Search - Charles Ives, Clark-Schuldmann Duo, Clara Schumann :: Patience for the Harvest : A Parallel Portrait of Jenny Lind & Emily Dickinson

Belle of Amherst Meets the Swedish Nightingale

W. Robert Chapman | Newington, CT USA | 12/14/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Chamber Music Plus continues its Parallel Portraits series with an examination of two mid-nineteenth-century cultural icons, American poet Emily Dickinson and Swedish coloratura Jenny Lind. The two women couldn't have been less alike: Dickinson was practically a recluse and Lind's concert career was heavily promoted by huckster P. T. Barnum.As in previous offerings in the Parallel Portraits series, Chamber Music Plus has enlisted the talents of a well-known actress, in this case Jill Clayburgh. (Previous recordings have featured Theodore Bikel and Edward Herrmann.) Cellist/script writer Harry Clark has come up with a winning formula: The actor/actress portrays one of the historical figures and reads excerpts from the other's correspondence. Clark and pianist Sanda Schuldmann intersperse the text with music with which the protaganists might have been familiar.The Clark-Schuldmann Duo are exemplary players, and they offer generous amounts of music. The one serious criticism I have of the format is that the spoken text often goes on much longer than is comfortable on a CD (it works well in a theater, by the way). Both Clark and Clayburgh have done their homework: The works are well-researched and -presented, and Clayburgh's understanding of her characters is evident.All in all, a fine addition to this unique genre."