I Long And Seek After
New Focus, 2024
9/10
Listen to I Long And Seek After
The composer and musician Jessica Meyer returns with a sophomore album, where a focus on vocal music highlights poetry by female and overlooked artists who thematically surround loneliness, desire, love and justice.
“Space, In Chains” gets the listen off to a lovely start, where Laura Kasischek’s poety is illuminated by Melissa Wimbish’s soaring soprano and Meyer’s well timed viola, and “Welcome To The Broken Hearts Club” follows with violin from Johnna Wu and Kobi Malkin that suits Caleb van der Swaagh’s cello and Meyer’s viola, as Chabrelle Williams’ pipes present stunning singing via the 17 year old Weatherspoon.
Halfway through, “Things I forgot to tell you” allows Emily Marvosh’s agile contraalto to radiate amid the manipulated viola and text from a letter from Anais Nin to Henry Miller, while “On fire… no, after you” places Dan Schlosberg’s skileld piano alongside Kayleigh Butcher’s strategic mezzo-soprano and moody viola of the Jennifer Beattie poem.
Close to the end, the sublime cello courtesy of van der Swaagh complements Sarah Bailey’s gripping soprano across “The Last Rose”, which is set to a Thomas Moore poem, and the title track exits with the Lorelei Ensemble and Beth Willer’s conducting for Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho fragments as a 21st century answer to Schumann’s esteemed cycle Frauenliebe und Leben.
A body of work with tremendous accessibility and plenty of direct emotion, Meyer’s artistic and contemporary classical vision is both unorthodox and exciting, and certainly touches on the human experience.
Travels well with: Michael Hersch- Poppaea; Tessa Brinckman- Take Wing, Roll Back