EDEN (Deluxe Edition)

In a time of chaos, we all inevitably seek solace, a place where we can forget everything that’s swirling around us—our own Eden perhaps. The American mezzo Joyce DiDonato is no exception. “Eden is any circumstance or situation where there’s tranquillity and ease,” she tells Apple Music. “That can be an internal state. It can be hitting a groove on the stage. It can be working in the garden. It can be playing. It can be interacting with other people over dinner where there’s just that freedom of tranquillity and ease. Every element of it is fully present and fully itself and nothing is manufactured. Nothing is imposed.” It’s that idea that DiDonato explores on this album. Following her much-acclaimed 2016 concept record, In War & Peace—a powerful antidote to the violence and discord of mankind’s making—EDEN looks instead to the natural world. Musically, the net has been cast much wider, drawing in works from the Baroque to a piece written specially for her by Rachel Portman. The album begins with Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question”, a piece DiDonato landed on during a spontaneous session with conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and Giulio d’Alessio, the Il Pomo d’Oro orchestra’s artistic director, while they were touring War & Peace. “My first reaction was ‘Ives? Are you insane? We can’t do Charles Ives. This is a Baroque orchestra!’ But the piece also takes you into another place completely. And it’s so evocative.” It is, too, a fitting beginning to this collection. “The development of this programme is really about a search,” DiDonato continues. “Searching for questions, searching for connection. And it was clear to me that this is the start of the journey.” One of the triumphs of EDEN is the sequencing, how each piece moves effortlessly, one to the next, often jumping hundreds of years in the process. So, from Charles Ives (1908) we move to Rachel Portman (2021), then Gustav Mahler (1901) and Biagio Marini (circa 1622). “This was a real risk,” DiDonato admits. “Because on paper, it doesn't flow. On paper, you think, ‘What? You can’t do that!’ And there was one big discussion between Maxim and myself about the Valentini moving into the Cavalli. His musical senses were very offended because of the tonality. And I said, ‘But that’s exactly the feeling I want dramatically.’ We worked at the order for a long time; there were things that we were so certain about, like the opening and the close, so we had to jigsaw-puzzle a little bit around the middle. But in the end, it accomplishes what I wanted, which is a narrative that is surprising.” Less surprising is the way DiDonato communicates her assuaging theme so powerfully: Balancing intensity and beauty is something we’ve come to expect from this singer. And here, whether celebrating the wonder of the shade of a tree in Handel’s “Ombra mai fù”, or the sense of “acceptance and surrender and then bliss” (as she puts it) in Mahler’s “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”, or the serenity of Copland’s Emily Dickinson setting “Nature, the Gentlest Mother”, she takes us into a very special place. It is a true Eden. And after all, that’s what music does best: It heals and gives you hope when all around is despair.