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Presto News - 30th January 2012Britten Violin Concerto |
 The Britten Violin Concerto is undoubtedly one of the most unknown and under-rated of all the major violin concertos. I first got to know it about ten years ago when Maxim Vengerov released a recording of the work under the late, great Mstislav Rostropovich. Since then other violinists including Daniel Hope and Janine Jansen have also made excellent recordings, but it still seems very infrequently programmed in concert, and neither can I understand why top violinists like Heifetz and Perlman ignored it throughout the twentieth century.  Anthony Marwood The opportunity to feature it this week comes thanks to a new recording on Hyperion from Anthony Marwood and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov. Marwood spent sixteen years as part of the Florestan Trio performing and recording all the major repertoire for piano trio. Over recent years he has started to take on more solo and concerto work (including the Thomas Adès concerto “Concentric Paths” which was written for him in 2005), and now that the Florestan Trio have disbanded I think we’ll see and hear even more of him in this capacity. Britten completed his Concerto a few days after World War II broke out in the summer of 1939. He had recently moved to America with his lifelong partner Peter Pears where they remained until 1942. Britten was a known pacifist and it is possible to hear the concerto as the orchestra (with its sometimes violent and incessant rhythms) representing the growing international tension of the time, while the violin sings serenely above it all, but ultimately in lamentation. It is a very moving piece, full of tension, which leaves the listener emotionally quite drained by the end. The whole work, and the second movement in particular, shows a strong debt to Prokofiev, whose First Violin Concerto (written twenty years earlier) follows a very similar structural pattern, with the very fast scherzo in the middle. Marwood plays with a rich and singing tone, making light of the technical difficulties and with just enough vulnerability in the sound for the coda at the end of the Passacaglia last movement. The orchestra perform the difficult second movement with impressive precision and together with Marwood and conductor Ilan Volkov this is a tremendously committed and touching performance. Anthony Marwood isn’t yet a world-renowned concerto soloist but this new recording is definitely up there with those of the violinists mentioned earlier as well as the 1970 recording from Mark Lubotsky under the baton of the composer himself. Where this new disc also particular scores though is in the imaginative coupling of Britten’s even less well-known Double Concerto for which Marwood is joined by world-renowned violist Lawrence Power. Written when the composer was just 18 and still a student at the Royal College of Music, it had to wait sixty-five years before receiving its belated premiere in 1997 at the 50th Aldeburgh Festival. It is undoubtedly Britten though – full of imagination and originality but also considerably more than just a youthful curiosity. Here it receives a warm and poetic reading and is worthy of the purchase price alone. The disc is rounded off by a performance of the composer’s Lachrymae for viola and strings. Inspired by the Dowland song ‘If my complaints could passions move’, it displays Britten’s wonderful ability to write for the viola (an instrument he had himself played since childhood), fully exploiting the instrument’s dark and mellow sonorities. Lawrence Power’s quiet intensity produces a memorable performance. Well recommended, and sound samples as usual are available via the link below.
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 Britten: Violin Concerto & Double ConcertoAnthony Marwood (violin) & Lawrence Power (viola), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov |
Chris O'Reilly - chris@prestoclassical.co.uk |
Listen - sound samples available for this itemNew Releases30th January 2012 |
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. |
 Aleksandra Kurzak: Gioia!Aleksandra Kurzak (soprano), Orchestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Omer Meir WellberThe lyric soprano Aleksandra Kurzak is one of the most exciting young singers on the international stage – thrilling press and public alike with her performances in Europe and the US. "Gioia", her debut on Decca, is the eagerly anticipated proof of her excellence. This debut captures the current state of Aleksandra’s voice by contrasting lyric and coloratura arias, focusing on roles which she has performed on stage. The album features much-loved Puccini arias from La Bohème and Gianni Schicchi, bel canto showpieces from I Puritani and Lucia di Lammermoor and the taxing first act aria from La traviata "Sempre libera" which showcases both her effortless agility and the full, warm intensity of a Verdi lyric soprano.
