Reviews of "The Elfin Knight"


Selected Reviews


Le Monde de Musique ****
See an article as pdf file (187KB)
Novembre 2007


Diapason
See an article as pdf file (307KB)
Octobre 2007


Audiophile Audition
“He is a master of the subtle art of vocal story rendition, and is able to keep his voice in check and at the service of the music. After spending most of my time in this repertory with the likes of Emma Kirkby and Custer LaRue, I was somewhat hesitant when I popped this disc in, but I needn’t have feared; these folks play this music with not only stylistic consistency and admirably facile technique, but with a high degree of affection and obvious love.


David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com 2007 Best of the Year Selection
"Harmonia Mundi continues as classical music’s “class act”, a major label with a distinctive identity and an amazingly consistent level of quality. This delightful and intelligently assembled program shows both why early music continues to attract a loyal following, and just how an intelligently run label can put together a production that stands apart from the boatload of similar stuff dumped on the market each month. This brilliantly sung and played recital is a real gem."


Beth Adelman, Early Music America
"Joel Frederiksen...brings his delicious, expressive bass voice to more than a dozen Anglo-Saxon tunes...Like a true Renaissance troubadour, he acts out the story of each song with his voice."


Robert Levett , International Record Review
"Throughout this superb disc it's apparent that, to bass Joel Frederiksen, the instrument is as much an extension of the voice as the music is of the word..Frederiksen, whose rich, clear bass seems capable of an almost infinite degree of tonal shading. His diction is impeccable, as is his taste, combining as he does a period approach with a looser, more expressive, folk style."


David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com 10/10
"...78 minutes of pure pleasure...this CD goes directly to my list of 'outstanding discs of the year'.... Frederiksen's warm, resonant timbre, like the lower register of a large-sized viola--is absolutely perfect: soothing and mesmerizing, beguiling, sensuous, an instrument fully mastered and employed with both the naturalness and rare skill of a great storyteller.... uniquely fresh and thoughtful...within five minutes I was a committed fan. Several of the tracks--indeed, perhaps the entire program--easily could have a life far outside the immediate audience of classical vocal music listeners..."
September 2007
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=11217


Norman Lebrecht, The Evening Standard *****
English ballads of the 16th and 17th centurues are usually rendered by reedy Oxonians to a painful plucking of lutes. Frederiksen, an American bass-baritone with a Munich ensemble, overturns all such clichés with this radical reworking of ancient pops from archival sources. Frederiksen, Minnesota and Michigan trained, delivers Greensleeves raunchily and at speed, reinterpreting it as a failed roadside transcation between prostitute and client. Two contrasting versions are given of Scarborough Fair and a pair of John Dowland glooms are freshened up with deft changes of mood and insturmentation. Bawdy London street ballads mingle with courtly laments; once you’ve heard the one about the king stripping his daughter naked to all eyes to see if she has been sleeping around while he was away in Spain you will never again believe in the myth of courtly love. What Frederiksen does is not so much song recital as musical storytelling, a forgotten fireside art. How rare to find a record that is both historically authentic and truly original.
19. 9. 2007


Mary Kunz Goldman, The Buffalo News ****
At last, a disc of Elizabethan music that doesn’t sound boring or stilted. It has been in my car stereo for a week — I can’t stop listening to it. Frederiksen and his ensemble treat these Renaissance hits with delicacy and great respect, but the performance has bounce. Frederiksen, an American bass devoted to folk music of the British Isles and of Appalachia, sings most of the numbers...and his style is always alert and engaging. His terrific Ensemble Phoenix Munich virtually rocks the accompaniments. In the fast, gripping ballad “Lord Darly,” the color shifts for every verse. And a bold, uptempo “Greensleeves” has creative, bright-timbred percussion that can make you think of modern world-beat bands. Ensemble Phoenix Munich, by the way, takes its middle name from the legend, not the city in Arizona.
15.9. 2007


Marcus Stäbler, NDR-kultur.de
Joel Frederiksen's voice has the affect of suns' rays on a cold winter day: It warms all the way to the tips of the toes and brings even the iciest heart to melting. With his wonderfully flexible and absolutely natural bass voice the singer kidnaps his hearers in long-forgotten sound-worlds: in pieces about existential themes like war, death and love.
2. 10. 2007
http://www.ndr-kultur.de/feuilleton/cds/frederiksen2.html


Die ZEIT
Der Popsänger Sting mag einen Dowland-Boom ausgelöst haben, aber der Bassist Joel Frederiksen, der sich selbst auf der Laute begleitet, gibt das alt-englische Liedrepertoire schöner, stilsicherer.
2. 8. 2007


KulturSPIEGEL
Balladen der Shakespeare-Zeit können unwiderstehlich sein, wenn alles stimmt wie hier: Der Bass-Sänger und Lautenist Joel Frederiksen trifft mit seinem Ensemble genau jenen Erzählton, der die alten Tänze und Moritaten märchenhaft lebendig macht.
August 2007


Bernhard Morbach, RBB Kulturradio
Das Booklet enthält sämtliche Texte in einer hervorragenden Übersetzung und detaillierte Hinweise zu Herkunft und Entstehung von Text und Melodie. Die gesangliche Darstellung – besonders durch den sonoren aber nicht schweren Bass Joel Frederiksen ist ausgesprochen faszinierend. Er vermag mit einfachen Mitteln den Affektgehalt der Balladen zum Ausdruck zu bringen und die Schönheit der Melodien zu entfalten.
13. 9. 2007


www.klassik.com
Joel Frederiksens Bassstimme besitzt die selten gewordene Eigenschaft der Tragfähigkeit und ein Timbre, das ohne Übertreibung zum Idealsten gehört, das man sich für die Darbietung von Balladen jener Epoche nur denken kann. Flexibel und plastisch ist dieses Timbre und in den verschiedenen Tonhöhen so facettenreich ausbalanciert, dass die klangliche Assimilation in den Stücken, in denen Timothy Leigh Evans mit seinem warm näselnden Tenor und Sven Schwannbergers zarter Countertenor hinzutreten, perfekt umgesetzt werden kann. ... Preisverdächtig und sehr empfehlenswert.
August 2007


Deutschlandradio Kultur
Ein wunderbarer profunder Bass ist Joel Frederiksen, und er begleitet sich wie die alten Barden absolut stilsicher auf der Laute.
August 2007


Schwäbische Zeitung
Dass man die Musik dieser Zeit auf niveauvolle wie attraktive Weise entstauben und aufpolieren kann, zeigen jetzt der Amerikaner Joel Frederiksen und sein Ensemble Phoenix Munich. Ihre CD "The Elfin Knight" ist eine zauberhafte Sammlung von Balladen und Tänzen meist anonymer Herkunft, gespickt mit Stücken der damaligen Stars John Dowland und Thomas Ravenscroft.
25.09.07