With a preternaturally creamy tone, countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski has climbed to the upper reaches of the heap of younger singers competing in his vocal specialty. It may nevertheless be surprising to see Orlinski, at this comparatively early point in his career, moving into the territory of the post-castrato non-countertenor repertory of Romantic and modern art songs. This was pioneered by Andreas Scholl, but Orlinski is not quite at that level of renown yet. Moreover, these songs, all in Polish, are likely to be all ...
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With a preternaturally creamy tone, countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski has climbed to the upper reaches of the heap of younger singers competing in his vocal specialty. It may nevertheless be surprising to see Orlinski, at this comparatively early point in his career, moving into the territory of the post-castrato non-countertenor repertory of Romantic and modern art songs. This was pioneered by Andreas Scholl, but Orlinski is not quite at that level of renown yet. Moreover, these songs, all in Polish, are likely to be all but unknown to non-Polish listeners. What makes the album work is simply the ravishing beauty of many of them; they are likely to make many listeners ask what else they've been missing in this repertory. Orlinski programs works by six composers, ranging from Stanislaw Moniuszko, the dean of 19th century Polish composers, to contemporary composer Pawel Lukaszewski; the others are somewhat well known (Karol Szymanowski), slightly known (Mieczyslaw Karlowicz and perhaps Tadeusz Baird),...
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