THE FACES OF LOVE (BMG/RCA Victor) REVIEWS

TIME Magazine (November 8, 1999), Terry Teachout

The American art song is still alive and well, judging by this lovely CD, on which a studio full of opera stars, including Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair and Frederica von Stade, performs 26 songs by Californian Heggie, who is currently adapting Dead Man Walking for the San Francisco Opera. Heggie sets poems in English by poets old (Emily Dickinson) and new (Philip Littell) in the Samuel Barber/Ned Rorem manner — agreeably lyrical, unambiguously tonal — and his big-league cast responds with obvious relish. 

USA Today (3½ stars out of 4, September 28, 1999),  David Patrick Stearns

Art songs aren't often funny, sexy or direct, but in his solo CD debut, composer Heggie is all of those things. Though influenced by French impressionists from the turn of the century, he never strays far from some modern dance rhythm, from jazz to tango, and his texts by living writers are often brimming with contemporary drollness. That, plus his ability to write well for the voice, accounts for the starry lineup of singers. These friendly songs have an open-heartedness not often heard since Samuel Barber and a what-the-hell-let's-try-it quality usually found only in the early summer of a composer's creativity. 

San Francisco Chronicle (September 12, 1999),  Joshua Kosman

Heggie's songs boast a sumptuous blend of melodic grace and emotional transparency. They're ingratiatingly accessible, with lissome melodies and delicate tonal harmonies that transmute qualities of the French chanson into distinctively American terms. And they flatter the voice assiduously; it isn't hard to see why so many of today's singers are lining up to sing his music.

Newsday 

Heggie, a Bay Area composer who is hurtling into the spotlight, has acquired a coterie of important friends. Many of them appear on "The Faces of Love" ... this is a cast the Metropolitan Opera might have a hard time mustering. The disc makes it clear what the singers respond to. His long, limber melodies play out in floating, sometimes startling movements, like a breeze-tossed kite. Like a good post-modernist, Heggie makes freewheeling use of quotation and reference. Baroque formulations, echoes of cabaret, traces of opera and gestures from jazz pop up like puppets. Heggie can be a delightful colorist, possessed of a natural, elegant eloquence.

Opera News (Editor's Choice, January 2000), F. Paul Driscoll

This all-Jake Heggie disc is remarkable not only for its content but for the loving care with which it is presented. The composer has chosen an eclectic album of 26 of his songs, matching them with unerring judgment to the talents of his first-rate cast. All of the artists perform with palpable affection and respect for the material and its composer, who returns the compliment by providing immaculate support at the piano on every track.