Review of Meeting Of Masters concert in Stockholm on 1996-01-06
Dagens Nyheter, 1996-01-07
Ulla-Britt Edberg
(translated by Michael Svensson)

Costello Meets von Otter

Now all the borders are beaking up, musically anyway. Before the
Trettondags-double concert (Thirteenth Day of Christmas) with Anne Sofie 
von Otter (ASvO) and EC the expectations were high. In the "high-class" 
cultural  field many have cast longing looks towards the pop stars.
/.../Maybe some  of this, the dream of immediate response, makes ASvO want to 
take a tiny step towards the popular culture.
Her childhood star was Julie Andrews, not Maria Callas.
But on Berwaldhallen's stage she seemed surprisingly cold. She didn't even
seem to notice Costello's subtle attempts of contact during the songs. In
Loesser's Baby, It's Cold Outside their differences had a favourable
effect, the charming Costello stubbornly tested her hidden emotions.
/.../ In the world of pop EC has long tried to find openings towards other
genres. The voice is often described as hoarse and unsophisticated but I
don't agree. He's very sure hitting the notes and seems to know exactly how
to use his different song styles. When he sang after ASvO in Autumn Leaves,
a buzz went thourgh the music.
He performed two of his own songs with the symphony orchestera. Richard
Garwey had arranged "Birds Will Be Ssinging" and Bill Frisell "Upon A Veil
Of Midnight Blue".
Both the arrangements weres in the character of movie background music, which
unfortunately is common when pop songs are being played by a symphony
orchestera. I think it's because the world of pop doesn't value enough the
importance of instrumentation. /.../
The Trettondag's concert showed that you can mix pop songs and classical
music. A crack opened up between two worlds, but both EC and ASvO has yet
to take the final step.