BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - September 2018 Choices
This month’s top spot goes to the young British trombonist Peter Moore, who won BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2008 at the tender age of twelve and went on to become a co-principal with the London Symphony Orchestra at just eighteen; his debut solo album, Life Force, was released on Rubicon Classics in June and includes transcriptions of works by Fauré, Schumann, Bruch, Brahms and Mahler.
The Jerusalem Quartet’s superb accounts of the Ravel and Debussy string quartets (one of our May Recordings of the Week) takes the palm for chamber music, whilst Christopher Purves’s second instalment of Handel’s ‘Finest arias for base voice’ with Arcangelo is this month’s Opera Choice. (You can read Katherine’s recent interview with him about the recording here).
Recording of the Month
‘Fauré’s Après une rêve, Bruch’s Kol Nidrei and Brahm’s Vier ernste Gesänge performed on the trombone? Really? Well emphatically yes, when played with such intuitive phrasal sensitivity, intonational security and tonal lustrousness.’
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Orchestral Choice
‘No lover of this symphony will be content with less than half a dozen recordings, and this should undoubtedly be among them’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Concerto Choice
Korngold & Nielsen: Violin Concertos
Jiyoon Lee (violin), Odense Symphony Orchestra, Kristiina Poska
'Lee's playing is full-toned, consistent and energetic, besides technically spot-on, and she brings out to excellent effect the Korngold Concerto's first movement's yearning character, and the mysterious by ways of the second.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber Choice
'In advance, I wondered whether there was anything new to be said about these two incessantly recorded works. Happily the answer is 'yes'. Nor is it due to anything imposed - the novelty comes quite simply from doing what it says on the tin. This disc is a superb combination of intelligence, honesty, taste and technique.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Instrumental Choice
‘Here are performances of Bach’s six keyboard Partita’s with a difference, for Menno van Delft plays neither harpsichord nor any manifestation of piano but the softly spoken clavichord.’
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Choral & Song Choice
'The persistent ‘Baroque specialist’ label hardly sums up this distinguished French soprano. With her distinctively radiant, secure tone and cut-crystal upper range, her repertoire has always been much wider.’
Available Formats: CD + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera Choice
Handel's Finest Arias for Base Voice, Vol. 2
Christopher Purves (baritone), Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
‘Some of Handel’s greatest music was written for bass-baritones, and in Purves finds its ideal interpreter.’
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Jazz Choice
Sfumato Live in Marciac
Wynton Marsalis (trumpet), Michel Portal (clarinet), Vincent Peirani (accordion)
‘An impassioned expressionist in his writing and sound, Parisien makes music of great intensity and clarity.’
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
