BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - November 2017 Choices
The Pavel Haas Quartet have serious form with Dvořák (their accounts of the String Quartets Nos. 12 and 13 won Record of the Year at the 2011 Gramophone Awards and was a first choice on Radio 3's Building A Library within a couple of months of its release), so it's no surprise that their new recording of the Piano Quintet and Third String Quintet (for which they're joined by Boris Giltburg and their former violist Pavel Nikl respectively) takes the November top spot.
The second instalment of Semyon Bychkov's Tchaikovsky Project with the Czech Philharmonic, Alexei Ogrintchouk doing double-duty as oboist and director in works by Richard Strauss (one of our own recent Recordings of the Week), and the Gabrieli Consort's luminous collection of twentieth-century English part-songs are also among the recordings which particularly impressed the BBC Music Magazine team this month.
Recording of the Month
'Throughout the slow movement, the playing of the solo lines is captivating…The Haas Quartet with Boris Giltburg provide both relaxation and a strong sense of purposeful energy…Excellently recorded, these performances are among the most memorable I have encountered in recent years.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Orchestral Choice
'In this performance, magnificently delivered by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and captured in clear yet opulent sound, Bychkov’s attention to inner detail effectively enhances the work’s emotional intensity…Particularly illuminating is his approach to the much-maligned fugue which is shorn of its customary academic propriety, and instead manifests a kind of hell-for-leather drive akin to Berlioz.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Concerto Choice
'What a subtle and fascinating artist is oboist Alexei Ogrintchouk – a team player as well as a born soloist, whose ideas on the Strauss Wind Serenade and Second Sonatina are as distinctive in their supple tempo-changes as Andris Nelson’s contrasts-writ-large (but never too large) in the Oboe Concerto.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber Choice
'The mellifluous way Reger interweaves the dialogue between clarinet and piano is typically Brahmsian…Throughout all the performances, Collins shapes Reger’s long-breathed melodic lines with great sensitivity, while McHale is particularly impressive in bringing lightness and clarity to Reger’s often thickly textured piano parts.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Instrumental Choice
'Volodos, rather like the music, can seem to inhabit a world of his own – removed, remote, yet in steely control of the expression of that remoteness…Volodos is a master of soft and silken tone and has the steadiest of rhythms…There’s a certain sense of ‘rightness’ to the tempos and every note feels weighed in the balance. The disc’s sound quality complements these cushioned subtleties with warmth and clarity.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Choral and Song Choice
'Sometimes the best discoveries in music aren’t pieces that you’ve never heard before, but those you have, made new by remarkable interpretations…At the recital’s heart is a breath-catching performance of James MacMillan’s Burns setting The Gallant Weaver…This is a beautifully constructed programme, sung with consummate assurance and self-effacing artistry.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera Choice
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: La Descente d'Orphée aux enfers
Robert Getchell (Orphée), Caroline Weynants (Eurydice); Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé
'In this unfailingly beautiful performance, Ensemble Correspondances reflects the relatively modest forces available to Charpentier…Robert Getchell is an appropriately sweet-voiced Orphée and Caroline Weynants a delightful Eurydice…The recorded sound captures faithfully this small-scale ensemble performance that is a near-ideal realisation of this delightful, if modest, entertainment.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
