A very special recording: 19-th century Melodramas for voice and piano!
The melodrama, a genre combining recitation with music, flourished with particular vigor as the 20th century dawned. By that time, it had outgrown its original 18th-century form: no longer simply alternating between music and speech, late 19th-century melodramas (and their descendants) mainly consisted of texts declaimed over a nearly continuous and elaborate musical accompaniment. The speaker used musical elements like pitch, timbre and rhythm to meld the words with the musical texture, taking care that they lost neither expression nor intelligibility in the process. The performance practice associated with the works recorded here paved the way for Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.
The composers included are Alexander Campbell Mackenzie, Margaret Amphlett, Harry Farjeon, York Bowen, and the authors include Thomas Hood, William Butler Yeats, John Keats and Edgar Allen Poe.
A unique concept realized by Jed Wentz, famous flutist and pioneer of the Historically Informed Performance Practice. His numerous recordings brought him excellent, 5-star reviews in the international press. He is seconded by Artem Belogurov, playing the fortepiano and dulcitone.
