Gramophone Choices,
Gramophone Editor's Choices - February 2018
Three off-the-beaten-track operas make the cut this month: the world premiere recording of Jake Heggie’s new all-American rom-com Great Scott (starring Joyce DiDonato in the title-role and Nathan Gunn as the high-school sweetheart who got away), a fairy-tale staging of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of Tsar Saltan from Gergiev and the Mariinsky, and the continuation of Christophe Rousset’s stylish Lully series which continues apace with a superbly idiomatic account of the 1674 ‘tragédie en musique’ Alceste. There’s also a trio of Magnificats by the Bach family courtesy of Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, Bartók, Poulenc and Ravel from Patricia Kopatchinskaya and Polina Leschenko, and three sets of previously unrecorded incidental music which Vaughan Williams wrote for plays by Euripides.
'Hamelin and Andsnes are irresistibly clear and energetic...For sheer articulacy, synchronised gymnastics, flawless balance, range of colour and flinty attack, or any other criterion you care to reach for, this is breathtaking pianism...An immensely collectable album: a strong candidate for Disc of the Year, never mind of the Month.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
'There are so many moments here that bring a smile to a jaded Mozartian’s face: little holdings back, touches of ornamentation, that magical moment in K595’s slow movement where the piano’s song is shadowed only by flute and violins, exquisitely done here...Anderszewski’s piano is right there in the middle of it, supporting, chattering away in passagework, never once hogging the spotlight.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Symphony No. 9
Martha Argerich (piano), Jakub Waszczeniuk (trumpet); Sinfonia Varsovia, Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky
'It is said that Argerich was nearing 50 when she turned serious attention to Shostakovich. We must all be grateful that she did. I know of no other pianist who mines the First Concerto’s riches with her depth of understanding, yet delivers it with such consummate ease...[Rabinovitch] conducts an orchestra more expertly than the vast majority of his composer colleagues.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
'Never before have I heard such a clutch of interpretations which have had me hearing each concerto as if for the first time...The playing is top-drawer. Temmingh’s virtuosity is breathtakingly fluid and effortless, and he clearly enters a new world for each of his ‘mini-operas’. The Capricornus Consort, meanwhile, are light-footed in their dance, Vivaldi’s pulsing rhythms never over-articulated.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Deux: Music for Violin & Piano by Bartók, Poulenc & Ravel
Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Polina Leschenko (piano)
'Brimming with personality, individuality and panache; in fact sometimes so much personality that a quick glance at the score is in order, simply to establish exactly what the ratio of Kopatchinskaja versus composer-in-question actually is...Every reading here works like a dream; no doubt in part because the three main works’ Hungarian folk roots are a perfect partner to her own Moldovan folk heritage.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'In No 17 in E flat, with its playful runs on the E and A strings, Hadelich sounds as if he’s challenging his rivals to have as much fun as he is having...Then there’s the kingpin of the set, the much-varied 24th Caprice...his expressive way with slides and vibrato (which is never used with predictable consistency), his rich multiple-stops and often thrilling passagework at speed tends to incline me in his direction.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'For [JS's] perennial masterpiece, Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo snap into their festive sparklers with grand authority and lithe ebullience, sweeping effortlessly from verse to verse with considerable purpose...Arcangelo’s voyage into the sons’ Magnificats is no less well paced or astutely textured...Cohen and Arcangelo bring us an illuminated Bachian constellation of three canticles colliding in captivating relief.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Beyond my Dream (Music for Greek Plays)
Heather Lowe (mezzo) The Joyful Company of Singers, Britten Sinfonia, Alan Tongue
'Here’s yet another hugely enterprising rescue-act from Albion Records...As has often been the case with so many of these comparatively early RVW discoveries, they make absolutely fascinating listening...these dedicated and scrupulously prepared performances...are all absolutely beyond reproach, and the disc as a whole must be deemed an essential acquisition for every true RVW aficionado.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Heggie: Great Scott
Joyce DiDonato, Ailyn Pérez, Frederica von Stade, Nathan Gunn; Dallas Opera, Patrick Summers
'There’s a cunning (and witty) interplay of ideas at work here...Heggie gets to spoof the sub-Rossinian bel canto on an elaborate scale...but in so doing manages to transcend mere pastiche in the creation of genuinely elegant and beautiful lines and authentic vocal fireworks that challenge and tax DiDonato as surely as the roles in her core repertoire.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Lully: Alceste
Judith Van Wanroij, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro; Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques
'Few if any conductors match Christophe Rousset’s understanding of Lullian style and rhetoric...His pacing and inflecting of the music seems unerring...[and he] draws compelling performances from his singers, all of whom sound at ease in the tricky-to-master art of natural French declamation...it is hard to imagine this music, often delightful, sometimes witty, intermittently touching, coming alive more vividly than it does here.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