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 Shostakovich: Music for viola & pianoLawrence Power (viola) & Simon Crawford-Phillips (piano)Lawrence Power makes the second of his appearances in this month’s release lists, this time with his regular pianist partner Simon Crawford-Phillips in the chamber music of Shostakovich. The centrepiece is the Viola Sonata, Shostakovich’s last completed work, premiered posthumously, on what would have been the composer’s sixty-ninth birthday. Its ravishing slow finale reworks the opening of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata – a tribute to a composer he revered. |
 The Earth ResoundsThe Sixteen, Harry Christophers & Eamonn DouganJosquin, Brumel and Lassus were truly European composers, leaving their origins to work in the top establishments of Aix-en-Provence, Ferrara, Rome and Munich. Their music has a unique sonority which will astound you all – from the depth of expression and fascinating texts of Josquin (prepare yourselves for the surreal nature of Praeter rerum seriem) to the overtly decorative mass movements of Brumel’s Missa Et ecce terraemotus where the twelve parts interweave in extensive imitation and thrilling tracery, culminating in the extraordinary harmonic stillness of Lassus’s Timor et tremor and his gorgeously evocative twelve-part setting of Aurora lucis rutilat. |
 Schumann: The Violin SonatasUlf Wallin (violin) & Roland Pöntinen (piano)Robert Schumann’s three Sonatas for violin and piano were all composed between 1851 and 1853, and have suffered from neglect like other works from this period in the composer’s life. Wallin’s credentials in Schumann are firmly established, after his recently released recording of the violin concerto, the Fantasy and the arrangement for violin of the cello concerto has been met with considerable critical acclaim.
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 R. Strauss: LiederSoile Isokoski (soprano) & Marita Viitasalo (piano)This CD features Finnish star soprano Soile Isokoski and her longstanding duo partner Marita Viitasalo, with a selection of Lieder by Richard Strauss. Included are such popular songs as Zueignung, Cäcilie, Morgen!, and Allerseelen. Along with the cycle of 3 Ophelia-Lieder and Strauss’s final complete composition, Malven, this collection spans 65 years of Strauss’ writing.
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 Bach - Cantatas Volume 50Hana Blažíková (soprano), Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), Gerd Türk (tenor) & Peter Kooij (bass), Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki SuzukiThe 50th volume of Masaaki Suzuki’s traversal of J.S. Bach’s cantatas features works composed by Bach in collaboration with the Leipzig poet Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici). These cantatas generally make sparing use of the choir but centre on two arias, linked by one or two recitatives, and a final chorale. In addition, the surviving works contain several examples of parody and reuse of earlier instrumental movements as introductions: the opening Sinfonia of BWV 174 uses the first movement of his Third Brandenburg Concerto.
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 Rachmaninov: RomancesDmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone) & Ivari Ilja (piano)For his first CD release on Ondine, star baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has chosen art song repertoire of great intensity and emotion from his Russian home country. The 26 romances by Sergei Rachmaninov on this disc include such popular songs as Spring waters, Op. 14/11 and In the silence of the mysterious night, Op. 4/3.
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 The Power of Love - An English SongbookAlice Coote (mezzo-soprano) & Graham Johnson (piano)Alice Coote, one of the most distinctive mezzo-sopranos of today, makes her recital debut on Hyperion with pianist Graham Johnson, a stalwart of the label and tireless explorer of vocal repertoire. The Power of Love creates what Johnson describes as a ‘pageant of English song and poetry’. It’s a journey through half a century of song, surveying not just human love but love of nature and even of money. Some of the most touching pieces here involve the loss of love through death, not least Ivor Gurney’s Lights Out and Gustav Holst’s Betelgeuse. |
Watch - Video trailers available for this item
Download - download options available for this item BBC Radio 3 CD ReviewSaturday 28th January 2012 |
Building a Library - Mendelssohn: Elijah, Op. 70 (Elias) |
 First ChoicePetteri Salomaa, Soile Isokoski, Monica Groop & John Mark Ainsley, La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent & Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Philippe Herreweghe |
 First Choice(with Paulus & A Midsummer Night's Dream)Petteri Salomaa, Soile Isokoski, Monica Groop & John Mark Ainsley, La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent & Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Philippe Herreweghe |
Disc of the Week |
 Wagner: Die Meistersinger von NürnbergAlbert Dohmen (Hans Sachs), Robert Dean Smith (Walther von Stolzing), Edith Haller (Eva), Dietrich Henschel (Sixtus Beckmesser), Rundfunkchor Berlin & Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Marek Janowski
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