Young soprano
Rachel Willis-Sorensen
gained a good deal of notice with her eponymously titled
first album
, perhaps inspiring her to take a bold step with her second: there is absolutely no shortage of recordings of
Richard Strauss
'
Vier letzte Lieder
("
Four Last Songs
"), but
Willis-Sorensen
entered the field with a new one in 2023. She landed on classical best-seller charts, and it is no wonder; her readings of the songs are fresh and powerful. There are many attractive and innovative features, beginning right off the bat with the rather downbeat approach to
Fruehling ("Spring"), No. 1
. The soprano says that the song is "full of desperation. It's the hope that spring maybe will come, but there's the fear that it won't. It's not 'look at the pretty flowers.'" The song, with its two-octave range, is only deceptively simple, and
is on top of it throughout. She has a lot of help from conductor
Andris Nelsons
, leading the
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
, with whom she has worked closely in the past; the entire set shows close cooperation between the pair. Another draw is the pairing of the
with the final scene of
Strauss
' final opera,
Capriccio, Op. 85
, another instance of the gorgeous writing for soprano voice of which
was capable. Here, too,
Nelsons
' orchestral work is passionate and arresting. A noteworthy entry in the canon of
recordings. ~ James Manheim