WJMF Sound Byte: Ayelet Rose Gottlieb–How Beautiful You Are

Whenever you set out to compose and perform a song cycle set to “the erotic Biblical love poem of Song of Songs,” you better bring a voice equipped for the task. It is clear from a even a quick listen that Ayelet Rose Gottlieb has the chops to pull off such an endeavor when she performs on Sunday evening, June 1 at Bohemian Caverns as part of the Washington Jewish Music Festival. 

Because of its biblical origins, Song of Songs often gets kid-glove treatment, especially when it comes to some of its steamier sequences. I’ve always been a fan of those who are able to incorporate the sensuality inherent in the text without either de-sexing it or erring in the other direction and making it sound like a letter to Penthouse forum. Rose Gottlieb’s pipes and the accompanying instrumentation seem to do the trick and while the clip below isn’t from her album Mayim Rabim, it does show off the expressiveness of her voice. The clip is What’s Done is Done off her 2004 album Internal-External.