Arnold Schoenberg once said "My works are not modern, just badly played." He was speaking of performers who, in a struggle to hack their way through a dense undergrowth of notes and rhythms, lose sight of the larger terrain.
But Schoenberg would have had few complaints about Jan DeGaetani, the mezzo-soprano whose recording of his Book of the Hanging Gardens was just released on Nonesuch.
DeGaetani has made a big reputation singing contemporary works partly because of her uncanny ability to navigate faultlessly among unconventional rhythms and unexpected pitch relations. That ability is very much in evidence on this recording as is a comfortable, idiomatic approach to the music. She gives subtle shape to Schoenberg's disoriented vocal lines.
DeGaetani's tone in her low register has an eerie, mysterious quality which reflects the ambiguous and sinister tests by Stefan George. Her upper register however is just plain ugly. When she goes above the staff, she sounds as if she were struggling to free herself from someone clutching at her throat. Fortunately, she doesn't have to go there too often and her performance remains sensitive and dramatic if not always beautiful.
On the other side of the record, Gaetani sings nine songs by Schubert. She sings many long, poignant lines but somehow her singing, geared to the violence of contemporary music, doesn't seem delicate or ingenuous enough for many of the Schubert songs. It sounds somewhat like hunting for small beautiful birds with a howitzer.
One of the best things about the record is the playing of planist Gilbert Kalish. Equally at home with Schoenberg and Schubert, Kalish's playing is always restrained and insightful.
