''Love Sublime'' is an album by Brad Mehldau and

Renée Fleming Renée Lynn Fleming (born February 14, 1959) is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 1 ...

Background

Prior to this album, Brad Mehldau had built a reputation as a jazz pianist, particularly with his trio. Soprano

was known for "her operatic performances and recitals of classical art songs". Mehldau's playing often encompassed classical music, while Fleming was interested in being a jazz vocalist from her time at college.

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...

wrote the poems collected in '' The Book of Hours'' around the turn of the twentieth century. Mehldau worked on the music for around two years. He and Fleming performed all of the tracks at

Zankel Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built b ...

Music and recording

Poems from Rilke's ''The Book of Hours'' were used. New, free translations into English were employed. Other tracks were based on some of the ''Blue Estuaries'' poems of Louise Bogan; these were written in strophes. The title track was written by

Fleurine Fleurine Verloop, known professionally as Fleurine, is a Dutch jazz vocalist."Fleurine"

. All of the music was either composed or "well-prepared if not entirely written".Witherden, Barry (January 20, 2012
"Mehldau"
BBC Music Magazine. Mehldau's "settings capture the sense of Rilke's spiritual solitude and existential dread, transfixing the poet's struggle with belief in a steely light that illuminates his final declaration of faith as clearly as his doubts and fears." "Some of the most striking effects are achieved with bleak, chiming chords, evoking Messiaen, but Mehldau parallels the poets' most involved images with passages of close-packed counterpoint and dense chording." There are some links between the lyrical content and the music: "In 'Tears in Sleep', for example, the vocal line slides over slippery harmonies, suggesting dreamy restlessness."Farach-Colton, Andre
"Love Sublime"
Gramophone. Retrieved May 23, 2016.

Release and reception

The album was released by Nonesuch Records on June 27, 2006.Goldberg, Joe (August 3, 2006) "When Classical Meets Jazz". ''Wall Street Journal''. p. D5. Opinions were split partly on genre lines. ''

The Austin Chronicle ''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...

'' reviewer stated "Jazz buyers beware", while the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' concluded that "Opera and jazz might seem to be polar opposites, but on this album ..they blend brilliantly."Hobart, Mike (July 15, 2006
"CDs & DVDs"
''Financial Times''. ''

Gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

'' asserted that "Fleming sings with plush tone and deep feeling, often sacrificing textual clarity in the process, and her swoops and swoons help bring out the connections to jazz."

Track listing

# The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: Your First Word Was "Light" (Mehldau/Rilke) – 5:28 # The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: The Hour Is Striking So Close Above Me (Mehldau/Rilke) – 5:09 # The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: I Love the Dark Hours of My Being (Mehldau/Rilke) – 4:35 # The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: I Love You, Gentlest of Ways (Mehldau/Rilke) – 7:02 # The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: No One Lives His Life (Mehldau/Rilke) – 2:36 # The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: His Caring Is a Nightmare to Us (Mehldau/Rilke) – 2:31 # The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God: Extinguish My Eyes, I'll Go On Seeing You (Mehldau/Rilke) – 6:13 # The Blue Estuaries: Tears in Sleep (Mehldau/Bogan) – 2:31 # The Blue Estuaries: Memory (Mehldau/Bogan) – 3:25 # The Blue Estuaries: A Tale (Mehldau/Bogan) – 4:28 # Love Sublime (Mehldau/Fleurine) – 4:20

Personnel

* Brad Mehldau – piano *

– vocals

Background

Music and recording

Release and reception

Track listing

Personnel

References

Further reading