Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

Bryn Terfel, a gentle man in real life, recruits a gang of “bad boy” characters from opera and musicals to serenade us with tunes from the sinister side of the bass clef. Thoroughly convincing as villains you would not want to meet alone in the dark, Bryn Terfel wields a full, wide ranging bass-baritone ever in service to dramatic instincts rare in any era Bad Boys delivers an original concept sure to seduce the media, wow the classical crowd and exert powerful mass appeal. No singer morphs from Don Giovanni to Mack the Knife to Sweeney Todd with Terfel’s devilish ease – Bad Boys is a delightful box of mixed (dark) musical bonbons

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet reaches the climax of his multi award-winning complete works for piano, with an album of solo piano transcriptions of three ballets from the same period.

Sir Charles Stanford subjected all music to what he called a ‘piano test’: if it didn’t stand up to being played on the piano, then it wasn’t to be taken seriously. In the case of Debussy, all the French composer’s scores went through a notational stage which, if not specifically designed for piano, could be given a reasonably accurate performance on that instrument. Where ballets were concerned, obviously the choreographer had to rehearse the dancers to the accompaniment of a piano score that conformed to the rhythms and structure of the final orchestral product. The three piano versions recorded here were therefore intimately related to both the compositional and production processes.

Khamma stems from a commission in 1910 for an Egyptian ballet, originally entitled Isis. The project was troubled from the start when Debussy refused to reduce the orchestra from 90 to 40 players. He never heard the work, which was first given its concert performance in 1924. Bavouzet writes, ‘I discovered almost by chance in a Parisian music store, a version for piano of Khamma. This had previously escaped me so what was my surprise when I saw the richness and originality! The virtuosity required is much more subtle than the more obvious. It must give the illusion of more perfect sound levels corresponding to each specific instruments group.’ In the midst of the negotiations over Khamma, Debussy wrote his second ballet, Jeux. Jeux is a highly complex and incomprehensible piece for two hands. Bavouzet notes, ‘In several places what Debussy wrote in the reduction for solo piano is really unplayable. The text is so thin and poor that a small part of the richness of the orchestral version is realised. It was indeed this frustration that prompted me to write some years ago, a version for two pianos today published by Durand. But for this disc I had to make a version for two hands to do justice to the score. I can say that this is probably one of the most difficult works that I have played.’ Two months after the Jeux premiere, Debussy began work on his last ballet, La boîte à joujoux, based on an illustrated children’s story. Debussy embraced the plot, busy ‘extracting secrets from [his daughter] Chouchou’s old dolls and learning to play the side drum’. Within a month the first tableau was done, and he claimed he had ‘tried to be straightforward and even “amusing”, without pretentiousness or pointless acrobatics.’ The following month the piano score was complete.

Jean-Efflam concludes, ‘In my opinion the transcriptions can offer greater clarity and organisation of musical discourse. Young conductors have told me that they understood the score of Jeux better after hearing the version for two pianos… for those who do not know these three ballets in their orchestral version, this disc may give them the curiosity to explore the works further.’

Melodious, virtuosic, and with the added bonus of being fresh to the repertoire - Haydn's soprano arias are among the most beautiful artefacts of Viennese Classicism, especially when they are sung with immaculate clarity as here by Simona Šaturová. Widely praised for her crystalline voice, exquisite focus and musical expression, Simona Šaturová is in international demand in opera and concert. She was born in Bratislava, Slovakia and studied with Ileana Cotrubas in Vienna. In January 2009 Ms. Saturova sang in a performance of the Mozart C Minor Mass for the 85th birthday of Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

‘One player, one instrument, one composer: Bach’s unaccompanied violin music has always been the greatest for any player, young or old. Alina Ibragimova, only 23, is already its equal’ (The Guardian)

‘Alina Ibragimova began to play unaccompanied Bach on the violin, and the hush became silence. This was spontaneous, the first sense that something new could happen’ (The Independent)

The dazzling young virtuoso Alina Ibragimova has enthralled audiences for years with her live Bach performances. Critics have acclaimed her faultless intonation, achingly beautiful tone, superlative technique and a musical wisdom far beyond her years. Now, in this important new recording of Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin, Ibragimova brings all these qualities and more to create an interpretation that is both excitingly original and profoundly humble. This is music of unfathomable subtlety, astounding virtuosity and great expressive and architectural beauty.

‘Carmen Giannattasio’s last gasp was one of the most electrifying in all opera' Hilary Finch, The Times, reviewing Opera Rara’s concert performance.

