I am pretty obsessed at the moment by nearly everything on Feminae new on BMG from Italian singer Tosca.
The dificulty is is to pick out just one song. And I have featured others on this site in recent weeks.
But I got into it – songs are largely in Italian – because of ‘Soledad‘ featuring jazz singer Stacey Kent which is superb.
Another song I like is today’s track of the day (above) -‘C’è’ that reveals Tosca duetting with Spanish singer Silvia Pérez Cruz.
Described as a poetic reflection on spiritual connection, gratitude, and reconciliation, the song which can explode into a Moorish decorative flourish somehow it struck me after trying to work out why it is so distinctive, explores the idea of finding inner peace and unwavering strength when you allow yourself to trust in and surrender to a deeply cherished bond. Reader no matter how, if being uncharitable, such a saccharine gloss sounds, it works. C’è, translates as “there is” or “it is there.”The lyrics embrace a sacra sincronia “holy synchronicity” between two people. Soppy or not – it isn’t really and doesn’t go too bats operatic although that’s perhaps a moot point – the song, woo woo alert (but is not really a song to chill to down the mindfulness spa in Surbiton on a wet Thursday), “is a celebration of what one person can teach another; helping them find the harmony needed to navigate life’s challenges.”
Sung in both Italian and Spanish the track was produced by Joe Barbieri with Pietro Cantarelli on piano plus strings wrap around the sound not too lushly.
To pick out another couple of songs that are right up my street, ‘Primavera‘ is wonderful and there’s a lovely version on the album (even with the whistling later, plot spoiler) of the famed Puerto Rican Rafael Hernández Marín 1930s bolero ‘Silencio’ that Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo of Buena Vista Social Club fame interpreted so luminously in the 1990s. It’s called in the Tosca rendering ‘Il Giglio, la verbena, il glicine e la rosa’ meaning “The Lily, the Verbena, the Wisteria, and the Rose”. It is a song about deeply held secrets and unspoken grief. It proves suprisingly jolly as it turns out, especially in the harmonising passages with Carmen Consoli.
