Lawrence brownlee/michael spyres: amici e rivali — just one dazzling gobbet after another

LAWRENCE BROWNLEE/MICHAEL SPYRES Amici e rivali ★★★☆☆ DAUMANTS LIEPINS Rachmaninov/Zemzaris ★★★★☆ How do you feel about firework displays? The vocal eruptions on Lawrence Brownlee and

Michael Spyres’s album last nearly 80 minutes. The explosions all come from Rossini, with selections from seven operas laden with chances for two tenors to entwine themselves in song and

almost burst blood vessels pursuing the _bel canto_ art. It’s a feat to which these American tenors are particularly well suited. You hear them at their gorgeous best as Figaro (Spyres in a

traditional baritone role) and Count Almaviva, scheming away in their Act I duet from _The Barber of Seville_. Whatever they sing, the amount of character in each voice easily exceeds the

usual recital dosage. The pair are well contrasted too, with Spyres’s beefier tones complemented by Brownlee’s lighter flutings. Corrado Rovaris and his Veronese orchestra, I Virtuosi

Italiani, agreeably bustle alongside. You probably sense a “but” coming. Its source is the _bel canto_ recital format: one dazzling gobbet after another, thrust at us as if on a toasting

fork, without any pause for vegetables or even a decent breath. Track one’s fireworks filled me with joy. By track 12? Through repetition and claustrophobia, joy had shrunk. Advertisement

Placed at the top of _Pianist_ magazine’s list of “Pianists to Look Out for in 2020”, the young Latvian Daumants Liepins also offers fireworks, yet they are always embedded in sustained

drama. Listen to the aqueous flow and stormy waves in the second of Rachmaninov’s Op 39 _Études-Tableaux_, or the textural subtleties and fiery panache in the composer’s Second Sonata,

dispatched in its tightened 1931 revision. Sensitive, imaginative, in full command of his instrument’s resources, Liepins effortlessly keeps the listener transfixed. That’s equally true with

the Third Sonata of Imants Zemzaris, a contemporary Latvian with a quizzical attitude towards his musical material. Restless and obsessive, this singular sonata exactly suits what Liepins

describes as his recital’s theme: “the majesty of nature and the fragility of the soul”. This is a deeply satisfying album. _(Erato; Skani)_