Irish national treasure Wallis Bird and German classical quintet Spark bring a thousand years of female music history to life on their album Visions of Venus, out today.
Berlin-based Wallis and the group Spark met at a state reception at Bellevue Castle in summer 2019 when Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosted Irish President Michael Daniel Higgins. For years now, Spark have been leading the way in creatively breaking down musical barriers in terms of aesthetics, sound, form, and genre, marked by a baroque-playful questioning of artistic norms. Wallis is one of the great Irish singer-songwriters of our time and, much like Spark, is a rebel. Sometimes a rocker, sometimes a gentle poet, she is always searching for her very own sound, never thinks in labels, and never allows herself to be pinned down. In her songs, she wears her heart on her sleeve and reflects on personal experiences, but is also a lively and astute advocate for female empowerment and the LGBTQIA* community.
Every element of Visions of Venus is handmade—even the occasional beats, which are created through clapping, stomping or tapping on the instruments. Spark masterfully play a wide range of instruments, including violin, cello, around thirty different recorders, melodica and piano, crafting a wonderful playground for Wallis’ expressive three-octave vocal range. The title track of the album was written by Wallis herself. She boldly and cheekily calls out: “Now the revolution is here! Watch out boys, I’m singing loud and clear: It’s time!” Spark and Bird’s appeals are never violent, never forced, but come from within, peacefully, connecting—albeit with a punk edge.
The title song sets the scene for Spark and Bird’s inimitable take on ‘O Virtus Sapientiae’ by Hildegard von Bingen, the saint, composer and mystic active during the Middle Ages. The US pioneer of the late 19th century, Amy Beach, shines in Spark’s intimate chamber music arrangement of her song ‘A Mirage’. Jazz icon Billie Holiday—after whom a crater on the planet Venus is appropriately named—meets the Icelandic individualist Björk, who dives deep into the search for primal mothers and origins, on ‘Now or Never’. Australian composer and pianist Elena Kats-Chernin, born in 1957, creates a rhythmically rousing and melancholic picture in ‘Fast Blue Village’, which Wallis and Spark bring their own verve to. The blind composer and pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis, who died 100 years ago in Vienna, is represented with the ‘Sicilienne’ attributed to her. The grand piano paints a pastoral atmosphere, and Wallis hums the beautifully nostalgic melody in the midst of the warm sounds delicately spun by Spark. Together, they bring a 200-year-old popular tune into the present.
Kate Bush’s hit ‘Babooshka’ chronicles a wife’s desire to test her husband’s loyalty, ultimately leading to the pair meeting in disguise. The line “A pseudonym to fool him” subtly refers to the fact that many female composers of classical provenance had to use a male name in order to be allowed to publish their own works at all. The most notable example is the case of Fanny Hensel, who had some of her great pieces published under the name of her famous brother, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Hensel’s ‘There Be None Of Beauty’s Daughters’ is aptly part of the album. A long-awaited freshness envelops this special interpretation by Wallis’ non-classical vocals. She takes a completely unexpected approach—sometimes gently withdrawing, her vocals utterly dreamy.
Visions of Venus also features the work of Anohni, a trans woman, with her song ‘Daylight and the Sun’. The album’s theme of “femininity” breaks out of the barriers imposed by men for thousands of years, allowing for more diversity. Wallis’ original song ‘Dr. James Barry’, on which she also plays guitar, tells the story of the trans man and pioneering 19th century physician Dr. James Barry. Barry was a military doctor who was the first recorded European physician in Africa to perform a caesarean section in which both the mother and child survived.
Speaking of boundary-breakers, Germaine Tailleferre was not only a fantastically subtle composer, but also the only female member of the legendary Groupe de Six, the most influential composers’ collective of the first half of the 20th century. Spark has created a musical monument to her on the album with the passionate ‘Larghetto’. Clara Schumann, who gave birth to eight children, initially emancipated herself from her tyrannical father, and later from her dominant husband. She is portrayed in the tender love song ‘Lov’st Thou For Beauty’, interpreted with flattering warmth by Wallis. The boundaries between jazz, pop and classical music are joyfully shattered on the album.
Track List1.
Visions of Venus
2. O Virtus Sapientiae
3. A Mirage
4. Now or Never
5. Oceania
6. Fast Blue Village
7. Sicilienne
8. Babooshka
9. Daylight and the Sun
10. Dr. James Barry
11. Larghetto
12. Lov’st Thou For Beauty
13. There Be None of Beauty’s Daughters
14. Believer
15. Sonata Op. 16
16. Only Time
17. Mercedes Benz
18. A Natural Woman
Visions of Venus showcases heroes, seductresses, fighters, intellectuals, spirituals, mothers—and of course female composers and poets. The album occasionally includes reflections on nature and love, from the origin of the earth back to everyday life, where there are still battles to fight.
Together, Bird and Spark have created an album that reflects femininity in a cheerful, melancholic, upbeat and ultimately even poppy way. Like femininity itself, Visions of Venus defies definition.
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Photo credit – Gregor Hohenberg