Bernarda Fink: Great Talent and Taste

I’d like to think that Bernarda Fink has both good taste in music and painting and, therefore, is responsible for choosing the cover for her 2003 album Antonín Dvorák: Lieder.

The painting featured on the cover a pastel and charcoal drawing on paper by the artist Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905), recently featured on this blog.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905). The Artist’s Sister. Pastel and charcoal on paper.

Fink’s newly-released album, Brahms: Lieder is one of the freshest, most thoughtful recital albums I have heard in some time.

Fink was born in Argentina to Slovakian immigrants. She was raised and trained in Buenos Aires and now lives in Paris, where she is married to the French Ambassador to Slovakia.

Fink’s diction is crisp, but not distracting. Her passion is complimented by a beautiful phrasing that lifts the text to a level of emotion that makes it difficult to listen to while doing anything else.

The English pianist, Roger Vignoles, blends his perfomance with Fink beautifully. There is a certain clarity to a duet between piano and voice that cannot be found in any other cobination. It completely bares the qualities of each artist and, therefore, exposes subtleties that are lost when others are added to the equation.

I rarely recommend albums and, even more rarely, buy copies to pass out to friends and families. In this case, I’ve done both.