JENNIFER GOLTZ

• Schoenberg

"Goltz sells the cabaret songs with sly humor (sensitively supported by pianist Gayle Blankenburg) and negotiates the thorns of Pierrot. Also, I have never heard this work performed without a conductor. Even today, people consider it hard enough to require one. However, inauthentica plows right ahead with vim and verve."

Steve Schwartz, ClassicalNet - June 2011

"In this new recording by Jennifer Goltz and the new-music ensemble Inauthentica, Pierrot is given a dazzling, unconducted performance... Many have observed the resonance Pierrot Lunaire has with Schoenberg's early attempts to break into the world of cabaret. In the past couple of decades, this has all too frequently led interpreters to try to sweeten and downplay the astringent, jarring aspect of this cycle, resulting in performances that have robbed the work of its dramatic power. No such mistake is made here: this interpretation of Pierrot is unsettling yet powerful and appealing. Goltz and Inauthentica perform with great confidence and dash, clearly demonstrating a long, sensitive acquaintance with the work. The performers are not afraid to employ a variety of timbres — some of them harsh — to enhance the work's drama. Their tempos can be somewhat brisk, but never to the degree of gliding over the substance of the music. Despite the lack of a conductor, the ensemble is tight, together and well balanced. Jennifer Goltz has been compared with the late Jan DeGaetani, whose recording of Pierrot remains one of the classic accounts. Goltz lives up to and rivals deGaetani in this dramatic performance... Goltz and pianist Gayle Blankenburg give [Brettl-Lieder] a delightful and lyric interpretation, incorporating a sense of timing and phrasing most appropriate to the cabaret genre. The listener is left to contemplate how different the unfolding of twentieth-century classical music would have been had Schoenberg's attempt to break into cabaret been fully successful. But then, we might never have had this glorious account of Pierrot Lunaire."

Arlo McKinnon, Opera News Online - 2009

"Goltz has a lovely voice and her colleagues are completely comfortable in Schoenberg's musical language. Pierrot is pure enchantment. I don't know a better performance of this piece and would be content to have this as the only one in my library."

American Record Guide - September / October 2008

"This is a most judicious pairing...[the Brettl-Lieder] are lyrical and accessible...[they] take a highly stylised and sophisticated approach to the double entendre, symbolism and eroticism of the texts. Soprano Jennifer Goltz sings them as such. One can almost imagine her on the stage of a smoky cafe, teasing the crowd with suggestive gestures and entrancing patrons with a voice full of subtle allure and sprightly energy. On disc, she is captivating enough. The connection [between the Brettl-Lieder and Pierrot Lunaire] seems to have informed Goltz and the performers of the slyly names ensemble, Inauthentica, as well. She is brilliant again, and the California-based ensemble present Pierrot as if they had played it night after night in a theatre. It's a charged performance; with all the musicians acting like characters themselves in the twisted tale. While you get more value with other Pierrot recordings paired with Schoenberg's more famous music, this disc is a preferable way to enter that 20th-century masterpiece."

Gramophone - July 2008

"A superb new CD... the musicians do Schoenberg's work a great service... Especially agreeable here is the pristine sound achieved throughout, allowing the work to remain lively and engaging... Goltz is vivid and utterly unwavering in her role, mustering a chameleon-like, ever-inventive timbre, while the musicians make the most of Schoenberg's splendidly sardonic lines... The pairing [of Goltz and Blankenburg] is always beguiling and affectionate [and] indefatigably responsive."

International Record Collector -June 2008

"The idea of pairing...Pierrot Lunaire with [Brettl-Lieder] is a stroke of genius. Far from being an example of disparate or contrary programming, one easily is able to discern the “cabaret” origins of Pierrot... Jennifer Goltz makes a fine swipe at both of these works, her Brettl-Lieder being among the best, and she knows how to sell the work. Goltz holds her own, and considering the quality of the Brettl-Lieder, I could easily live with duplication. Besides, Goltz brings a certain sense of the non-clinical to the work that is very attractive. Fine sound, excellent performances from a surprising source, and one to be commended."

Audiophile Audition - June 2008

Jennifer Goltz specializes in the performance of new music and fin de siècle art song. She has been likened to Jan deGaetani for her enchanting tone, flexibility of timbre, keen accuracy, and compelling, expressive performances. Ms. Goltz has premiered works written for her by composers such as Evan Chambers, Andre Myers, Kristin P. Kuster, Gabriela Frank, and Logan Skelton. Her ten-year affiliation with the new music ensemble Brave New Works has yielded performances across the country of such works as Leslie Bassett’s Pierrot Songs, William Bolcom’s Briefly It Enters, George Crumb’s Madrigals, Bright Sheng’s Three Chinese Love Songs, and Alberto Ginastera’s Cantata para America Magica, as well as the premieres of works such as Andrew Mead’s Let the Air Circulate and Far Cry, Carter Pann’s Women, and Sea Changes by Forrest Pierce. At the invitation of the composer, Ms. Goltz performed Luciano Berio’s Circles with Klangforum Wien at the 1999 Salzburg Music Festival. With French cabaret specialist Stephen Whiting she has given lecture-recitals on early cabaret, most recently at the Chicago Humanities Festival. She has given celebrated performances of Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C Minor and Haydn’s Paukenmesse in Los Angeles and Vienna and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 in Timisoara, Romania with Filarmonica Banatul. She can be heard singing Evan Chambers’ Three Tannahill Songs on Cold Water, Dry Stone (Albany Records) and Logan Skelton’s An American Circus, with baritone Stephen Lusmann, on Centaur.
Ms. Goltz earned Master’s degrees in Vocal Performance and Music Theory and a Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she studied with Freda Herseth, Martin Katz, Marion Guck, and Andrew Mead. Unique among vocalists for her expertise in music theory, she published "Pierrot le diseur," on vocal traces of the cabaret in Pierrot lunaire (The Musical Times, Spring 2006). More extensive research and analysis of the Brettl-lieder and Pierrot lunaire can be found in her 2005 dissertation, The Roots of Pierrot lunaire in Cabaret. In 2004, she joined the music faculty at Scripps College in Claremont, California, where she is Assistant Professor of Voice and Music Theory. ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
BRETTL-LIEDER
Galathea; Gigerlette; Der genügsame Liebhaber; Einfältiges Lied; Mahnung; Jedem das Seine; Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arcadien
PIERROT LUNAIRE



MSR Classics