Other recordings

I have been buying a lot of CD's lately, including Dawn Upshaw's Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne. This is a collection of folk songs from Auvergne, a region in central France with its own dialect, called Auvergnat. Cantaloube's songs are in this dialect, though the liner notes show only French and English. This makes it more difficult to match the singing with the translation.

Joseph Cantaloube is known primarily for these songs which were composed over a long period from 1923 to 1955. The orchestral accompaniment seems to answer the question, "What if these songs were in a movie?" We're hearing post-impressionism. Alternate question, "If these songs were a movie, what would the plot be?"

Dawn Upshaw's main talent is her ability to bring a sense of ecstasy into unusual music, a talent strongly in evidence here. It's not a new recording.

I also bought:
Elīna Garanča Aria Cantilena
Angela Gheorghiu Live from La Scala
Measha Bruggergosman Surprise
Vivica Genaux Handel & Hasse Opera Arias
Netrebko and Villazon duets
Natalie Dessay French Opera Arias
Lotte Lenya Kurt Weill
Matthias Goerne Schumann

In the mail is Jonas Kaufmann's Strauss Lieder. I'll let you know if I think of anything to say about them.

Florez' Arias for Rubini is out in Europe, but I can't find it here.
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