Daniel Sæther - Vintersong - Vaage/Vogt/Karlsen (2022) [Hi-Res]

All the music on this CD has the countertenor as a common denominator. There is something beautifully unsettling about hearing a male singing in the register of a female singer. It throws us back to a, fortunately, bygone time when the same vocal properties were reached by the barbaric practice that produced the male “castrati”. Nowadays, male singers who wish to sing in this register develop their falsetto and head voice techniques in a natural way.

The three composers represented here are all honest seekers who choose to adopt different musical approaches according to their temperaments. In some cases we hear an explicit adherence to more traditional tonality. In others the connection to a tonal root is tenuous at best. Yet, each and every piece in these recordings has a particular beauty born of its inner necessities. And it is all recognizable as music.