May 2022: New song CD released by TYXart – Kateryna Kasper

“My dearest sister
… I’d like to be with you and see you and talk to you,

but my circumstances do not allow it.

So, I’ve written a song for you, to express what I wish and feel;

I was thinking of you all the while, with feelings of tenderness.”
Felix to Fanny, Munich, June 14, 1830

(two days before the birth of Fanny’s only son Sebastian)

Sebastian Scotney, www.theartsdesk.com 10.09.2022

„(…) the album here is quite simply a gem in its own right. Ein süßes Deingedenken, the new double album of songs by the Mendelssohn siblings from Kateryna Kasper and Dmitry Ablogin gives pleasure and cause for thought on so many different levels. (…) The thing which caught my attention immediately might appear a bit tangential: the very first sound one hears is an improvised fortepiano introduction to Felix’s “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges”, and it was the sound of the instrument being played by Dmitry Ablogin which had me grabbing for the booklet to find out more. The remarkable piano here is from 1835 and was made by Aloys Aegydius Biber. (…)There are plenty of places to hear what a stupendous fortepianist Ablogin is: the stormy Brocken he conjures up in Felix’s “Hexenlied” is spookily spellbinding, and he certainly earns his fee and more by dint of the sheer virtuosity and the quantity of notes in Fanny’s “Anklänge”.

Soprano Kateryna Kasper’s sense of how to shape a rising phrase, her way of giving the voice a floating and weightless quality as it rises is just wonderful; Fanny’s “Achmed and Irza” is a great example of that. Her pacing of slow songs is remarkable, as in Fanny’s “Harfner” song (‘Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt’). Her dreamy to-die-for legato is on a level with Gundula Janowitz’s in Fanny’s “Vorwurf”. The album is superbly documented. For those who want to get nerdy and spend a quiet evening exploring the Hellwig-Unruh numbers of Fanny Mendelssohn compositions, they’re all there. More importantly, the substantial programme essay examines the way the Mendelssohn siblings supported and influenced each other, with a lot of evidence from their letters to each other. Maybe it is not fanciful to see Fanny and Felix as one of the dream teams in the history of songwriting. This great double album certainly provides ample evidence for that assertion.“

www.klassik-heute.de, Rainer W. Janka 01.07.2022

„Kateryna Kasper is one of those rare sopranos one can listen to for a long, long time, without ever growing tired of her voice: she always sings properly on the breath, follows the emotions set to music, lets her beautifully toned soprano flow and shine freely, can place the high notes with ease, captivates through precise articulation and the emphasis on words essential to meaning (…). One is always convinced by her taste, the elegance of her tone production, the careful shaping of the vowels, and the pure stream of the voice.
Dmytri Ablogin plays a fortepiano by Alois Biber, built around 1835, from which he draws many finely shaded sounds. At times the fortepiano resembles a guitar, at times a harp, at times it surges like waves, at times it flutes like a nightingale, then again it bursts forth full of life and intoxication—and always he envelops the singer’s voice with well-balanced nuance.
The sound engineer provides a finely wrought balance, close to the singer’s mouth, yet never allowing either of the two performers to push entirely into the foreground.
All in all, an excellent presentation of the art of song by Fanny Hensel and of the symbiotic sibling relationship of the two child prodigies from the Mendelssohn family: highly recommended!“