HARBISON North and South.1 Six American Painters. Christmas Vespers: The Three Wise Men.2 Book of Hours and Seasons3 • Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (mez);1 Bill Curtis (narr);2 Emily Lodine (mez);3 Chicago C Musicians • NAXOS 8.559188 (66:22)

The performance of Harbison’s North and South that begins this disc effectively acts as a memorial to the huge talent that was Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died of cancer in July 2006. A setting of six poems of Elizabeth Bishop divided into two “books” of three poems each, it is a work marked by its economy of utterance and scoring. The work’s premiere took place in 2000 in a version for voice and piano, but with Janice Felty as soloist. The Chicago Chamber Musicians commissioned the ensemble version that is heard here.

It is difficult to imagine a more persuasive advocate than Hunt Leiberson (she is actually the dedicatee of the first book, while the second is dedicated to Felty). Hunt Lieberson understands each and every twist and turn of Harbison’s wandering phrases, while the Chicago Chamber Musicians reveal quicksilver responses to the accompaniments. Harbison is an expert orchestrator, painting moods with consummate ease. At the heart of Hunt Lieberson’s achievement is her easy artistry. Everything sounds so natural. Her pitching is preternaturally accurate, her slurs astonishingly clean, and her tone is even throughout the whole of her range. Perhaps the highlight of the six movements is the fifth, called merely “Song,” a nearly unbearable evocation of departed summer.

Six American Painters is a succession of vignettes on six painters (the starting point was actual specific paintings, but the scope soon enlarged). The version of the score heard here is for flute and string trio (there exists a version for oboe and strings). Mathieu Dufour is the excellent flutist. All four soloists, though, soak up Harbison’s economic and effective writing. The six painters are Bingham, Eakins, Heade, Homer, Hoffman, and Diebenkorn.

The inclusion of a narrated segment from the 1998 Christmas Vespers is an interesting idea. “The Three Wise Men” is scored for narrator and brass quintet. It begins as if launching into I saw three ships before carving out its own jazz-inflected trajectory. The Prelude requires tight rhythmic playing, and this it receives in no short measure here. There are shades of Bernstein here, too. Harbison alternates what he calls brass “engravings” with spoken narrative from Matthew’s Gospel. He also equates the Three Wise Men with trumpet, horn, and trombone, while Herod speaks through the voice of the tuba.

Begun in 1973 with a setting of “Um Mitternacht” for D’Anna Fortunato, the Book of Hours eventually became a set of Goethe poems for voice, flute, cello, and piano. (“Um Mitternacht” is the final one.) From bleak beginnings, the piece visits a variety of moods, from the jazzy rhythms of “Immer und überall,” the dark “Interlude,” the autumnal “Mich änstigt das Verfängliche,” to the still “Um Mitternacht.” Unfortunately, Emily Lodine suffers in comparison with Hunt Lieberson, her voice a little tremulous. Yet the score remains a haunting one.

Very definitely a disc to investigate.

FANFARE: Colin Clarke