Innocence Lost: The Berg-Debussy Project

Mary Nessinger & Jeanne Golan

Released on 1/1/08 by Albany Records
Main artists: Mary Nessinger Jeanne Golan
Genre: Classical

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Innocence Lost: The Berg-Debussy Project starts from an intriguing premise: mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger and pianist Jeanne Golan chose two classics fin de (XIXme) siècle song sets, Debussy's Trois Chansons de Bilitis (1897-1898) and Berg's Sieben Frühe Lieder (1908), which are worlds stylistically apart, but which each express a new direction in musical languages arising at the end of the Romantic era. The performers then asked 10 contemporary composers to each write a song corresponding to one of the songs by Berg or Debussy that expresses something of the changes in music at the beginning of the twenty first century. The CD includes the three Debussy songs, then three new songs, then the Berg, and then seven new songs. After studying the texts, Nessinger and Golan discovered a common thread of the loss of innocence running through all of them, giving the whole enterprise a nice thematic unity.
It's a brilliant conception that one wishes more adventurous and forward-looking ensembles and performers would undertake: programming classics with newly commissioned works for which the original is in some way a model or template. In this case, though, the execution doesn't quite live up to the concept. Nessinger sings with intelligence and deep expressiveness, but her voice is timbrally modest, so she doesn't fill out the songs in a completely satisfying way, and her technical limitations sometimes get in the way of her ability to let the songs really soar. In the case of the newer works, some composers (particularly David del Tredici, who should know better) seem to forget that Nessinger is a mezzo and employ a tessitura requiring a singer with the range of both mezzo and soprano, with an unpleasantly screechy result. As a whole, Nessinger is more successful in the Debussy and Berg, which is most likely an indication that some of the contemporary composers lack their predecessors' deep understanding of vocal writing. Some of the new songs seem flat in the august company in which they find themselves, but some are strongly effective and deeply affecting, particularly those by Joe Kerr, Daniel Rothman, Anne Weesner, Eric Moe, and especially, Jorge Martin and Sebastian Currier. Golan provides a spirited but sensitive accompaniment. Albany's sound is clean, but a little shallow, and sometimes the piano overwhelms the voice.

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Innocence Lost: The Berg-Debussy Project

Mary Nessinger

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Trois Chansons de Bilitis: la flûte de Pan