Awards,
Gramophone Awards 2016 - Recording of the Year
The Presto website team are currently over at St John's Smith Square for the annual Gramophone Awards, where this year's special awards and of course the coveted Recording of the Year prize have just been announced…
The overall category-winners (which were revealed on 22nd August) are also listed below, and you can also browse through the complete shortlist of finalists here.
Recording of the Year
The Recording of the Year prize has been awarded to Igor Levit's mighty triptych of variations by Bach, Beethoven and Rzewski.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Artist of the Year - Daniil Trifonov
The Artist of the Year crown goes to the 25 year old Russian pianist-composer Daniil Trifonov, whose disc of Rachmaninov Variations (released last August) was my Presto Personal Pick of 2015 (reviewing it in my end-of-year round-up, I praised his 'effortless, incredible technique, combined with a maturity in music-making way beyond his years'). Trifonov's recording of Liszt’s complete Concert Etudes is due out on 7th October on Deutsche Grammophon.
Browse the full list of his currently available recordings here.
Lifetime Achievement Award - Christa Ludwig
This year's Lifetime Achievement Award goes to the indomitable German mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig (b.1928), whose five-decade operatic career has seen her excel in a huge range of repertoire from lyric roles like Octavian, Orlofsky and Cherubino to heavyweights such as Ortrud, Brangäne and Fricka and even roles more usually sung by sopranos, including Strauss's Marschallin and Dyer's Wife, Verdi's Lady Macbeth, and Beethoven's Leonore. Since her retirement from the stage in 1994, she's devoted herself to teaching masterclasses, and was recently an insightful and hugely entertaining contributor to Antonio Pappano's Classical Voices series on BBC Four.
Browse the full list of her currently available recordings here.
Young Artist Award - Benjamin Appl
A BBC New Generation Artist, the Bavarian lyric baritone Benjamin Appl has been making waves on the international recital-scene over the past couple of years, particularly in Schubert: a last-minute jump-in for Luca Pisaroni at the Wigmore Hall prompted Opera Today to declare that 'he has the potential to be not just good, but great'. Appl signed an exclusive contract with Sony Classical in May, with previous solo recordings including a disc of Heinrich Heine settings with the pianist James Baillieu on Champs Hill, and an all-Schubert programme with Graham Johnson on Wigmore Hall Live.
Browse the full list of his currently available recordings here.
Label of the Year - Warner Classics
With category-winners including their new soprano signing Sabine Devieilhe (for The Weber Sisters), violinist Vilde Frang (for her Korngold and Britten concertos), and long-term collaborator Antonio Pappano (for his Aida, which also scooped BBC Music Magazine's Disc of the Year prize in April), as well as key releases from artists including Ian Bostridge, Martha Argerich and Joyce DiDonato, it's been a great year for Warner, and 2017 looks just as promising...!
Special Achievement - BBC Radio 3
With the 70th anniversary of their launch falling on 29th September, 'The Third Programme' take this year's Special Achievement Award. James Jolly says: 'The Award is made in Radio 3's 70th birthday year less to mark its role as a major broadcaster and more to acknowledge its incredible position as a cultural patron - not just nurturing young talent and giving it exposure, providing an amazing richness of live music-making through its performing groups and the Proms, but also for all the music Radio 3 has commissioned. No other culture institution in the world has done so much for music. '
Category Winners
Baroque Instrumental
"She can play with grace and beauty – at the opening of ‘The Carrying of the Cross’, for instance...There are also many subtleties of articulation and timing, almost as if there are words and pauses lying behind the notes."
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Baroque Vocal
"If a keen sense of the interpretative moment is the hallmark of ensemble performance at its best, then this new Monteverdi instalment from Les Arts Florissants deserves to be held up as such...One is torn between regret that there is to be only one further volume, and anticipation at what it might bring."
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber
Choral
"A profoundly musical performance of clarity and intelligence. Technically, too, it’s a formidable achievement...Excellent performances throughout from orchestra, soloists and choruses – rarely have the lush textures of Schoenberg’s late-Romantic cantata sounded this fresh."
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Concerto
"These are urgently communicative, potentially transformative accounts…played with almost intimidating dexterity and polish, not to mention impeccable intonation [Frang’s] music-making still manages to project an impression of honesty and naturalness."
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Contemporary
Hans Abrahamsen: Let me tell you
Barbara Hannigan (soprano), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Andris Nelsons
"It is a richly theatrical journey...[Hannigan's] vehemence and passion suggest she thinks justice is finally being done to a woman who never did get much chance to tell her side of the story...The Danish composer’s sound world is a mass of glinting detail."
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Early Music
Western Wind: Music By John Taverner & Court Music For Henry VIII
Emily Van Evera (soprano), Charles Daniels (tenor), Taverner Choir & Players, Andrew Parrott
"The Western Wynde Mass nicely contrasts with The Tallis Scholars’ recording, being incisive and brisk where Peter Phillips’s reading is smoother and more leisurely. Parrott is perhaps more persuasive in conveying its pacing...the sound recording successively juggles a wide range of distributions, from harpsichord to choir."
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Instrumental
"There is, if you care to rationalise, a Russian depth of sound and eloquence of phrasing, tempered by Germanic intellectual grasp...Levit’s musical personality is as integrated and mature as his technique. And both of these are placed at the service of the music’s glory rather than his own."
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera
Orchestral
"Powerful and beautifully crafted, this recording – the first from the relationship between DG and the Boston Symphony under Nelsons – is a hugely impressive sign of just what this ensemble/maestro partnership may go on to achieve."
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recital
Solo Vocal
"Gens, as one might expect, is exceptional in this repertoire. Most of the songs are about erotic anticipation and tristesse, and her dark, slightly smoky tone adds to the sensuality of it all. She sings as much off the text as the line, but nothing is nudged or forced in an overtly interventionist way."
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
