Many Voices

It is refreshing to encounter a composer with enough confidence in his own talent to write what's in his ear and heart with uninhibited, ingenuous candor. Steven Mercurio has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, but it is as a composer that, in his own words, he expresses "the more intimate details of what I see and feel in life," and strives to "touch the soul of internal emotional struggles." Written between 1980 and 2000, most of these seven songs are slow and predominantly melancholy; the music is clearly influenced by Mercurio's work with opera (echoes of Puccini, but without his luscious melodies); the orchestrations owe more to Hollywood, with harp glissandi, throbbing, tremolo strings and chirping woodwinds. Some songs seem all static instrumental texture, supporting a monotonal vocal line. The poems are romantic, dreamy, yearning; two are lullabies. Five are in English, including one by the composer himself; Andrea Bocelli contributes two lengthy Italian texts and sings one of the songs. The longest, most ambitious piece on Many Voices is the earliest: "Serenade for Tenor and Orchestra" in six stanzas with an orchestral prelude, postlude, and several interludes including a waltz. It tells the story of a failed love affair, rising from bitter disillusionment to passionate lament, which the music underlines with high, strident strings, blaring trumpets, bangs and crashes, piling climax upon climax until the final fade-out. Mercurio thanks his "special friends for lending their voices" to the project, and indeed no composer could ask for more persuasive advocates. Quilico stands out for his vocal and musical simplicity, Martínez for her warm, velvety voice and expressiveness; Villazón, a fine tenor, does not seem quite at home in the English language.  --Edith Eisler