Benjamin Britten: The Britten Collection – Christophers

   in Early Music Today (Mar, 2014)
If you liked Uri Caine’s updating of the Goldbergs, you should enjoy ‘Il Pergolese’, a homage to Pergolesi that reimagines his music in the context of contemporary improvisation. Melodic lines and fragments, taken chiefly from his Stabat Mater and opera arias, float through abstract soundscapes, where they are lovingly reshaped by restrained yet artful group interplay. Maria Pia De Vito’s soulful vocals and Michele Rabbia’s discreet, shimmering electronics are at the freer end of the improvisatory spectrum; their duo on ‘In compagnia d’amore I’, with its long trails of melismatic scat, is the farthest the music ventures from its 18th-century origins. Francois Couturier and Anja Lechner, more classically oriented, deploy …