Composers: Mahler, Berg, Rhian Samuel
Compositions: Song cycles
Performers: Ruby Hughes s, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac van Steen cond
Catalogue Number: BIS BIS2408
It’s a long way from the music of 17th-century Italy to orchestral song-cycles by Mahler and Berg, but soprano Ruby Hughes makes it seem like the smallest and most natural of steps. 2017’s Heroines of Love and Loss saw Hughes drawing large-scale emotions from musical miniatures by Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini and others, and what’s most striking about Clytemnestra and its 20th-century works is how little Hughes has to reinvent her supple, sweet-toned soprano to accommodate them.
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