BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - May 2018 Choices
This month's Choices include Brahms’s complete symphonies from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati (who spoke to Katherine recently about the project, which is his farewell recording as the orchestra’s Principal Conductor), a weird and wonderful new viola concerto for Antoine Tamestit by Jörg Widmann (which requires the soloist to act as well as play!), and one of our recent Recordings of the Week: Murray Perahia’s Moonlight and Hammerklavier Sonatas on Deutsche Grammophon.
Recording of the Month
'Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of these performances is the sheer variety of colours and timbres Robin Ticciati manages to extract from the outstanding strings of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra…Throughout each work, Ticciati projects strongly defined phrase characterisation, coupled with a great sense of forward momentum…Exciting, revelatory performances that make you listen afresh to this wonderful life-enhancing music.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Orchestral Choice
'It’s the most lightly, as in ineffably, characterised Mahler One I’ve heard since Kubelík’s. Everything flows, moves forward without rush…And when he needs to, Fischer pulls out the stops – a whole sequence of them as he magnificently marshals the final triumph. I don’t know a more convincing interpretation of those last pages…Masterly.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Concerto Choice
Widmann: Viola Concerto
Antoine Tamestit (viola), Signum Quartett, Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Daniel Harding
'This is a wonderfully rich and rewarding concerto, packed with inventive orchestral detail. Widmann seems to move between different worlds ion the five interlinked movements, and the slower passages yield particularly haunting music…From Tamestit’s searing playing, to the tight rapport with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding, this is an impressive premiere recording.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber Choice
'Their combined musical imagination feels so intertwined that it emerges seemingly as the natural extension of a single interpretative personality…so keenly attuned are Tiberghien and Ibragimova to each other’s musical proclivities, that at the point of contact it is difficult to imagine this score being played any other way.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Instrumental Choice
'The pulse of the Scherzo is rigorously even, but it has explosive energy; the sheer precisions of the articulation in the finale is a pleasure…Perahia’s account of the Moonlight Sonata is no less exemplary. He brings out the grave poetry of the Adagio, presents a relaxed and conversational Allegretto, and the finale has charm, rather than the facetious excitement with which many pianists imbue it.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Choral & Song Choice
'It’s hard to resist. Here is a choir in which all the elements are held in perfect equilibrium. Patrick Allies ponders every note before moulding lines whose suppleness in turn coalesce into breathing, organic whole…A beautifully recorded, aristocratically executed disc. Siglo de Oro has struck gold!'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera Choice
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame (DVD)
Misha Didyk, Alexey Markov, Vladimir Stoyanov, Svetlana Aksenova, Larissa Diadkova; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss Jansons
'It’s certainly wacky. But it’s followed through with rigorous brilliance…musically all is superb; this is the equal of Mariss Jansons’s first-rate Bavarian CD recording, with some of the same cast including Misha Didyk, currently the Hermann of choice. The Concertgebouw relishes the dark hues and the amazing woodwind scoring; the chorus, well-marshalled with the men as multiple Tchaikovskys, is superb.'
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame (Blu-ray)
Misha Didyk, Alexey Markov, Vladimir Stoyanov, Svetlana Aksenova, Larissa Diadkova; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss Jansons
SOUND FORMAT: BD: PCM Stereo, DTS-HD MA 5.0
PICTURE: NTSC 16:9
Available Format: Blu-ray
Jazz Choice
This 1998 standards concert mark[s] a conscious effort on his part to return to live performance…Even allowing for the fact that it takes a Keith Jarrett too choose the intricacies of bebop as an aid to convalescence, the ebullient results are fired with an infectious optimism that makes this album as vital as any in the trio’s catalogue.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
