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Presto News - 26th September 2011Handel – Agrippina & Germanico |
 I’ve been like a child in a sweet-shop this month, as a steady stream of exciting baroque opera releases have poured into the Presto office: it’s hard to know where to start with such an embarrassment of riches, so I thought I’d give you a brief round-up of the lot!  Alexandrina Pendatchanska First up is Harmonia Mundi’s handsomely-presented Agrippina, recorded in the studio following an acclaimed run in Berlin last spring. Our scheming anti-heroine is Alexandrina Pendatchanska, a René Jacobs regular, supplying great vocal and visual glamour in best baroque-Lady-Macbeth mode and catching every nuance of this fabulously multi-faceted character (the first of the trailers below gives some idea of the sheer chutzpah of her performance). The delinquent apple of her eye, Nerone, is sung by Jennifer Rivera, who lacks fire in places but fields impeccable technique; Marcos Fink (brother of acclaimed mezzo Bernarda) is her missing-presumed-dead husband Claudio, who had me gaping in disbelief at the rumbling bottom Cs (at baroque pitch!) in his entrance aria. Bejun Mehta’s Ottone divided opinion in the office: perhaps his vibrant, occasionally slightly histrionic delivery won’t be to all tastes, but it’s a hugely committed performance and his heart-stopping Act Two lament is a highlight of the set. The accompanying short film ‘Facing Agrippina’ is as beautiful as it is insightful, but the pathos and the comedy of this strangely hybrid work are everywhere apparent on the CDs alone. Listen to the bedroom-farce-like scene in the second act, then to Agrippina’s extended pangs of conscience at the opening of the third, and you’ll see just what I mean. Agrippina was written during Handel’s time in Italy, and another work from the same period has been attracting some press attention of late: after discovering a manuscript entitled ‘Germanico’ by a ‘Sigr Hendl’ in a Florence library back in 2007, Italian musicologist and conductor Ottaviano Tenerani has now committed the work to disc. Dating from around 1706 and clocking in at just ninety minutes, Germanico is more serenata than full-scale opera: the ‘plot’ consists of a hero returning home to his loved ones, having a well-earned sleep, then describing the great dream he had! Though it’s impossible to be 100% certain about the authorship, it certainly sounds distinctively Handelian to us: the obbligato writing in particular foreshadows some of his later triumphs, whilst the trumpet-writing suggests that the young composer had been soaking up Italian influences during his stay! Perhaps Handel hadn’t quite mastered the art of accompanied recitative at this early stage (Germanico’s dream-sequence is almost endearingly four-square!), but there are memorable arias aplenty and the entire performance oozes conviction.  Max Emanuel Cencic This month also sees new Gluck and Vivaldi sets, both starring the sensational Croatian countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic. He packs an impressive punch in the upper reaches and listening to his clarion top notes, steely heroic timbre and dizzying coloratura in Vivaldi’s Farnace feels like hearing one of the great castrati first-hand! Cencic is also on barnstorming form as a lovelorn emperor in Gluck’s Ezio. Like the two Handel works, Ezio was written early in the composer’s career, before he set about his mission to ‘reform’ opera seria with its convoluted plots, endless succession of metaphor arias and emphasis on vocal pyrotechnics. Ezio has all these in spades – arias about storm-tossed ships at sea, birds of prey and swelling rivers abound – but it’s all immensely well done and I enjoyed it hugely. It’s also the only recording in the current catalogue to use the original Prague version of the score: some of the most striking numbers were pruned or replaced for the later Vienna edition, not least the villainous tenor’s beautiful ‘overflowing stream’ aria which Gluck re-used later in Orfeo. Speaking of Orfeo, Telemann’s opera on the subject (another recent discovery) was released internationally a few months ago, but I don’t think it ever made it into the UK. However, we’ve managed to find a supplier in Germany to source this and a number of other interesting looking things. It is therefore included below along with Paul Goodwin’s super Athalia with Lawrence Zazzo and Geraldine McGreevy from late last year which is also new to the UK.
