Classical-Modern Music Review‘s Grego Applegate Edwards is “captivated” by the art songs by Mark Abel in his latest Delos release, Terrain of the Heart:
“The art song cycle today? I don’t hear all that much of it as composed in the present… West Coast American composer Mark Abel is an exponent who excels in the genre, judging from his song cycle recording Terrain of the Heart. Two years ago I covered another of his for vocal and orchestra, The Dream Gallery, and I was captivated. I must say he has done the same for me here. … These songs are about feelings, memories, relationships. It is music with a romantic bent, but not like Brahms or Tchaikovsky. There is a connection I feel when listening to the Samuel Barber of “Knoxville”, in the sense that there is a tonality and expression that is not really European, and it is modern-tonal. It is tonal music of today without the long baggage train of tradition following behind. … all I can say is that Mark Abel has created some very fine music here. … Jamie Chamberlin and Ariel Pisturino each bring their beautiful vocal instruments to bear on these songs and make them their own. … Their dramatic lyric charge puts the music in a certain place that, after getting used to, seems right. Victoria Kirsch opens up the piano sound and does the modern yet very pianistically idiomatic parts full justice. In the end I respond to this music strongly. Mark Abel has a vision and the artists do much to give it a full realization. Bravo!” —Grego Applegate Edwards, Classical-Modern Music Review
Read the full rave review on classicalmodernmusic.blogspot.com!
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