Lawrence Zazzo

Lawrence Zazzo

Byrdland

(Landor)

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The idea of an operatic counter­tenor singing 17th-century English songs accompanied by a contemporary saxophone quartet sounds like “a crossover nightmare,” said David Patrick Stearns in The Philadelphia Inquirer. In fact, the combination of madrigals and moody brasses works surprisingly well. “The saxophone arrangements are beautifully restrained, with the close-knit, subtly shifting harmonies of a viol consort, but with the kind of robustness that’s endemic to wind instruments,” and the unusual instrumentation matches well with Lawrence Zazzo’s unusual range. The young American singer “has a pure, plangent voice well suited to this repertoire,” said Michael Kennedy in the London Sunday Telegraph. The Paragon Saxophone Quartet shines in works by Vincenzo Galilei, Anthony Holborne, and Orlando Gibbons. Zazzo stars in William Byrd’s Lullaby and John Dowland’s “Now, oh now I needs must part” and “Flow my tears.” Fans of the charismatic Zazzo “have been hankering after a solo album from him for ages,” said Tim Ashley in the London Guardian. This probably wasn’t what they expected. “Purists will doubtless hate it,” but that’s not the real problem. Zazzo is at his best in reflective and spiritual passages, but lacks “eroticism and wit” in more playful airs. The Paragon quartet, meanwhile, excels in precisely those passages on which Zazzo falters. “Sadly, the whole thing just doesn’t cohere.”