KEY POINTS:
There is an irresistible glow to the opening of Osvaldo Golijov's Oceana. Over rustling Latin percussion and throbbing guitars, Luciana Souza lets forth with Pablo Neruda's opening lines: "Oceana, bridal Oceana, hips of the islands, here by my side; sing to me the vanished chants, signs, numbers from the river of desire."
There is no resisting this music, caught on a Deutsche Grammophon release, complemented by shorter works for the Kronos Quartet and soprano Dawn Upshaw.
Souza is the queen of the new bossa nova in her native Brazil. Golijov gives her two voluptuous calls and a sinuous aria that is trance-inducing in its loveliness, especially when a boys' chorus weaves against Souza's brilliant vocalising.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are forcefully marshalled by Robert Spano.
Moods move from the unbridled exhilaration of their first appearance to the lapping phrases of the final chorale, betraying the piece's origins as a commission for the 1996 Oregon Bach Festival.
Tenebrae is intensely meditative, evoking the spirit of the French composer Francois Couperin.
The composer asks for the music to sound like an orbiting spaceship that never touches the ground; the Kronos musicians keep it securely in realms celestial.
Finally we have Three Songs, a 2002 score that we were fortunate to hear live when the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra programmed it not so long after its premiere.
Three Songs is inspired by Sally Potter's 2000 movie The Man Who Cried, for which Golijov provided the soundtrack, along with gypsy music and an Emily Dickinson poem.
Upshaw brings an all-embracing Yiddish warmth to the lullaby Night of the Flying Horses, lulling our spirits until the orchestra takes over, building up to a frenzy as much Vivaldi storm as gypsy celebration.
She revels in the languorous contours of Colourless Moon, in the words of the singer, "the saddest C major song I know" and lends the final setting of Dickinson's How Slow the Wind, an elegy on a shimmering minimalist canvas, an aching beauty.
I cannot recommend this disc too highly and Universal is to be commended on giving it a local release.
Osvaldo Golijov, Oceana
(Deutsche Grammophon 477 6426)
