1st August 2018

Awards, Gramophone Awards 2018 Shortlist

by Chris O'Reilly

Gramophone Awards 2018 The sixty recordings shortlisted for the 2018 Gramophone Awards has just been revealed; the top three in each category will be announced on 10th August, and the ten category-winners on 31st August. The ceremony itself will take place on September 13th at the Connaught Rooms in London, when details of special prizes including the Lifetime Achievement Award and Recording of the Year will be unveiled!

You can browse Gramophone's devoted digimag featuring full reviews of all sixty shortlisted titles here.

Chamber

Hans Abrahamsen Arditti Hans Abrahamsen's String Quartets Nos. 1-4 from the Arditti Quartet on Winter & Winter is currently unavailable but expected to be back in stock shortly.

'They have a powerful understanding of the music’s structure, coupled to superlative technical skill. Sensibly, they don’t try to fake a Hungarian accent: instead, their awareness of the music’s roots is incorporated into a wider expressive language.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'The Capuçon brothers and their colleagues may be an ad hoc group but they play with the unanimity and blended tone of a veteran ensemble...Best of all, the musicians find a near-ideal balance of urgency and patience – the hallmark of a great Brahms interpretation.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Fantasy is certainly the unifying factor here. If there’s such a thing as distinctly Gallic cello-playing, Edgar Moreau’s narrow-bore sound and deft articulation surely embody it to perfection...Capuçon is sparing with the full richness of his tone – which paradoxically makes the whole thing only more sensuous.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'From the off, they make the music their own...the sense of story-telling is very persuasive...Another triumphant addition to the Pavel Haas’s already Award-laden discography.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC

'The performances themselves are as stunning as the notes are imaginative, all four musicians both completely under the music’s skin and under each other’s, and playing as a smoothly dovetailed unit. Podger herself is exquisite; fluid, lilting and multi-shaded, with gorgeous filigree ornamentations.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC

Choral

'Cohen and Arcangelo snap into their festive sparklers with grand authority and lithe ebullience...They bring us an illuminated Bachian constellation of three canticles colliding in captivating relief.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'The choral singing has wonderful richness, clarity and fervour, above all in the Messe vocale, which is breathtaking. A tremendous set, it adds immeasurably to our understanding of Gounod’s work. Very highly recommended indeed.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs + book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'There is plenty of warmth and animation in the superb music-making. I Fagiolini’s consort and solo singing are exemplary...In such sure hands (and throats) as these, Monteverdi’s psalm-settings reach their fullest capacity to enchant and astonish.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'The Estonians have always rejoiced in a warm, rich sound and perfect blend, and guided by the utterly precise and dynamic Kaspars Putninš they give here a truly outstanding rendition that picks up every emotional and spiritual nuance with no sacrifice of technical perfection.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Jansons has Rachmaninov in his very soul; but he is also able to capitalise on his remarkable ear for colour, clarity and atmosphere, coupled with his distinctive energy and probing depth of emotional understanding.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Concerto

'An out-and-out winner...Tetzlaff’s account of the First Concerto elevates this work to a whole new level of musical excellence, so much so that I’m inclined to place his expertly recorded CD of the two concertos ahead of all rival versions. It’s that good!'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'In the Piano Concerto, Gardner brings to the table flair, drive and an almost Tchaikovskian lushness to the string sound, which matches well Bavouzet’s commanding manner in the piano’s opening flourish.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'These interpretations sing of an artist still thoroughly in tune with his previous 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.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'There are so many moments here that bring a smile to a jaded Mozartian’s face...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

'Nézet-Séguin cues a fine-spun accompaniment at the start and close of No. 1...I also appreciate [Batiashvili's] free-flowing way with the solo opening of the Second Concerto, her subtle use of portamento and the sweetness of the first movement’s second subject.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'It’s not just that the actual playing is superb: serene virtuoso fluency from Podger, gorgeously supported by her colleagues...It’s also that this is something genuinely, effortlessly and naturally different.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC

