The ArtsFuse’s Jonathan Blumhofer reviews The Cave of Wondrous Voice: Chamber Music of Mark Abel:
“One would find it hard to beat the all-star lineup featured in The Cave of Wondrous Voice, a new… survey of vocal and chamber music by the California-based composer Mark Abel. David Shifrin, Carol Rosenberger, Hila Plitmann, and Fred Sherry headline the album but they’re not its only stars.
There’s a spellbinding performance of Abel’s The Elastic Hours from violinist Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker and pianist Dominic Cheli. It’s arguably the album’s strongest piece, consisting of a pair of movements that thrive on contrasts – of lyrical, folk-like lines and spunky dancing figures, as well as texture, dynamics, and rhythm. Höpcker and Cheli mine them for all they’re worth.
Shifrin and Rosenberger turn in a fluent account of Abel’s amiable Intuition’s Dance, a 10-minute-long curtain-raiser that alternates nimble exchanges for clarinet and piano with dreamy, sometimes reflective passages. …
In Abel’s Four Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. Written for [and sung by Hila] Plitmann, much of the vocal writing takes advantage of the singer’s astonishing upper register. She shines in this performance…
On the whole, The Cave of Wondrous Voice is smartly played and engineered. Abel’s writing throughout is fluent and often genial. … This is music of considerable expressive directness as well as charm.”
—Jonathan Blumhofer, ArtsFuse
See the full review on ArtsFuse.org
