This Old House: How Tenor Timothy Fallon Is Preserving History at Home and on His New Album, Crepuscolo
Timothy Fallon. Credit: Jason Steigerwalt.
The idea of preservation is on tenor Timothy Fallon’s mind a lot lately. He recently bought a house in New England that dates to 1740 — which, he's quick to point out, means Bach was still alive when the house was built.
And away from the renovations he's managing to preserve the charm of his new abode, Fallon — who will spend the next two seasons as a house singer with Vienna's Volksoper — has been thinking about the role of preservation in music-making. This summer he released Crepuscolo, a new album of art songs by Ottorino Respighi that Fallon recorded with Ammiel Bushakevitz, his longtime recital partner.
Although the Italian composer is popular for big orchestral works like Pines of Rome, performances of his songs are extremely rare. Connecting new listeners with the array of colors and emotions these songs convey appealed greatly to Fallon and Bushakevitz.
"Does the market need another Schubert album from someone who's not so well known?" Fallon says on the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast. "We thought this could be a preservation project, because Respighi's songs aren't widely recorded. I found it very inspiring to try to make an album that could be a reference for other people in the future, to go and listen to this music in one place."
In this discussion, we talk more about the new album, the recording process, and how the project served as a musical lifeline for Fallon at the height of the pandemic. Plus, he shares how being a nosy person is a good thing for musicians, why his house always needs a box of Malden sea salt on hand, and his go-to spots for martinis, dumplings, and sesame pancake sandwiches in New York City.
Listen to Crepuscolo on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream and download music.
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