October 2, 2022, at 2 PM – Daniel Weeks, tenor and Donna Loewy, piano in concert at CCM

Songs by Roger Quilter, Reynaldo Hahn, Paolo Tosti, Gaetano Donizetti, Franz Liszt, and Jean Berger.

In addition to continuing to enjoy a career in opera and concert throughout the United States, tenor Daniel Weeks is a respected member of the Voice Faculty of CCM.  Donna Loewy, a Professor of Collaborative Piano, and Accompanist-in-Residence at CCM frequently performs in concert throughout the United States. Both artists presented a Sunday afternoon recital in CCM’s acoustically friendly Recital Hall.

The possessor of a first-class lyric tenor voice, Daniel Weeks is also blessed with a solid technique always placed at the service of whatever music he sings. These assets repeatedly came into play as the tenor sang a charming collection of 19^th and 20^th century songs in several languages. He was kept perfect company by the incomparable collaborative pianist Donna Loewy.

For even those for whom English vocal music is sometimes a taste hard to acquire, the songs of Roger Quilter never fail to please with their melodically uncomplicated settings of every imaginable British poet, which Weeks sang with unmannered elegance.

Venezuelan by birth, Jewish and Spanish by heritage, world citizen, composer, and singer, Reynaldo Hahn elevated his salon music to concert hall status by virtue of his memorable melodies and his ability to set words in perfect consonance with his music.  Daniel Weeks sang with delicacy a grouping of Hahn songs that included À Chloris, L’heure exquise, Mai, Tyndaris, and L’enamourée with Donna Loewy providing unstinting pianistic support.

A plangent lament of love unrequited, Gaetano Donizetti’s L’amor funesto is an art song with operatic DNA. Ditto for Francesco Paolo Tosti’s Non t’amo piu, and Tormento!, a lament whose exclamation point says it all. Daniel Weeks focuses these days mostly on concert and oratorio work. Should he decide to change his mind, I would walk a mile to hear him sing any number of Bel Canto tenor roles.

Weeks and Loewy returned to share with the audience a brace of songs by Franz Liszt which Weeks sang in idiomatic German with a balanced mix of precision and Romantic sensibility, affording Donna Loewy the opportunity to display her impressive command of the keyboard.

The artists brought their recital to a close with a group of Spanish language Villanescas by Jean Berger, a multi-lingual musician who lived and worked in several countries before settling in the United States. The Spanish language texts by the great Galician poet Eduardo Modesto Blanco Amor were beautifully delivered by Weeks and Loewy with fiery Iberian flair.

We left the recital nurturing a hope for what might be an ongoing revival of the art song recital, a practice that promises to have a future under the loving care of two superb artists: Daniel Weeks and Donna Loewy.

Rafael de Acha © 2022