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 Handel: Agrippina, HWV 6Alexandrina Pendatchanska (Agrippina), Jennifer Rivera (Nerone), Sunhae Im (Poppea), Bejun Mehta (Ottone), Marcos Fink (Claudio), Neal Davies (Pallante), Dominique Visse (Mago Narciso) & Daniel Schmutzhard (Lesbo), Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs
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 Handel: GermanicoSara Mingardo (Germanico), Maria Grazia Schiavo (Agrippina), Laura Cherici (Antonia), Magnus Staveland (Celio), Franco Faglioli (Lucio), Sergio Foresti (Cesare), Il Rossignolo, Ottaviano Tenerani |
 Gluck: EzioSonia Prina (Ezio), Max Emanuel Cencic (Valentiniano), Ann Hallenberg (Fulvia), Topi Lehtipuu (Massimo), Julian Pregardien (Varo), Mayuko Karasava (Onorio), Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis |
 Vivaldi: FarnaceMax Emanuel Cencic (Farnace), Ann Hallenberg (Selinda), Karina Gauvin (Gilade), Daniel Behle (Pompeo), Ruxandra Donose (Tamiri), Mary-Ellen Nesi (Berenice), Emiliano Gonzales Toro (Aquilio), I Barocchisti, Diego Fasolis |
 Telemann: OrpheusMarkus Volpert (Orpheus), Ulrike Hofbauer (Eurydice), Dorothee Mields (Orasia), Christian Zenker (Eurimedes), Barbara Kraus (Ismene), Reinhard Mayr (Pluto), Marelize Gerber (Cephisa), Julie Comparini (Ascalax), L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg |
 Handel: AthaliaGeraldine McGreevy (Athalia), Nuria Rial (Josabeth), Lawrence Zazzo (Joad), Charles Daniels (Mathan), David Wilson-Johnson (Abner), Kammerorchester Basel, Vocalconsort Berlin, Paul Goodwin |
Katherine Cooper - katherine@prestoclassical.co.uk |
Watch: A few short video trailers
Listen - sound samples available for this itemNew Releases26th September 2011 |
This is just the pick of the recent releases. The New Releases and Future Releases pages are always available for browsing all the new and forthcoming releases. |
 The Romantic Cello Concerto, Vol. 3: StanfordGemma Rosefield (cello), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Andrew ManzeHyperion’s third disc in the Romantic Cello Concerto series sees the brilliant young cellist Gemma Rosefield making her label debut Irish-born Charles Villiers Stanford is far better known for his choral music, but this disc of rarities reveals the composer’s original orchestral voice and his exceptional understanding of the relationship between soloist and orchestra. |
 Delius: Violin Concerto, Double Concerto & Cello ConcertoTasmin Little (violin) & Paul Watkins (cello), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew DavisThese three major concertos by Frederick Delius involving solo string instruments are here brought together on the same disc for the first time. The Violin Concerto, Double Concerto, and Cello Concerto are performed by exclusive Chandos artists strongly associated with British repertoire. |
 Bach - Cantatas Volume 49Rachel Nicholls (soprano), Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), Gerd Türk (tenor) & Peter Kooij (bass), Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki SuzukiIn this volume Suzuki has gathered four works from 1728-29, with the texts all written by the poet Christian Friedrich Henrici – a regular collaborator with Bach, most famously on the St Matthew Passion and the Christmas Oratorio. |
 Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 12Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily PetrenkoShostakovich’s Sixth and Twelfth Symphonies both had their origins in large-scale projects about Lenin, though the Sixth was eventually to emerge as one of the composer’s most abstract and idiosyncratic symphonies. The long, intensely lyrical and meditative slow movement that opens the work is one of the composer’s most striking. The Twelfth, one of the least played of Shostakovich’s symphonies in the West, became less a celebration of Lenin’s legacy than a chronological depiction of events during the Bolshevik Revolution. |
 Porpora: CantatasIestyn Davies (countertenor), Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen (director)Young countertenor Iestyn Davies makes his much anticipated Hyperion solo debut with an enchanting disc of cantatas from the Italian composer Nicola Porpora. Davies’s luminous tone has a celestial purity and he performs with prodigious technical assurance. Unfazed by the composer’s intricate passagework and elaborate ornamentation, his astonishing breath control creates a seamless melodic line. |
 Richard Strauss: The Complete Songs 5Kiera Duffy (soprano) & Roger Vignoles (piano)A further instalment of this major Hyperion project introduces the American soprano Kiera Duffy, whose performances in the concert hall and on the opera stage have received the highest praise. |
 Bernard Herrmann: Moby Dick & Sinfonietta for StringsRichard Edgar-Wilson (tenor) & David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Michael SchønwandtBernard Herrmann, born in New York in 1911 to Russian immigrants, is best known today as a composer of film music. Most notably he worked with Alfred Hitchcock on classic productions such as North by Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho, as well as on Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. But despite his strong ties to Hollywood, Herrmann always thought of himself as a composer who worked in film, and never as a ‘mere’ film composer. |
 Robert Parsons: Sacred MusicThe Cardinall's Musick, Andrew CarwoodGramophone award-winning ensemble The Cardinall’s Musick return to another master of the Renaissance, Robert Parsons. Very few records remain of the composer’s short life, and his musical output is often overlooked, perhaps in the shadow of the prolific William Byrd, his successor as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. However, his vocal writing is some of the most opulent of the period. |
 BBC Radio 3 CD ReviewSaturday 24th September 2011 |
Building a Library - Purcell: The Fairy Queen, Z629 |
 First Choice (CD)Ann Murray, Lorna Anderson, Gillian Fisher, John Mark Ainsley, Michael Chance, Richard Suart, Ian Partridge, Michael George The Sixteen, Harry Christophers |
 First Choice (DVD)Lucy Crowe (Juno/Mystery), Claire Debono (Spring/First Fairy), Anna Devin (Second Fairy), Helen-Jane Howells (Eve), Carolyn Sampson (Night), Robert Burt (Mopsa), Sean Clayton (Summer), Ed Lyon (Secrecy/Adam), Adrian Ward (Autumn), Lukas Kargl (Phœbus), Desmond Barrit (Drunken Poet), Andrew Foster-Williams (Winter/Sleep/Coridon/Hymen) Actors: Sally Dexter (Titania), Joseph Millson (Oberon), Desmond Barrit (Bottom), Susannah Wise (Hermia), Oliver Le Suer (Demetrius), Oliver Kieran Jones (Lysander), Jotham Annan (Puck) The Glyndebourne Chorus & Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, William Christie (conductor) & Jonathan Kent (stage director) Also available on Blu-ray. |
Disc of the Week |
 Bartók: Violin Concerto & Viola ConcertoJames Ehnes (violin / viola), BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda |
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