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DARK FLAME
(Winter and Winter)
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This is Uri Caine’s third set of Mahler reinterpretations, following Urlicht/Primal Light in 1997 and the two-disc Mahler in Toblach 1999, the latter a live performance of the Urlicht material. Dark Flame’s 14 tracks draw from all of Mahler’s song cycles — Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Kindertotenlieder, the Rückert-Lieder — as well as the song symphony Das Lied von der Erde; the title is taken from Kindertotenlieder’s "Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen." Here Caine goes even farther than he did on Urlicht to diffract Mahler’s light back into its primal sources. The opening title track is 11 minutes of Eurotrash ("Tot offensive/Columbine and/blabbergun") from Julie Patton that itself is offensive in a song about the death of a child; there’s more rubbish from Patton in "Song of the Prisoner in the Tower" and from Sadiq Bey on the Alma-riffing "Labor Lost," the latter all too true to its title. And the Chinese experiments in Das Lied’s "The Lonely One in Autumn" (with Tong Qiang Chen singing Qian Qi’s poem) and "On Youth" sound monochromatic next to Mahler’s pentatonic-tinged German romanticism. Actor Sepp Bierbichler provides more apposite klezmer moments on "In Praise of Lofty Judgement" (especially in his donkey hee-haw) and "Rhinelegend"; cantor Aaron Bensoussan offers dirgy scatting on "Two Blue Eyes" (where he’s undermined by Caine’s Vince Guaraldi piano and Hebrew and English intoning from Shulamith Wechter Caine, the bandleader’s mother) and "When My Sweetheart . . . "; and Caine’s Schoenhut toy piano pays due respect to the other Kindertotenlieder song, "When Your Mother Comes In the Door." "Only Love Beauty" (a deliberate mistranslation of "Liebst du um Schönheit"?) appears twice, first in a gospel treatment with Barbara Walker soaring over the Kettwiger Bach Chor, then closing the album as a reverent chorale. No Mahler aficionado will go away unenlightened, but Caine’s diffraction is often undisciplined, and the liner notes are more hip than helpful.
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