Album Notes

Baltimore Sun Newspaper Review: 01.08.2008

Local Artists on CD

Arriving in a DVD-sized package is a two-CD set from tenor Stanley Cornett called Make Someone Happy (self-produced, available at select local retailers). Cornett, a longtime Peabody faculty member, has put together a remarkably diverse souvenir of his live performances from the 1980’s and ’90’s, made in various locations and with varying recording quality (occasionally with annoying fade-outs).
There is some highly accomplished singing here –- a chilling portrait of the malevolent Quint in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and a poignant account of the Agnus Dei from that composer’s War Requiem; a sweetly phrased Adelaide by Beethoven and vivid interpretations of art songs by Schubert and Turina; impeccably stylish arias from Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
Cornett’s incisive touch gives just about everything here a distinctive quality, whether in such fascinating rarities as Dominic Argento’s Letters from Composers or in an unexpected show tune, the one by Jule Styne that gives the collection its title. Listening to these performances sure made me happy.

--Tim Smith