Works for voice by Rebecca Saunders, Enno Poppe, Beat Furrer & Chaya Czernowin: What of words and what of song

What about words and what about singing

This album is an incomplete survey of vocal works from the generation of composers born in the 1950s or 1960s, who immersed themselves in a European scene moving towards a more assertive aesthetic pluralism, based on the loosening and fragmentation of prevailing musical hegemonies.

In their own way, all the composers represented here succeed in combining the natural lyrical character of the voice with the rejection typical of the mid-century - whether by dismantling the language and its meaning or by the "neutralizing" strategy of an instrumental treatment of the voice – to connect to the more recent historical burden of that very poetry. It seems like the voice here is singing across time. In the blink of an eye it shifts from hints of Renaissance polyphony to glimpses of the future with otherworldly sounds; sometimes she evokes the intimacy with which people whisper in their ears, then the whole drama of a passionate bel canto appeal breaks out. That's what I find exciting. The voice is fully embodied, integrated into its actual story and at the same time connected to its possible legacy.

When there are common themes between these pieces, they have to do with instability and uncertainty. If a text carries any meaning within it, it is likely to wrestle with the big questions. Who am I? what is this life what is death This existential questioning is often reflected in restless musical material that seems to tremble or throb as it finds a way forward: pitches slip or nest in spaces, rhythms buck and jump or circle in obsessive loops of repetition, and sometimes there the sound just picks up the spirit.

As said, this is an incomplete overview. He shows a certain posture, attitude for composing vocal works, even if the approaches are pleasantly different. As a portrait of an interpreter, it is also incomplete, perhaps somewhat arbitrary. Some pieces are fixed parts of my repertoire; others I performed in the studio for the first time. The whole album was supposed to be recorded in 2019, but in the end the project was only completed after more than three years. As a document of my work, it perhaps captures something of this long, slow road to artistic maturity. It's often quite a lonely journey, but those moments of stepping alongside a companion in step are always a welcome adventure. Somehow an utterance is always a conversation, be it just a dialogue with you, the imaginary listener.

Juliet Fraser