Kathleen Battle & Wynton Marsalis
Baroque Duet

THE REVIEW

Wynton Marsalis, let's be honest, is a genius on the trumpet. Labeled as ultraconservative, anchored to sometimes fifties sounds, loved and hated by the jazz community, a virtuoso with acrobatic technique, Wynton, you can either adore him or reject him, but he rarely leaves you indifferent. Even more so if he, with roots deeply embedded in "Jungle Sound" sonorities, decides to boldly approach the sacred monsters of Baroque music. It's inevitable that "purists," "lovers of philology," or those of "original instruments" might be a bit taken aback.
However, I believe that "Baroque Duet", where Wynton's clear and powerful sound duets for about an hour with the ethereal voice of soprano Kathleen Battle, is only one thing: vivid emotion. It's one of those albums that makes you reconsider your preconceptions about an old and dusty eighteenth century. Sounds that instead project you into a lavish and festive, dazzling world, a world that captures you with the grandeur and majesty of its monumental beauty.

And it takes little to notice. The album opens with the aria "Let The Bright Seraphim" by Händel, rendered by our duo in a shockingly new and intriguing way. The soprano's voice rolls agile and joyful over cascades of notes, while Wynton evokes distant glories of celestial choirs, now adding a trill, now climbing into a coloration, in a kind of sinuous and exciting betrayal of the score that reaches its peak in the reprise or "da capo" of the piece. Through the musical transparency of Alessandro Scarlatti, the aria "Pace una volta e calma", by the almost unknown Italian composer Antonio Predieri, becomes a battle of virtuosity between the singer and the trumpeter. Among gusts of semiquavers, bright yet light sounds like zephyrs, with the excellent strings of the "St. Luke's Orchestra" providing support, we are truly catapulted into a gigantic musical "trompe l'oeil" fresco triumphant with cherubs and cupids.

But the true greatness of the album is discovered in its celestial finale. Superlative, truly superlative, is the interpretation of two moments from the cantata BWV 51 "Jauchzet Gott In Allen Landen" by Johann Sebastian Bach. The aria that opens the cantata is a triumph of vocal perfection for Kathleen, while Wynton's trumpet sound becomes incredibly dense, rich, glorious, and iridescent. A festive and captivating Baroque atmosphere reaches its climax in the "Alleluja" that closes the chorale "Sei Lob Und Preis Mit Ehren". Here, our two performers truly reach dizzying heights, not only in virtuosity but, above all, in emotion.

Karl Richter or Ton Koopman are the "spiritual" interpretations of Bach. Wynton and Kathleen have turned this great spirituality into vibrant and lively flesh here. A must-have and must-love.