Soundcheck's Picks of the Week

This week’s picks offer some Mediterranean sounds, Bernstein's hippie-inspired Mass, and a truly “Grimm” fairy tale...

Philip Glass & Robert Moran – The Juniper Tree (Orange Mountain Music)

In 1985, composers Philip Glass and Robert Moran unveiled a chamber opera based on The Juniper Tree, by the Brothers Grimm. Even by their standards, this is a grim tale: evil stepmother kills stepson, cooks him in a stew, feeds him to his own dad, buries the bones beneath the Juniper Tree. In general, Glass does the pretty music and the domestic scenes, and Moran writes the stepmother’s many mad scenes, which can get pretty hairy. With its two composers and portable ensemble, Philip Glass & Robert Moran’s The Juniper Tree is an operatic oddity, but it’s also strangely satisfying. - Picked by John Schaefer
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Renaud Garcia Fons – La Linea del Sur (Enja)

Bass player Renaud Garcia Fons grew up near Paris from Spaniard parents, so he always listened to Mediterranean sounds and flamenco. Then he added jazz and Latin American music to the mix. On this new album, La Linea Del Sur, or the line to the south, he goes into a deep journey road through these rhythms, with a little help from a beautiful voice. - picked by Gisele Regatao
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Leonard Bernstein – Mass - Randall Scarlata bar Absolute Ensemble; Tonkünstler Orchestra / Kristjan Järvi (Chandos)

We admit to feeling a little Leonard Bernstein fatigue lately, with the recent return of West Side Story to Broadway and last year’s 90th birthday celebrations. But a new recording of the composer’s Mass is hard to resist. Switzerland’s Tonkunstler-Orchester under conductor Kristjan Jarvi renews a work that was very controversial at its 1971 premiere, taking on Nixon and the Vietnam War; here it seems suddenly relevant again. And whatever its moments of excess and extravagance but the piece is underscored by Lenny’s sure sense of craftsmanship. - Picked by Brian Wise
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