Exotic Soundscapes

Two London concerts featuring
music from the opera to the orient,
attended by MALCOLM MILLER

A concert of music for countertenor promises an evening of surprises, and the near capacity Wigmore Hall recital by Yaniv d'Or, with Iain Burnside, Laurence Cummings and the Ensemble Naya on 18 June 2011, was a particular delight, extending the boundaries of genre, style and sound. Effectively, the near capacity audience was regaled by two concerts in one: firstly a Lieder recital partnered by the interpretatively penetrating pianist Iain Burnside, and later an innovative intertwining of early Italian Baroque, with Jewish settings including Ladino, Hebrew and cantorial. The unusual blending of sacred and secular traditions gained a post-modern, Mediterranean accent, with the ensemble of leading exponents of Western period and Middle-Eastern instrumental musics.

Holding us all enthralled throughout the evening was Yaniv d'Or, whose smooth toned, powerfully resilient countertenor voice has earned him much international success in early opera and oratorio especially. In songs by Berg, Schubert, Wolf and Poulenc, he was every bit as expressive, passionate and evocatively shaded as more conventional male and female Lieder singers...

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