★★★★☆
Like every reviewer I love surprises, and nothing has surprised me more in a month of Easter Sundays than this delicate and brilliant pairing of Japanese and Viennese classical songs. The album notes are skimpy and mostly in Japanese so I’m guessing here, but I’ll credit the selection of songs as well as the performance to Misaki Kobayashi, apparently a soprano in the Berlin radio choir.
The pairings are so smart they are practically symbiotic. Kobayashi opens with a springtime song by Rentaro Taki (1879-1903) and matches it with Beethoven’s little-sung “Ich liebe dich”. Who’d have thought? It works brilliantly.
Next up is the same spring theme composed by Akira Nakada (born 1951) and W. A. Mozart. I liked the Nakada much better. It had more zest. Another chap called Nakada is twinned with a Zemlinsky waltz. Remember Zemlinsky? Arnold Schoenberg’s only teacher. It just gets better and better.
If I was an enterprising impresario in Berlin I’d be pulling Misaki Kobayashi out of that radio choir and giving her a solo recital, or a job in the office. Or taking her to dinner. She has a truly original mind and a sweet, light soprano voice without a hint of wobble. The pianist is Matthias Veil and the label is off the beaten track, in a village called Nittendorf. Surprises all round.
