, and nothing has stunned me extra in a month of Easter Sundays than this delicate and good pairing of Japanese and Viennese classical songs. The album notes are skimpy and principally in Japanese so I’m guessing right here, however I’ll credit score the collection of songs in addition to the efficiency to Misaki Kobayashi, apparently a soprano within the Berlin radio choir.

The pairings are so good they’re virtually symbiotic. Kobayashi opens with a springtime tune by Rentaro Taki (1879-1903) and matches it with Beethoven’s little-sung Ich liebe dich. Who’d have thought? It really works brilliantly.

Subsequent up is identical spring theme composed by Akira Nakada (born 1951) and W. A. Mozart. I favored the Nakada a lot better. It had extra zest. One other chap known as Nakada is twinned with a Zemlinsky waltz. Bear in mind Zemlinsky? Arnold Schoenberg’s solely trainer. It simply will get higher and higher.

If I used to be an enterprising impresario in Berlin I’d be pulling Misaki Kobayashi out of that radio choir and giving her a solo recital, or a job within the workplace. Or taking her to dinner. She has a really authentic thoughts and a candy, mild soprano voice with no trace of wobble. The pianist is Matthias Veil and the label is off the crushed monitor, in a village known as Nittendorf.

Surprises all spherical.

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