Dr. Rike

The new "Dodd candidate" was amazing. Simply amazing. I look forward to hearing what the higher ups have to say about him. Can I just say I had an out of body vocal experience today? I was listening to Dr. Rike sing a Schumann cycle. I hate art songs. Just don't like them. But today. Dear lord, if all art songs sounded like that I would listen to them all the time. This was beautiful, seamless, so expressive. It was art. It was sung the way Schumann wanted it to be sung. Insted of turning in his grave as he probably does many times over his works, this was sheer beauty. It's like your soul jumped out of your body and made love to the notes as they were filling the room. I was on the edge of my seat the entire cycle just waiting for the next note. It was so soft and delicate, yet there was so much presence in the sound it was just glorious. Wow. This cycle was amazing. And it was cheezy...you know, your typical art song accompaniment, but even Dr. Ungar felt it as it seemed he was doing variations on the cheezy accompaniment to make it a beautiful expresson of the inner soul to match what was coming out of Dr. Rikes mouth. Ah! It was amazing. That my friends, that is how you make music.