Anne Sofie Von Otter, Brad Mehldau: Love Songs

Anne Sofie von Otter, Brad Mehldau

Disc 1: Brad Mehldau - Love Songs: It May Not Always Be So / We Met At The End Of The Party / Child, Child / Twilight / Because / Dreams / Did You Never Know?
Disc 2: Avec Le Temps (Léo Ferré) / Pierre (Barbara) / Marcie (Joni Mitchell) / Something Good (Richard Rodgers) / Chanson De Maxence from ‘Les Demoiselles de Rochefort’ (Michel Legrand) / Chanson Des Vieux Amants (Jacques Brel) / Sakta Vi Gå Genom Stan (Walking My Baby Back Home) (Fred Ahlert) / Att Angöra En Brygga (Lars Farnlof) / Dis, Quand Reviendras-Tu? (Barbara) / What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life? (Michel Legrand) / Calling You from ‘Bagdad Café’ (Bob Telson) / Blackbird (Lennon & McCartney) / Some Other Time from ‘On the Town’ (Leonard Bernstein)

Wholenote Discoveries - April 2011
Teaming up with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau for Love Songs, Anne Sofie von Otter demonstrates great artistic versatility. In doing so she neither sacrifices her pure and dulcet tones nor delivers any measure of artifice inappropriate to the character of the music. Or, as Mehldau comments, she is never overly dramatic. Take, for example, her rendition of Lennon & McCartney’s Blackbird which is as sweet and simple as it ever should be juxtaposed with the subtle nuance of Jacque Brel’s Chanson des vieux amants and the wistful fun of Walking My Baby Back Home sung in Swedish. Mehldau’s own Love Songs cycle, commissioned by Carnegie Hall and written for von Otter, offers a lovely and eloquent vehicle for these two artists. Dianne Wells

Price: $20.98