Sprechgesange

Peter Veale (oboe), Salome Kammer (voice), Carl Rosman (clarinet), Anu Komsi, Pia Komsi (sopranos), David Cordier (counter tenor), musikFabrik/Peter Rundel, Beat Furrer, Sian Edwards, Stefan Asbury Wergo 6851 2****

What would an oboe sound like if it could talk? The start of Jonathan Harvey’s

Sprechgesang

(2007) perhaps, where the instrument liltingly bends pitches as if following the inflections of speech. Interaction between speech and music, and the possibilities of their interchangeability, are at the heart of this fascinating collection, which also includes the astonishing interior monologue of Beat Furrer’s Schnitzler-based

recitativo

(2005, in German, no text or translation provided), Georges Aperghis’s shrieking, gabbling, microtonal clarinet concerto, Babil (1996), and the extreme stylistic shifts of Unsuk Chin’s

Sopranica

(2005), which trips through the centuries as readily as through cultures. An utterly absorbing disc. See wergo.de