October, 2008
Charles Ives
The Light That is Felt: Songs of Charles Ives
New World Records 80680-2
Susan Narucki, soprano
Donald Berman, piano
Reviews
Editor's Choice - BBC Music Magazine, February 09 - Highest rating: 5 Stars
"...the disc represents a fertile meeting of minds belonging to two eloquent champions of
20th century American music...So often Ives demands an unselfconscious simplicity not all
singers can muster. Susan Narucki knows how not to over-gild - never rending maudlin the rich
thread of nocturne and remembrance which runs through the artfully-plotted programme. The oppressed fragility of "Like a Sick Eagle" is something special on a very special disc indeed."
Paul Riley - BBC Music Magazine Read more...
Andy Hamilton in Wire: "There's probably no finer introduction to Ives' songs, or indeed his output as a whole". Read more...
Diverdi's Elisa Rapado: "The collaboration of the splendid Susan Narucki, a soprano of round and luminous timbre and her conscientious accompanist Donald Berman, shows limitless musicality." Read more...
"Ne possiamo ascoltare una scelta non cosi minima nella magnifica interpretazione della soprano Susan Narucki, accompangnata da Donald Berman."
Piercarlo Poggio - BLOW UP (Italy) - Read more...
Opera Actual (Spain) "As interesting as intense is this selection of Charles Ives'
songs extracted from the compilation '114 Songs' published by the same
composer in 1922... The songs on this disc belong to every era, since his youth in
Yale until the end of his inspiration in 1927, and address different
themes: bucolic, urban, and sentimental. However, they all share the same
spirit: the atonality offers an sense of mystery that mixes with some
typical American melodies, giving a result of great modernity. The tandem
formed by Susan Narucki and Donald Berman is fully involved in the project,
with the security of someone who know what he is doing and with a great
synthesis between them. The result: a good mixture of brief songs of
intense music and words as evocative as the photography that illustrates the
CD." Read more...
The New Yorker's Russell Platt on the best classical CD's of late including "The Light That is Felt" by Soprano Susan Narucki and Pianist Donald Berman.
"Under the Influence, or Providing It" - The New York Times, Jan 16, 2009
International Record Review - February 2009
Captured memories - real or idealized, distant or near - are the materials for the music.
Ives brings the listeners into the heart of his songs’ stories through remarkable craft. The works initially draw one in through idiosyncratic surface details. As time, place, and setting of the stories are initiated, Ives’ stunning inspirations begin to manifest. He masterfully develops his material, and, as the songs unfold, the music burrows to an emotional core.
...[Ives] draws us toward the impressions that we form through our senses when life rushes toward us, overwhelms us and shakes us from our waking sleep. Ives illustrates that in the midst of these impressions, vivid and fleeting, we become aware of something else; things that call to the best of what we are capable of as human beings; thing that are completely true. These moments of capturing and sharing memory are the substance of Ives’ songs; the part that “comes from somewhere near the soul.”
from the liner notes by
Donald Berman and Susan Narucki
The Light That is Felt: Songs of Charles Ives reflects Susan Narucki and Donald Berman’s lifelong interest in the music of Charles Ives. The twenty-seven songs on this disc range from some of Ives’ best known (Songs My Mother Taught Me, The Housatonic at Stockbridge) to the lesser known settings of Italian poets (August, September, December) and also includes General William Booth Enters Into Heaven. The performances were informed by the critical edition of Ives Songs by the late Wiley Hitchcock and the project was supported by grants from the Aaron Copland Fund For Recorded Music and The Ives Society.
October 2008
Americans in Rome: Music By Fellows of the American Academy in Rome
Bridge 9271A/D
Susan Narucki, soprano
Donald Berman, piano
Samuel Barber, Of That So Sweet Imprisonment
Sleep Now
David Rakowski, For Wittgenstein
Vittorio Giannini, There were Two Swans
Scott Lindroth, The Dolphins
Susan Narucki, soprano
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor
Roger Sessions, Malinche's Aria from Montezuma
This four disc collection contains works by thirty-seven composers who were all in residence at the American Academy in Rome. The earliest work dates from 1920, the most recent from 2003. Composers include the well known: Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions; the largely forgotten: Charles Naginski, Alexander Lang Steinert, Walter Helfer; and many of today's most active voices: Robert Beaser, David Rakowski, Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Moravec, Stephen Hartke, and David Lang. Curated by Donald Berman, the disc features performances by many of today's leading performers of contemporary music, including Richard Stoltzman, Yehudi Wyner, Susan Narucki, Tony Arnold, Fred Sherry, Daniel Druckman, Curtis Macomber, Trio Solisti, Ida Kavafian, Scott Yoo, Steven Tenenbom, Peter Wiley, Anne-Marie McDermott, Hila Plitman, Chris Pedro Trakas, and Jeffrey Milarsky.
" .....the four brief Barber settings receive such sterling advocacy by Susan Narucki and Chris Pedro Trakas that one wishes for more... Narucki shines in Vittorio Giannini's melodic "There Were Two Swans". Like so much music composed in the 1960's, the jauntily subversive excerpts from Roger Session's opera Montezuma betray their era. While not very vocal, the two tableaux are entertaining and Narucki skillfully handles the tortuous leaps of Malinche's aria." - Gramophone (Read More...)
February 14, 2008
Aaron Jay Kernis:
Simple Songs, Valentines, Songs of Innocents
Koch KIC-CD-7667
Susan Narucki, soprano
Donald Berman, piano
Aaron Jay Kernis, conductor
"Whether setting lyrical or narrative poems, composer Aaron Jay Kernis - a Pulitzer and Grawemeyer Award-winner - creates both appropriate and unexpected music, generally on a grand scale that makes considerable demands on the performers. Soprano Susan Narucki, pianist Donald Berman and the other musicians on this recording offer satisfying accounts of this difficult, serious but wonderfully expressive music......Narucki has the smarts and complete investment they require. There seem to be no heights she is unafraid to scale; her ability to create line over the angular melodies is enviable She also has compelling richness to her voice that gives her access to plenty of colors…. these songs which invite performers to strut their personality -- a task Narucki and Berman can do handsomely.”
Opera News
“Kernis is an extraordinary melodist and a master of lush, delicately Romantic harmonies, and when he sets out to seduce a listener, there's no resisting him - especially with soprano Susan Narucki's lustrous tones to seal the deal. Simple Songs," which Narucki introduced in San Francisco in 1999, remains a beautiful tour de force, with its delicate instrumental writing and heart-stopping Mahlerian finale.”
San Francisco Chronicle
The three song cycles on this disc make a compelling case for Aaron Jay Kernis as one of today’s most gifted composers of song. In his 1991 cycle for voice and ensemble, Simple Songs, (written for Susan Narucki and the New Music Consort), Kernis' settings of spiritual texts strike a beautiful balance between delicacy, exuberance and profundity, supported by the exquisite instrumentation that is one of the hallmarks of Kernis' instrumental writing.
Valentines (with texts by Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy) offers surprising stories of love and loves, and features virtuoso writing for both voice and piano. Songs of Innocents (1989-90) describes a child’s world that that is wondrous and strange, by turns cruel and humorous.
A longtime advocate of Kernis' music, Narucki has performed Simple Songs with numerous ensembles, including members of the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall, and presented Valentines in its orchestral version with conductor Marin Alsop at the 2007 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Susan Narucki and Donald Berman have presented songs of Aaron Kernis in recital at the American Academy in Rome, and at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall.