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Editorial Reviews

Schumann's romantic oratorio "Paradise and the Peri," is drawn from Thomas Moore's poem "Lalla Rookh" and tells the tale of a supernatural being who is banned from heaven until she does penance. The title role is sung by American soprano Barbara Bonney, who excels in German works. Mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink's plangent tones add an authentic touch to the arcane story, which Moore lifted from Persian folklore. Conductor John Eliot Gardiner sets lively tempos and gets precise, light, and pliant playing from the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir. The "Requiem für Mignon," set to a text from Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister," is also drenched in Romantic literary tradition. Members of the Hanover Boys' Choir offer the pious vehemence and innocence needed in music that mourns the death of a young girl, but ends with a life-affirming message. Baritone William Dazeley delivers his upbeat solo with operatic fervor, in the tradition of the late Hermann Prey. Yet another pleasure is the choral "Nachtlied," a brief work full of poetic revery that's given its world-premiere recording here. Benjamin Ivry, Barnes & Noble

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