Bella Adamova & Michael Gees: There Is Home
Supraphon

A vocal recital album with a difference, There Is Home features contralto Bella Adamova (b. 1992) and pianist Michael Gees (b. 1953) augmenting renditions of songs by Pavel Haas, Gustav Mahler, Modest Mussorgsky, and Benjamin Britten with improvisations based on poems by Anna Akhmatova, Pablo Neruda, Heinz-Albert Heindrichs, Marie Howe, Klára Goldstein, and Adamova herself. Both sets prove rewarding, with the treatments of the composers' material gripping and the duo's flights of fancy as riveting. Adding to the recording's impact, the recitalists chose not to present each composer's work separately; instead, they've intermingled the improvisations and four works to create something of a transformational travelogue. As a result, selections from Mussorgsky's The Nursery and Britten's Folksong Arrangements appear alongside Mahler's Rückert-Lieder and Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry in an ever-changing presentation. As intimated by the album title, the project's theme has to do with the desire for home and a sense of belonging. The songs have been ordered in accordance with that theme so that the narrative that crystallizes comes to seem like Adamova's own story and thus registers as an open-hearted invitation for the listener to undertake that journey with her.

A repeated award-winner at competitions and art song specialist, the versatile Adamova's a Chechnya native who grew up in Prague and studied in Germany, Switzerland, and London; with such a background, it's no surprise she's at home in different languages and musical contexts. While she lives in the Czech Republic, her passport identifies her as a Russian citizen, and as much as she resists calling it her mother tongue it's the language she uses when speaking with her mother. Adamova feels therefore an undeniable connection to Mussorgsky's The Nursery and the poetry of Akhmatova, which comes through vividly in the album performances; she also established a strong tie to the music of Britten during her studies in London. It's Mahler, however, to whom she feels closest, and that special connection is borne out by the duo's tremendous Rückert-Lieder. There Is Home isn't the first time, incidentally, she and Gees have tackled improvisations as the two also performed them on their 2019 debut album Blooming.

Longing for home is referenced directly in the opening song, Haas's “I heard the cry of the wild geese,” and conveyed with an emotional desperation by Adamova that without losing control verges on painful. The duo perpetuates the focus on homesickness in the improvisation that follows, “Mein Heimweh,” her delivery now marked by vulnerability and the pianist's delicacy. As spontaneous as the performance is, it's anything but directionless; as the two work their way through the material, it unfolds with a naturalness and clarity that makes it seem more pre-structured than something birthed in the moment. Much the same could be said of the five other improvisations, which in each case impresses as thoughtfully responsive to the text. As illustrated by the duo's wildly theatrical reply to Howe's words in “What the Angels Left” and her Sprechstimme-like handling of Neruda's in the blues-tinged “The Queen,” it's in the improvs that the recital partners seem most liberated and receptive to wherever their impulses lead.

Like any great singer, Adamova exhibits remarkable range of emotional expression and fashions it in response to the shifting moods of the material. She's as convincing adopting the persona of a playful child in Mussorgsky's “With Nanny” as she is giving lyrical voice to the endearing folk charm of Britten's “Early one morning.” Consider also how she deftly she alternates between personas in Mussorgsky's “In the Corner” when the nanny chastises the child for rascally behaviour and the latter shifts the blame to the family kitten. In Gee, Adamova has the ideal partner. Never overpowering the singer, he supports her with exquisite attention to every vocal move, and both imprint themselves with authority on all twenty-one selections.

March 2024