El Cafe de Sevilla - Colores de España (CD)

Release Date: 01/01/10

“This album by El Café de Sevilla (the duo of Araceli Fernández and Hannu Siiskonen) provides the listener with a unique

“This album by El Café de Sevilla (the duo of Araceli Fernández and Hannu Siiskonen) provides the listener with a unique opportunity to hear what are technically popular songs, or perhaps more accurately, popular themes and tropes incorporated into art music. … Fernández’s voice is lyrical, sweet, and clean, while Siiskonen’s guitar is by turns poignant, lilting, precise, and always respectful of the soprano voice. Even for those who don’t speak Spanish, one can feel what the composer is trying to convey. … Though Fernándezis quite clearly a high, light soprano, her low voice is quite nice, too, as heard in La maja dolorosa No. 3. Both artists have excellent technique, although there is almost an excess of beauty and sweetness in Fernández’s voice, almost like gilding the proverbial lily; some of her phrases can tend to sound the same, a gorgeous stream of sound. It is when she hooks more deeply into the emotion and text of the song, such as in Joaquín Rodrigo’s Adela (part of the second set of songs), that one truly gets the sense of the earthiness.”V. Vasan / Allmusic