: Love Songs - Anne Sofie von Otter

Anne Sofie von Otter (vocals) & Brad Mehldau (piano)

Diversity and discovery are the hallmarks of this remarkable collaboration: the celebrated Swedish mezzo-soprano has chosen to make her first recording under an exclusive contract with Naïve with leading jazz pianist/composer Brad Mehldau. The specially-priced 2-CD set features Love Songs, a seven-part cycle by Mehldau himself, and collects together some of the best songwriters of our time, including Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers and Lennon & McCartney.

The pair's meeting at Carnegie Hall in 2009 gave rise to a cycle of Seven Love Songs, settings by Brad Mehldau of poems by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), as well as a selection of French, American, English and Swedish songs they have performed together with great success internationally, before recording them for Naïve in Stockholm this spring.

They have brought together some of the greatest songwriters, including Jacques Brel, Léo Ferré, Michel Legrand, Leonard Bernstein, Paul McCartney, and Joni Michell. "Powerful, literary, poetic and rich in emotion, they wrote music that has you in tears," says Brad Mehldau. "She [Anne Sofie] expresses tenderness without sentimentality; she knows how to be expressive without ever overdoing it. She has great understanding, more than anyone else, of the text, whether it is in English, French, German, or any other language."

It is no secret that Anne Sofie von Otter enjoys recording and combining different genres, as her rich discography shows: her very successful discs devoted to Abba or with Elvis Costello exist side by side with her famous recordings of Classical or Baroque music. Brad Mehldau too likes seeking and discovering, in improvisation but also in songs, pop, or in the classical repertoire.

"The second CD (chansons and show-tunes) is the most successful, with the closing "Some Other Time" good enough to stand alongside Bill Evans and Tony Bennett. Von Otter sings with real feeling" The Independent on Sunday, 31st October 2010

"Von Otter obviously likes and understands the musical styles here, from Ute Lemper-ish cabaret-jazz to Euro-musicals, swoony, soft-centred, but often bitter-sweet. She's able to adapt her mezzo, with a higher, bluesy delivery, to the extent that she usually sounds like a different singer" BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 ****

"[Mehldau's] songs are a good fit for von Otter and they tap into all the qualities which make her such a class act as a recitalist. There's an intriguing mix here of classical formality and a jazzer's freedom through Mehldau's spacey chords and embellishments." Gramophone Magazine, January 2011