Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759) shared Hasse’s popular acclaim and fondness for effervescent coloratura. Unlike Hasse, however, his music has remained confined to the archives, and it has fallen to Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva to dust it off. The arias here – world premieres all, save one – make a startlingly strong case for Graun’s music in all its exhilarating virtuosity and emotional variety. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Lezhneva, whose advocacy is blighted by technical problems.
Something has gone badly wrong with this voice. Back in 2010, aged just 21, Lezhneva had a winning combination of purity and agility, and a lovely ease to her production. But vocal quirks and an increasingly manufactured delivery have crystallised into a voice that has retained agility, but at the cost of power and tonal control. Lezhneva now sounds like a precocious boy-treble – light and nimble, but snatching at top notes, swooping through intervals, blurting through legato passages.
A shame, as there’s some thrilling music, stylishly performed by the exemplary Concerto Köln. Graun’s two styles – poised and proto-galant in ballads, outdoing even Vinci for brilliance in the stormy numbers – make for a disc of contrasts. There’s simple beauty in the lilting Piangete, o mesti lumi and restless urgency in the ferocious semiquavers of Sento una pena. Graun is a composer I’d like to hear more from. The same cannot be said of Lezhneva, on current form.
Comments
Log in to join the conversation.