Grammy 2021 : Best classical solo vocal album -ehdokas.

Presto Editor's Choice
July 2020

Sarah Brailey (soprano), Dashon Burton (bass-baritone)
Experiential Chorus, Experiential Orchestra
James Blachly

Smyth left home at nineteen to study composition in Leipzig. In the company of Clara Schumann and her teacher Heinrich von Herzogenberg, she met and won the admiration of composers such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorák, and Grieg. Smyth was the first woman to have an opera performed at the Met, in 1903. (The second was Kaija Saariaho, whose L'Amour de loin appeared there in 2016!) Smyth later became central to the Suffragette movement in England, writing the March of the Women. Her gender politics and sexuality were cause for attacks by critics, and she famously went to prison herself for throwing a stone through an MPs window. Composed in 1930 and premiered in 1931 in Edinburghs Usher Hall, The Prison is a Symphony in two parts, Close on Freedom and The Deliverance, set for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus, and full orchestra. The text is taken from a philosophical work by Henry Bennet Brewster and concerns the writings of a prisoner in solitary confinement, his reflections on life and his preparations for death. The album is recorded in Surround Sound and available as a Hybrid SACD.

"The Prison on kiinnostava ja tärkeä nosto Smythen tuotannosta. Hienoa, että se on viimeinkin saatu ikuistettua myös äänitteelle. The Prison onkin yksi parhaista Smyth-julkaisuista tähän mennessä." - Aki Yli-Salomäki, Yle Radio 1, Uudet levyt, 29. 9. 2020.