Dutilleux Correspondances; Tout un monde lointain; The Shadows of Time Barbara Hannigan (soprano) Anssi Karttunen (cello) DG: 4791180 A marvellous 97th birthday tribute to a great French composer, whose full worth is perhaps not yet appreciated in UK? Barbara Hannigan is one of my top favourite sopranos and she gives us a great premiere recording of Dutilleux's song cycle about the correspondences between sense impressions, and sets texts including letters by van Gogh and by Solzhenitsyn. Karttunen, likewise, is a cellist who has impressed me from early days and I suspect this with Salonen & the Radio France orchestra is the best recording of it. Add a major orchestral work with three boys representing Jews forced to wear badges by the Nazis - "Why us? Why the star?" - and we have a superb portrait CD to begin the new year 2013. Peter Grahame Woolf See Barbara Hannigan atin Ayres musicalpointers/liveevents10/Ayres.html Photo: J-F Leclercq |