Love Sublime

内容紹介

A collection of duets for voice and piano, Love Sublime is based on the writings of poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Louise Bogan and addresses faith and doubt, youth and aging, male and female, romantic yearning and mature reflection. The voices of the writers are very much present in the melodies and rhythms of Love Sublime.

Amazonレビュー

Seven years after drawing inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke on his Elegiac Cycle, a classical-style work for solo piano, young jazz star Brad Mehldau hooks up with the great American soprano Renee Fleming to delve further into the German poet's output in a setting of his earlier Book of Hours: Love Poems to God"span". Commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the seven-song cycle is at times a bit sketchy in outlining rather than sinking into the aching emotion, but there is no denying the exquisite pain of "Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you" or the ease with which Mehldau tailors his restless, varied rhythmic attack to the words and Fleming's dynamic delivery of them. (The diva recently worked with two other noted jazz artists, Fred Hersch and Bill Frisell, on Haunted Heart, her less-rewarding album of pop, folk and jazz standards.) Love Sublime also features serviceable settings of three lyrically gripping poems by Louise Bogan (who wrote articles about Rilke as the New Yorker's longtime poetry critic). The title track is a reworking of a song Mehldau previously recorded as an instrumental, this time featuring sharply penetrating words by his wife, vocalist Fleurine. --Lloyd Sachs