Because

CD Details

During the long era when Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were creating the musical canon of Western Europe, the songs of African slaves resounded in the colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, expressing pain and longing, but also joy and the desire for freedom. The American countertenor Reginald Mobley – a rising figure in baroque music, notably under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner with whom he sings very regularly – and the French pianist Baptiste Trotignon, winner of numerous awards (Victoires du Jazz, Django d’Or) have combined their talents and sensibilities to celebrate these spirituals and the music of Black composers including Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) and Florence Price (1887-1953), whose beautiful transcriptions and melodies blend with Baptiste Trotignon’s subtle arrangements of the famous Sometimes I feel like a motherless child or I got a robe… The melody “Because”, composed by Florence Price on a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, inspired the title of the album: Because I had loved so hard (…) Because I had loved so vainly… Why this album? Because