Track by Track: Emily D'Angelo on enargeia

Track by Track is a dynamic way for an artist to guide you through one of their albums. Exclusive audio commentary features personal insights and invaluable context, bringing you closer than ever to the music. Mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo’s debut album for DG, enargeia (which roughly translates as “vividness of expression”), is a fascinating, captivating programme marrying contemporary and ancient worlds. The music and writings of the 12th-century abbess and composer Hildegard von Bingen provide the springboard for Missy Mazzoli, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sarah Kirkland Snider, whose mesmerising arrangements and original works are hauntingly performed by D’Angelo. “Themes of the old and the new and the dark and the bright all come together in enargeia for a sort of sacred-themed album,” D’Angelo tells Apple Music Classical. “It’s also really focused on technology and the real place religion and spirituality have in our modern world.” If recording enargeia was not complex enough, the sessions took place between December 2020 and March 2021 as the pandemic continued to rage. “A lot of flexibility was required in making this album,” admits D’Angelo, “but the result of that was something really unique to its time, I think. It couldn’t have been made at any other point.”