Birds and Love
Sung Hee Park (soprano), Yuki Koyama (flute), Jean-Pierre Ferey (piano)
rec. 2017, Yukio Kojima
No texts
SKARBO SK3174 [77:25]
Sung Hee Park – I won’t point out the felicitous nature of her first name – is a Korean soprano who has sung widely across Europe and Asia and has won some important competitions along the way. She graduated from the Municipal Conservatory in Milan and has focused on Mozart and the inevitable Franco-Italian heavyweight repertoires.
For this recital she has selected a programme on the themes of birds and the torments of love. The repertoire is, in the main, aria antiche, French chanson and Handel. She is sometimes accompanied by flautist Yuki Koyama but always by the attentive and experienced Jean-Pierre Ferey.
She begins with a traditional Korean folksong which traces its roots to the fourteenth century. It’s affecting and attractive, beautifully accompanied and sung with the insight and vocal resources one would expect. There are two coloratura songs by Julius Benedict, both of which call for the flute, and are lyrically appealing, and fluently easy-going. The middle of the recital sees a sensitively shaped Caccini Amarilli, mia bella and a clarity-conscious, extrovert Scarlatti Se tu della mia morte. Her finest performance of these songs, though, comes in Francesco Durante’s Vergin, tutto amor where the line is subtly moulded and dynamics well-shaped.
Inevitably she essays Handel’s Sweet bird with Koyama, a number beloved of sopranos of yore, and an example of companionable virtuosity. However, V’adoro pupille and Lascia, ch’io pianga show limitations in her expressive armoury. They reveal her tendency in this repertoire to sing without much tenderness, to try unconvincing decorations and registral leaps, and to fall into a hard tone.
She seems rather more comfortable in the French repertory with which the disc ends, though not universally so. The Rameau song, with flute, is the longest piece in the recital, replete with avian delights whilst the Adam offers a series of variations to test the mettle of all three musicians. The disc ends with a trio of Hahn songs, including the ineffable lovely A Chloris. Ferey plays this raptly but Park is not an especially Gallic sounding exponent of this intimate repertoire, notwithstanding what she may do in the opera house with Les contes d’Hoffmann.
There are no texts and nothing about the music in the notes, which are in French and English. I appreciate the ‘recital’ look of the programme – maybe it reflects the kind of recitals she has given – but a repertoire that reinforces her strengths would be preferable to one that suggests some current weaknesses.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
Insik LEE
Aarirang melisma [4:44]
Julius BENEDICT (1804-85)
The Gipsy and the Bird [3:14]
La capinera [3:43]
Giulio CACCINI (c.1545-1618)
Amarilli mia bella [3:43]
Alessandro SCARLATTI (1660-1725)
Se tu della mia morte [3:49]
Francesco DURANTE (1684-1755)
Vergin, tutto amor preghiera [2:52]
Giovanni Battista PERGOLESI (1710-36)
Se tu m'ami [3:33]
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Giulio Cesare in Egitto: V’adoro pupille [4:32]
L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: Sweet Bird [12:44]
Rinaldo; Lascia, ch’io panga [5:06]
Jean Philippe RAMEAU (1683-1764)
Hippolyte et Aricie: Rossignols amoureux [7:37]
Adolphe Charles ADAM (1803-56)
Variations de la bravoure [7:14]
Léo DELIBES (1836-91)
Le Rossignol [5:51]
Reynaldo HAHN (1875-1947)
A Chloris [3:18]
L'Enamourée [3:11]
Si mes vers avaient des ailes [2:09]