Contemporary

'Not only is Dean’s piece as theatrical as its title would suggest, it also has a compelling downwards trajectory...Luca Francesconi’s concerto Hard Pace couldn’t be more different but is just as special, perhaps even more so...With Storgårds and the GSO, it’s a dream team.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Both pieces reaffirm Dusapin’s quartet cycle as among the most significant now emerging.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'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 gripping.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Pulse exudes a restrained, valedictory quality that partly stems from the way in which it briefly journeys through the main elements of Reich’s language...[Quartet] is a very different composition to Pulse: rhythmically assertive, edgy and full of sharp juxtapositions. Both performances are excellent.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Listeners familiar with the benign beauty that imbues much of Silvestrov’s sacred choral works will be in for quite a shock. The opening Drei Stücke and three-movement Elegie belong to a very different world to the composer’s liturgical song.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Williams has a clarity of enunciation second to none...Brabbins secures audible finesse from BCMG...this is a valuable addition to Skempton’s expanding discography.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Early Music

'Both music and performance are on a pleasingly high level...the groups are so well blended (and indeed opulent) that one imagines that Galeazzo would have been delighted.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'O’Donnell encourages really graceful long-arced phrases from his trebles…The finest singing on this disc…is undoubtedly Ave Maria, ancilla Trinitatis: an exceptional work and a superb performance.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'This really is one bullseye after another...Rarely since the Gothic Voices has the vocalisation of the lower lines appeared so self-evidently the right approach...if I hear a finer recording of 14th-century music this year I’ll be very surprised.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'At full stretch there isn’t a weak link from top to bottom...try the Mass that forms the centrepiece here...I doubt whether I’ll be alone in thinking this one of the discoveries of the year.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'This has to be one of the most exciting and engaging releases of medieval song in recent years...The singers use a variety of techniques to engage and communicate, from beautiful clear phrasing to crisp, expressive consonants...Every performance on this disc is illuminating, considered and committed.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'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.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Instrumental

'It may be Beethoven’s instinct to push every component of the dauntingly complex contrapuntal finale [of the Hammerklavier] to its logical conclusion...Perahia, though honouring the intent, declines to turn the music into a rout. In matters of musical diction, lucidity matters.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'This is one of those discs where a word count is a strange thing. For it needs only four: Go Buy This Disc...whatever he does, you can’t imagine the music going any other way, which is perhaps the definition of a great artist.'

Available Formats: CD, 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... Go and buy it, and set it on your shelves.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Aimard’s interpretations are anything but tame. His dynamic range is formidable, his voicing of chords scrupulously faithful, his clarity unimpeachable. It’s hard to imagine the textures having greater impact or precision.'

Available Formats: 3 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'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

'I don’t know of an orchestral performance of [Petrouchka] that evokes the title character with greater sympathy and pathos than Melnikov achieves… Nor can I think of recorded performances of either Liszt’s or Stravinsky’s benchmark creations more compelling than these.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Opera

'Nelson is in no great rush, allowing Berlioz’s music time to breathe where necessary…[His] cast is simply to die for...Énée is thrillingly sung by Michael Spyres…DiDonato’s vehement response to Énée’s desertion reveals her as a great tragedienne…In short this is a peach of recording.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Rattle maintains both a clear pulse in individual scenes and a through line...The LSO’s playing throughout is at a high level of virtuosity...Gerhaher and Kožená are good at not over-egging the pudding of their confusions and naiveties...An early jewel in the crown of Simon Rattle’s assumption of the principal conductorship of the LSO.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Petrou draws rhythmically animated, sensitively coloured playing from the crack Italian band...The cast is uniformly strong...Cenčić, with his unusually powerful, sensuous countertenor, rescues [Ottone] from self-regarding wimpishess...this new recording is emphatically the version to have.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Few if any conductors match Christophe Rousset’s understanding of Lullian style and rhetoric...His pacing and inflecting of the music seems unerring...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

'All the da capo arias offer moments of genuine Mozartian musico-dramatic spark...This is a rewarding set: gracefully paced…and among its fresh-voiced young singers a standout leading tenor, Stuart Jackson, as Scipio.'

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Orozco-Estrada’s approach is unrushed and often expansive...Magee’s Salome spits out her words as part of a characterisation of the Judean princess that’s compellingly real and convincing...an unusually persuasive aural drama and a deeply musical account of the score.'

Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Orchestral

'No one hearing the pieces on this disc is likely to doubt their technical finesse or expressive refinement: qualities that go a long way towards the defining of ‘lateness’ in artistic terms...There are unlikely to be any better discs of contemporary music this year.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Nézet-Séguin approaches the symphonies of Mendelssohn with an exploratory mind and deep care for colour...For anyone wanting a complete set of the symphonies in the lean, lithe modern mould...Nézet-Séguin’s imaginative, fabulously executed performances guarantee abiding pleasure.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Les Siècles’ French-built woodwind and brass instruments from the early 20th century...Lean gut strings achieve feathery lightness... With fine choral contributions from the Ensemble Aedes, this new recording is highly recommended.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Lintu’s Tapiola does indeed settle into one of the finest performances on record, reconciling the obvious with the mysterious...Again, [En Saga] is a superb performance...Von Otter’s voice may have lost some brightness but it has gained storytelling capabilities with age...One of the most striking Sibelius discs for years.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'This is a symphony of silences; Currentzis has calibrated them with the unsparing precision of a Pinter or a Haneke...Perhaps, in the Pathétique, Currentzis has met his match...It’s early days, but only the most exalted of comparisons suggest themselves.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'By showing how the central movements [of the Second] complement and balance the outer ones, Brabbins gives the music maximum cogency…This is remarkable music-making, and recorded with all the appropriate richness of colour and clarity of textural detail.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Recital

'Roth exploits the period instruments of Les Siècles to emphasise the sheer variety of orchestral colours on display...Devieilhe, meanwhile, has a wonderfully instinctive and apparently effortless way with this music...All in all, this refreshing, fascinating and beguiling album is impossible to resist. Highly recommended.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Spyres is magnificent throughout the disc…he delivers Cs, Ds and, in Le lac des fées, an astonishing top E flat with overwhelming power and confidence…Rizzi and the Hallé provide lively accompaniments, with some fine solos.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'It’s provocative stuff, its emotional – at times emotive – impact immeasurably heightened by very careful programming...Gens and Niquet throw themselves into all this with an engrossing mix of abandon and restraint. Gens’s trademark combination of purity of utterance and smoky tone speaks volumes.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'She is particularly suited to the gentle Alice, whose ‘Va, dit-elle’ anticipates Micaëla’s ‘Et tu lui diras’ in Carmen...El-Khoury catches Agathe’s tenderness in ‘Ma prière’ from Le Freyschutz and phrases ‘I miei sospiri’ in Lucia to perfection…Rizzi and the Hallé provide lively accompaniments, with some fine solos.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'This is a treasure trove of rare music…Galou is a perfect singer to introduce us to this music, thanks to an agile and comfortable technique...The playing of Accademia Bizantina…is keen as mustard and filled with typically telling detail by director Ottavio Dantone.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res 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

Solo Vocal

'In wonderful voice throughout, Crowe very much makes this repertory her own...Martineau, who has been the series’ presiding genius, is a flawless Debussy interpreter, meanwhile, playing with infinite subtlety, nuance and colour. Exceptional.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'All the songs receive terrific performances. Holger Falk has a clear, cleanly focused baritone that can run the gamut from a honeyed piano to something more like an impassioned shout...There’s also an ideal balance between sophistication and rawness.'

Available Format: CD

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'The second instalment of Malcolm Martineau’s survey of Fauré’s songs is exceptionally beautiful, both in choice of material and quality of performance...Martineau’s understanding of Fauré’s piano-writing, in which less means more and virtuosity is avoided in favour of nuance, remains impeccable.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'They are compelling interpreters, with an infectious sense of shared enjoyment...Here is a captivating, unhackneyed programme, presented by singers – a double act in a thousand – and pianist with a style and allure it would be hard to beat.'

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'With her warm tone and often remarkable way with both vocal colour and verbal inflection, Crebassa is outstanding in this repertory, and in Fazıl Say she has an accompanist whose direct yet subtle approach matches her own...One of the finest French song recitals of recent years. I cannot recommend it too highly.'

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

'Bevan’s purity of tone and discreet yet telling way with words can be by turns unnerving and alluring in the Baudelaire settings… Middleton, as one might expect, is marvellously insightful, playing throughout with weight as well as grace and subtlety.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive

Chris grew up in London and studied cello from the age of 5. He never did enough practice to get really good at it, but caught a passion for Classical music which would stick with him forever. He has wide ranging musical tastes, still plays Chamber music and particularly loves Mahler.

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Awards, Gramophone Awards 2018 Shortlist

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