On track: A musical banquet

By WILLIAM DART

Not many sopranos can sparkle in Rodgers and Hart, cope with Stephen Sondheim at his snappiest, and give superlative Bach, Berg and Stravinsky.

One such singer is American Dawn Upshaw, who has a catalogue on Nonesuch Records to prove it - almost a dozen CDs of unrivalled quality.

Her latest is Voices of Light, a collection of mostly French music inspired by Upshaw's spiritual recharging when she was in Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise.

Michael Steinberg's liner note describes the disc as a banquet - an understatement for an album that presents substantial song-cycles from Debussy and Faure alongside one Golijov offering and four key Messiaen works.

This quartet of songs, recorded six years earlier than the rest of the album, ranges from the reflective Le Collier to the flamboyant ecstasies of Resurrection, which ends the set.

While it is obvious Upshaw is not a native French speaker (especially when considered alongside last year's Debussy recital from Sandrine Piau), she has an unaffected directness that defuses any possibility of criticism.

Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis is the most familiar fare, and Upshaw, with that doyen of American pianists, Gilbert Kalish, takes advantage of the French composer's licence to enchant.

The booklet translations may be sloppy (surely "limbs" would be a better rendition of "membres" than the more obvious and laughable transliteration), but the musical focus is unfaltering.

A song such as L'Escalier redit from Messiaen's Harawi displays Upshaw's unsurpassed range and her ability to illuminate and inhabit a difficult piece of writing, that comes across like the composer's Vingt Regards with vocal line added.

If you were transported by Patricia Wright's performance of the Golijov Three Songs with the Auckland Philharmonia in June, you can hear Upshaw sing the second, a setting of Garcia Lorca's Lua Descolorida, with a winning mix of rapture and luminosity.

In an album of ecstasies, Faure's La Chanson d'Eve is the gentlest and most self-effacing. This cycle has been in Upshaw's repertoire for some years and reports of concert performances have been tantalising. It has been well worth the wait.

* Dawn Upshaw, Voices of Light (Nonesuch 79812)