San Francisco Symphony & Michael Tilson Thomas – Tilson Thomas: From the Diary of Anne Frank & Meditations on Rilke (2020) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

San Francisco Symphony & Michael Tilson Thomas – Tilson Thomas: From the Diary of Anne Frank & Meditations on Rilke (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:50 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © SFS Media

In celebration of Michael Tilson Thomas’ 25th and final year as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, SFS Media presents the premiere recordings of MTT’s most recent compositions for voice and orchestra. MTT’s From the Diary of Anne Frank and Meditations on Rilke feature narrator Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny. Inspired by and based on the words and compassionate spirit of Anne Frank, From the Diary of Anne Frank opens with a flourish and culminates in a solemn yet hopeful vision for the future. Meditations on Rilke takes listeners on an emotional and evocative journey befitting the lyrical sweep of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems.

This 2020 release was Michael Tilson Thomas’ final album as conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. That he chose to present his own music suggests that he considers it underexposed, and he makes a good case. The two works were written 30 years apart, and although they share a common use of tonality, ranging from conventional to atonal, they are entirely different in most ways. From the Diary of Anne Frank was composed in 1990 for actress Audrey Hepburn in connection with her United Nations work. Frank’s words are spoken, in melodrama fashion, over an illustrative orchestral background, and the fine reader here is Isabel Leonard, in an unaffected American accent. Meditations on Rilke was composed in 2019, and it hardly sounds like anything you might imagine from the title. From the opening passage of honky-tonk piano, recalling a small-town sojourn of Rilke’s father, the score is startlingly eclectic. The reference point here is the orchestral songs of Mahler, and the cycle suggests a 21st century version of that composer. That sounds odd with poetry by Rilke, which has a certain specific mood, but somehow it works, and the cycle has a pleasing quality of being jam-packed with ideas. The San Francisco Symphony plays with total commitment to the occasion, and this release might easily stimulate interest in Tilson Thomas’ other music.

Tracklist

1. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 1: Instrumental Intro
2. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 1: “I hope I shall be able to confide…”
3. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 1: “It’s an odd idea…”
4. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 1: “There is a saying…”
5. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 2: “Dear Kitty. So much has happened…”
6. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 2: “Daddy began to tell us…”
7. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 2: “I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed…”
8. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 2: Instrumental
9. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 3: “Dear Kitty!!!…”
10. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 3: “I believe that it’s spring…”
11. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 3: “Do you gather a bit of what I mean?…”
12. San Francisco Symphony – From the Diary of Anne Frank, Pt. 3: “I want to go on living…”
13. San Francisco Symphony – Meditations on Rilke: Herbsttag
14. San Francisco Symphony – Meditations on Rilke: Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen
15. San Francisco Symphony – Meditations on Rilke: Das Lied des Trinkers
16. San Francisco Symphony – Meditations on Rilke: Immer wieder
17. San Francisco Symphony – Meditations on Rilke: Imaginärer Lebenslauf
18. San Francisco Symphony – Meditations on Rilke: Herbst