Donizetti’s gripping opera Parisina comes from a particularly fruitful period in the composer’s output. It was premiered in Florence in 1833, the year that Lucrezia Borgia opened at La Scala and Torquato Tasso in Rome, with a libretto by the leading exponent of the craft at that time, Felice Romani. And yet the opera is rarely performed today – even though it was widely staged during the two decades following its premiere. Its fortunes may change again with this new recording, cast from strength and led by the Parisina of Carmen Giannattasio (heard in La donna del lago – ORC34) and José Bros (heard in Roberto Devereux – ORC24) as Ugo. The plot is unusually dark, even for an early romantic melodramma. Parisina, the wife of Azzo, a 15th-century Duke of Ferrara, has fallen in love with Ugo, who turns out to be a child of Azzo’s previous marriage.

In furious anger at her outlandish passion, Azzo has his own son murdered, and presents his anguished stepmother with the corpse. This horrifying scenario was just the sort of passionate narrative to set the composer’s musical pulses racing, and the result remained his favourite among his works for many years; as his biographer William Ashbrook has written, ‘Parisina contains some of Donizetti’s most vivid musical portraiture.’

The 3CD set comes with a lavishly illustrated book including a complete libretto with an English translation. Article and synopsis by the eminent 19th century musical scholar, Jeremy Commons.

It was on a visit to London in 1791 that Haydn heard several of Handel's oratorios at Westminster Abbey. Astonished by their size and power - "Handel is master of us all," he is said to have declared - he determined to write a similar work himself. Die Schöpfung was the result, though its exuberant hymning of the simple joys of life is pure Haydn. Five years after a much-acclaimed version of The Seasons, René Jacobs chooses this 'beginning' to make his major contribution on record to the celebration of the bicentenary of Haydn's death.

CONCERT REVIEWS:

"Julia Kleiter was the exemplary soprano, who made Jacobs's extra vocal embellishments sound completely natural, and Maximilian Schmitt gave notice of a well-schooled tenor voice to watch." Financial Times, January 2009

"In the medium-scale acoustic of the Barbican Hall, two German groups - the 40-strong RIAS Chamber Choir and the similarly sized Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, both under the skilled hands of conductor René Jacobs - proved near ideal. Many of Haydn's delightful touches of audio-visual detail - the sun and moon, the birds and beasts - came over with unusually vivid effect…Julia Kleiter's pristine vocalism moved around the soprano part with the same delicacy and skill as Maximilian Schmitt's around the tenor's." The Guardian

Renowned British tenor, James Gilchrist, presents his first recording for Orchid Classics, “Die Schöne Müllerin” (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill”), Schubert’s classic a setting of poems by Wilhelm Müller – generally accepted to be a masterpiece of the song genre.

Gilchrist has performed this cycle many times, to great acclaim, in concert in the UK and abroad – usually in partnership with Anna Tilbrook. He is one of Britain’s most popular and sought after singers. This is the first time he has recorded “t Die Schöne Müllerin “ and will make a wonderful addition to his already extensive discography

The CD booklet contains full German text with English translation, and an essay by Richard Morrison of The Times giving a fascinating insight into both Schubert and Die Schöne Müllerin.

“he is now unsurpassed amongst lyric tenors in sweetness and technical security, and for his musical intelligence” The Independent

This disc features beautiful and moving works reflecting on the grief of the Virgin Mary written by great Vivaldi, Pergolesi and Bach. Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater dates from around 1711 or 1712 and he used just the first ten verses of the text, creating one of the most sombre of all settings.

Bach’s adaptation of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater uses a contemporary German version of the Biblical Psalm 51. To suit the requirements of the new text Bach made certain alterations to Pergolesi’s vocal parts but retained the scheme of solo arias and duets between a soprano and an alto voice. He also added a new, independent viola part to the score and rewrote the basso continuo, giving the work a new harmonic vitality.

Pergolesi’s Salve Regina, composed around the same time as the Stabat Mater, and of a similarly expressive, sorrowful style. Of Pergolesi’s two settings of the text, the present one – originally in C minor – is the most well-known, and is here performed in the F minor version for alto voice.

Daniel Taylor directs the Theatre of Early Music as well as performing himself - “The beauty of his voice will stop you in your tracks.” Gramophone

This is Alan Gilbert’s farewell concert as chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

For almost forty years the name of Václav Talich was synonymous with the great orchestra he conducted, the Czech Philharmonic. When he made these records in November 1935, he was at the height of his career as the most charismatic Czech conductor in history. The orchestra’s autumn London visits, beginning in 1935, were eagerly awaited events, not least by the HMV technicians at Abbey Road Studios, where the art of 78rpm recording had been brought to its peak.

The Slavonic Dances give Talich the chance to show the full panoply of his skills in subtlety of rhythm and orchestral colour. In Carnival, the strings’ natural portamento lends lovely curves to the second theme, while in the quiet interlude the delicately rustic Czech woodwinds come into their own.

Talich was to return to all this music in the 1950s but these 1935 recordings catch an immortal partnership in full flood and vigour.