Wednesday 18 February 2009

Christianne Stotijn: Tchaikovsky romances

Christianne Stotijn with Julius Drake: Tchaikovsky romances. Released January 2009. Further information here.

Dutch mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn (born 1977) seems set on making an international singing career centered around concert- and liedsinging and just released her fourth solo album "Tchaikovsky romances" on Onyx.

What genuinely places Christianne Stotijn apart from the vast majority of her colleagues is not fundamentally the voice. Though Christianne Stotijn´s voice is beautiful as well as first-rate, it doesn´t have the even, creamy beauty of colleagues such as Angelika Kirchschlager or Magdalena Kozena.
What she does have, though, is a genuinely unique expressivity based around a seemingly deep understanding of the text and musical structures. The myriads of moods and colours she applies to these Tchaikovsky songs are quite extraordinary, always emphasizing the words and clearly chosing expressivity over beauty of tone, when faced with the choice.

Highly recommended.

The bottom line (scale of 1-5, 3=average):

5

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