Nonesuch
2006
Love Sublime
About This Album
If you think jazz is becoming an endangered art form chained to its past, that's nothing compared to the present condition of classical art song, which is almost extinct in concert halls, sustained mostly by star singers taking a break from opera. Nevertheless, pianist/composer Brad Mehldau treads where very, very few jazzmen have bothered to go before, composing a pair of classical song cycles for the esteemed, front-rank soprano Renée Fleming. No kidding. And he does it strictly in European classical terms; with no jazz, no hints of improvisation except in the title song, everything written out just as Schubert, Schumann, Mahler, Mehldau's idol Brahms, and other classical masters did before him. Rainer Maria Rilke's philosophical poems form the texts for Mehldau's "Songs from The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God," a grand seven-song cycle lasting over a half-hour. It speaks well for Mehldau's taste that these are far better texts than you often encounter in lieder, rooted in solitude, questioning man's relationship to God. His responses to the texts are thoughtful and varied in texture, ranging from the daringly simple, spare, stabbing progression of chords as an accompaniment to "Your First Word Was Light" to quasi-symphonic passages in others.
Track List (try track 1)

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