RANDS: “CANTI DEL SOLE”; “CANTI LUNATICI.” Paul...

RANDS: “CANTI DEL SOLE”; “CANTI LUNATICI.” Paul Sperry, tenor; Carol Plantamura, soprano; SONOR Ensemble of the University of California, San Diego, conducted by Bernard Rands. CRI SD-524. Rands’ first decade in the United States produced these two remarkable song cycles, the first of which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize. Through his deployment of short poems, alternately about the moon and the sun, the composer builds multilingual, impressionistic studies of man’s organic relationship to his environment. Unbound by doctrinaire methods, Rands writes with respect for the compass of the normal singing voice, and sets word to note with uncommon flexibility and supreme economy, in which atmospheric applications of color vie with a sophisticated wit. Plantamura uses the entire range of her vocal compass as she soars and grunts through the 15 moon poems. Sperry’s dryish instrument lends little sensuality to the 12 verses of the sun cycle, but he communicates the essence of the texts with canny fervor. The playing by UCSD’s superb, 12-member modern-music group leaves nothing to be desired.