BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - March 2023 Choices
The world premiere recording of Stravinsky's Les Noces in its 1919 version (completed here by Dutch composer Theo Verbey and deftly performed by Ensemble Aedes and their director Mathieu Romano) takes top honours this month, with reviewer Daniel Jaffé noting that 'the pianola's mechanistic and inexorable tempo drives much of the performance, effectively depersonalising the ritual while sharpening the rhythmic profileof much of the music'.
Category-choices include Rosalind Ventris's 'beautiful, varied and enlightening' recital of works for solo viola by female composers on Delphian, Stile Antico's 'superb' contribution to this year's William Byrd quatercentenary on Decca, and Christophe Rousset's 'electrifying' account of Lully's opera 1678 Psyché (with French mezzo Ambroisine Bré in the title-role) on the Château de Versailles Spectacles label.
Recording of the Month
'Hearing Stravinsky’s long-desired but originally unfulfilled version of Les Noces – so compellingly realised between Verbey and these fine musicians – is worth the price of entry alone.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Orchestral Choice
'As always, Antonini coaxes first-class performances from the members of Il Giardino Armonico.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Concerto Choice
Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 3-5
Gottfried von der Goltz (violin), Freiburger Barockorchester, Kristian Bezuidenhout
'Von der Goltz plays with his customary intonational purity, elegance of phrasing, lively articulation, enhanced left-hand clarity and interpretative buoyancy.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera Choice
Lully: Psyché
Ambroisine Bré, Benedicte Tauran, Deborah Cachet, Cyril Auvity; Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
'Under harpsichordist-director Christophe Rousset, brisk instrumental movements are electrifying, laments wrenching and comic numbers hilarious.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Choral & Song Choice
'There will be many recordings of Byrd's music in this 400th anniversary year of his death, but few will match the superb balance and poise of these performances from Stile Antico.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Chamber Choice
'The solos and duos on this radiant release from Fedorov, Daniel Rowland and Maja Bogdanović are in themselves powerfully intimate, and are imbued with still greater intensity in light of the present suffering of his people.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Instrumental Choice
'Ventris brings absolute technical assurance and a vivid sense of line...Among the many excellent more contemporary works, Amanda Feery’s Boreal s especially powerful...In all, beautifully performed and recorded.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
