Inspired musical settings of 19th-century French symbolist poet’s work.
Susanna Wallumrød’s with Charles Baudelaire began in 2020 with the 10-song Baudelaire And Piano, but here she is accompanied by Oslo’s Norwegian Radio Orchestra. These sensual selections from Les Fleurs Du Mal embody, in the poet’s translated words, a “cold and sinister beauty”.
Even in translation Baudelaire’s imagery is extraordinarily dramatic. He looks onto ‘the shrouded corpse of all love’ on Alchemy Of Suffering, and on Obsession he’s frightened of forests and hates the ocean: ‘…the bitter laughter insults, I hear resounding in laughter.’ But he also achieved a balance in his verse and Susanna avoids exaggerating these literary mood swings, and instead plots a steady course and gives space to the words.
Jarl G Storløkken’s orchestration is beautifully judged, from…
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 141