Gramophone Choices,
Gramophone Editor's Choices - Awards Issue 2017
Steven Isserlis takes the top spot this week, returning to Haydn's joyous cello concertos (and directing from the cello this time around!) two decades after his acclaimed accounts of the works on RCA with Roger Norrington and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Watch this space for David's forthcoming interview with Steven about the recording, which we'll be running next week alongside a feature with up-and-coming tenor Ilker Arcayürek whose glorious collection of Schubert lieder on Champs Hill also made the Gramophone Choices…
Recording of the Month
Haydn & CPE Bach: Cello Concertos
Steven Isserlis (cello/director), The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
'These interpretations sing of an artist still thoroughly in tune with his prevoius thoughts, but who is keen to develop those ideas further. He's supported every step of the way in this pursuit by the warmly responsive Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen...Isserlis's 1998 recording [of the Haydn] remains classy stuff, but this has superbly trumped it.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Editor's Choices
'The music fair kidnaps the listener's attention at the outset and does not random it until the gripping, wholly satisfying close...The performance by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is stunning in its virtuosity (especially the three timpanists) and Brabbins shapes the whole edifice grippingly, as in the couplings.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'In the expert hands of Ensemble Marsyas and their horn players Alec Frank-Gemmill and Joseph Walters, [the Barsanti concerti] turn out to be works of enormous joy and spirit. Their sound world will be familiar to many from Handel Water Music, [though] the chortling energy Barsanti conjures in his allegros has an abandonment that might have been a bit too boisterous for a royal river party.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Freire's sound has always been a thing of wonder: even at full volume and full tilt there's no hint of percussiveness in his tone...Highlights are many - the regret-filled duet of the middle section of Op. 118 No. 2 or the way he brings to such a quiet close the Ballade, Op. 118 No. 3...Enough adjectives. Go and buy it, and set it on your shelves.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'[An] intelligently conceived recital, executed with vocal freshness and an open-hearted quality that recalls the young Nicolai Gedda and Christoph Prégardien...Arcayürek sings ‘Schwanengesang’, for example, with the kind of fearless clarity that comes with minimum vibrato, projecting emotional content with understated inference rather than colouring of individual words.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
'Arias from each role might as well have been tailor-made for Hallenberg’s pinpoint virtuosity and lyricism, communicative use of language, idiomatic embellishment, intelligently sculpted phrasing (limpid, gentle or turbulent as the music demands) and astute theatrical characterisation.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Performers and engineers alike have made sure that the one instrument doesn’t swamp or outshine the other, and that neither is unduly spotlit. It all sounds and feels utterly natural...The whole enterprise is near-impossible to fault. Six sonatas left now to complete the cycle, a set that will surely become the modern reference recording.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony and Strauss: Metamorphosen
Baltic Chamber Orchestra, Emmanuel Leducq-Barôme
'Rarely have I been as moved by Strauss's 'Study for 23 solo strings'...as I was when listening to this richly-textured recording by the Baltic Chamber Orchestra. Although the chosen tempos are comparatively broad, Emmanuel Leducq-Barôme keeps you on edge of your seat, principally by achieving maxium tension at the crest of each phrase...Again the playing suggests maximum commitment.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
@[Harmonia Mundi~HMM90228687]("'Pichon has ingeniously encouraged structured listening across composers and genres of a kind that rarely occurs on record; the results are fascinating and, at times, revelatory...there is some spectacular improvised instrumental ornamentation (just occasionally a little exaggerated), while the whole is expertly underpinned by a rich array of continuo instruments.'" "Stravaganza d'Amore! The Birth of Opera at the Medici Court" "Ensemble Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon")
DVD/Blu-ray of the Month
Ravel, Dutilleux & Delage
Leonidas Kavakos (violin), Julia Bullock (soprano), London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle
'Rattle’s affectionate account of Le tombeau de Couperin features pristine contributions from the LSO’s principal woodwind team. Smiles abound and Rattle seems to offer his players a great deal of freedom in shaping and phrasing...The gems at the heart of this programme, though, are the Quatre Poèmes hindous...Rich sound and crystalline picture quality make this an enjoyable viewing experience.'
Available Format: DVD Video + Blu-ray
Re-Issue of the Month
'Suitner's Mozart recordings fall very happily upon the ear, with sound (1974-5 in this instance) that is warm yet admirably transparent...Listen in particular to the E flat Symphony, K543, the amiably chugging Menuetto and Trio or the unforced gaiety of the finale...A distinctive coupling, well worth investigating, as are all Suitner's Mozart disc.'
Available Format: CD
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
