Chopin is still a profound influence over the culture of music – all music, mind you – to this very day, and it’s hard to deny as much when listening to the incredible sounds of Elizabeth Sombart’s Singing the Nocturnes this January. Sombart takes the works of the Nocturnes and brings them into a new, minimalist light in Singing the Nocturnes that, while initially a little simplistic in tone and style, winds up being one of the most endearing and loving tributes to an iconic composer that you’re likely to hear before the season has concluded.
There’s so much somber energy just lying around beneath the rhythm of Op. 72, but the optimism that exists on the other side of the darkness in an album-closing “Nocturnes, posth. No. 21 in C Minor” makes all of the labored emotionality that comes before it more than provocative and multi-interpretive. I would be lying to you if I said there wasn’t a lot of different ways you could take the expressiveness of this piece, and when considering just how little brooding content we’ve been seeing in pop lately, this record is all the more a gem for listeners with a refined taste in music.
The romanticism of Op. 37 and 48 isn’t lost in all of the warrings between tempo and tonality that we come across early on in Singing the Nocturnes, but instead made to be one of the most important features of this LP because of the contrast we hear amongst the other tracks. Chopin’s best work is getting a second life through the stylish execution Sombart is affording every stitch of music we’re listening to in this album, and though I think that it would sound good with anyone playing it (within reason), and an erudite player like this one truly has everything in her control here.
Sombart never sounds removed from her audience; actually, I think there’s an intimacy between artist and listeners in the likes of Op. 48 that verges on sensuous in a couple of key moments. She really is making love to the material and pushing away the mundanity of simply playing out the same notes in the same way they’ve always been arranged in Singing the Nocturnes, and while some might say that she’s being a little ambitious for the times, I think this is why a lot of critics – myself included – are falling in love with the work right now.
I was not familiar with the music or artistry of Elizabeth Sombart before I got turned on to Singing the Nocturnes, but at the rate her career is moving on the strength of this new album, I think that she’s going to get a lot more exposure than she ever has before in the next year or so. 2022 is going to be a big year in the history of music, especially relative to the two years that preceded it, and artists like Sombart are going to be the driving force for this medium like no one on the mainstream side ever could be.
Heather Savage
