Artistic director of Russia’s Perm State Opera, Greek-born conductor Teodor Currentzis and his relentlessly drilled HIP orchestra Musica Aeterna have been attracting encomia and outrage in equal measure for their thrilling, uncompromising and often eccentric accounts of works by composers from Purcell to Stravinsky and Shostakovich. This recording of Mozart’s Don Giovanni – apparently released a year later than planned because Currentzis was unhappy and insisted on doing it all over again – completes the firebrand’s survey of the composer’s three operas to libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Like his Nozze di Figaro and Così Fan Tutte, Currentzis’ take on the Don grips you from the terrifying overture and sweeps you along to the terrible denouement. Again, the precision of the orchestral playing, often at breakneck speed, defies belief. Currentzis sees Don Giovanni as inhabiting a very specific soundworld combining “the coldness of the Salzburg church music tradition” with “a Mediterranean Baroque sound.” Thus Don Giovanni (Dimitris Tiliakos) strikes one as more pitiable than ever; Leporello (Vito Priante) despite his servitude, more admirable, while Karina Gauvin’s Donna Elvira is the very embodiment of a woman scorned. Mika Kares (Il Commendatore), Myrtò Papatanasiu (Donna Anna), Kenneth Tarver (Don Ottavio),… Continue reading…

Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli has always been a live wire.

Considering her sizable discography, 2015’s Fleurs was surprisingly Carolyn Sampson’s first song recital. It turned out a corker and set a very high bar for a follow-up. I can happily report that this release comfortably vaults that bar. The clever thematic programming continues, this time in various settings of Symbolist Decadent Paul Verlaine’s moonlit evocations. Debussy’s setting of Fêtes Galantes, Ariettes Oubliées and Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson are old favourites along with Hahn’s lovely L’heure Exquise and Tous Deux, but the five settings by Poldowski, aka Régine Wieniawski (daughter of the violin composer), are an unfamiliar treat; accomplished vocal writing, gorgeous harmonies and imaginative accompaniments – her En Sourdine is delicious. The performances are breathtakingly beautiful. As expected from the impeccable Sampson there is some astonishingly pure and precisely controlled vocalism, but lest she be typecast as an early music specialist there has been a perceptible increase in richness and colour over the last few years. Her delivery is mostly intimate and confessional, the full voice used sparingly so at key moments when it opens out and expands the result is spine-tingling. She has an ideal partner in Joseph Middleton, a superb musician with a keen ear… Continue reading Get…

Once the remit of boy choristers and early music specialists only, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater has evolved into a star vehicle.

Spem in alium is undoubtedly one of the great masterpieces of English polyphony; in a sense the last great flowering of a magnificent tradition. Like any great masterpiece, Tallis’s astounding 40-part motet can be admired from any number of different vantage points.   In this final volume of their Tallis survey, Carwood and The Cardinall’s Musick give us two versions – the original setting with its Latin text as well its contemporaneous adaptation to an English text. Both cast different lights on the music. Pleading and sorrowful, the Latin words create a sombre mood while the English text has a more jubilant effect. Choosing to record the work in a relatively dry acoustic also emphasises the composer’s extraordinary skill in manipulating such heroic forces and also the singers’ wonderful precision and unanimity of tone. The rest reminds us of Tallis’s uncanny ability to bend to the musical and religious dictates of his age, thus ensuring his head remained attached to his shoulders. Amongst deservedly popular works in Latin and English we have O Sacrum Convivium, Hear the Voice and Prayer and Verily, Verily, I Say Unto You. At the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Born in Venice about 1670 and dying in Vienna in 1736, Antonio Caldara not only had the good fortune to span different geographical musical centres, but also changes in musical style and taste. This programme of his music mainly devoted to the Virgin demonstrates some of these changes. The Venetian polychoral school is admirably represented by the double-choir Magnificat which opens (and also receives its first recording). A 16-part setting of the Crucifixus has more of a dramatic, high baroque sensibility akin to that of Caldara’s almost exact contemporary, Antonio Lotti. Making their first appearance in the catalogue, two charming concerted works, Ave Maris Stella and Salve Regina demonstrate Caldara’s skill in handling solo voices and smaller forces. Australian-born tenor Robert Macfarlane sings with admirable grace and clarity in the latter while soprano Nathalie Seelig and alto Franziska Markowitsch make a well matched pair in the former. String and continuo accompaniments are both sympathetic and engaging. The major work is an extended setting of the Stabat Mater. With baroque techniques like descending chromatic bass lines and stark dissonances, Caldara paints a colourful picture of the sorrowing Mary at the foot of the cross. The music is well… Continue reading Get…

It seems beyond John Butt’s Dunedin Consort to issue a recording that is less than perfect, and this ravishing account of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is no exception. Not only does the clarity and beauty of the singing and instrumental playing blow anything else out of the water; Butt’s approach to realising Bach’s intentions under very specific performing conditions is committed yet flexible and open-minded.   For example, he uses two SATB choirs comprising just one voice per part – the maximum number Bach may have had at his disposal at any one time. Of the six cantatas comprising the oratorio, I, III and VI are sung by one choir, II, IV and V by the other. For those cantatas with trumpet parts (I, III and VI) he uses the “redundant” choir as “ripienists” to reinforce the part in the choruses and chorales – in reality, Bach would have used “apprentice” singers here. As Butt writes in his excellent booklet note, “The aim then is to try and present the range of choral scoring that Bach seems to have used, from doubled vocal lines through to single lines for parts… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Slava Grigoryan's first solo album in 15 years is well worth the wait.

Critically acclaimed Scottish pianist Steven Osborne’s latest recording finds him tackling one of the great monsters of the classical piano repertoire – Beethoven’s Op. 106 Piano Sonata, the Hammerklavier. Brutal, experimental and relentlessly modern, the Hammerklavier hurtled relentlessly forth into new harmonic territory via a revolutionary four-movement structure. Osborne takes the first two of these at a terrifying clip before sinking into the devastating emotionality of the Adagio Sostenuto, throughout which his extraordinary technical clarity is maintained: the upper register notes drip like acid rain, burning where they land. It’s often said that Osborne’s playing reveals hitherto unheard nuances, and this is certainly true of the final, smashing fugal movement, which is compelling and repays repeated listening. The Hammerklavier is accompanied by the two sonatas preceding it chronologically – Op. 90 and 101. As renowned Beethoven scholar Professor Barry Cooper points out in his superb liner notes, these “three sonatas represent an enormous crescendo in terms of length and difficulty”. Osborne’s tone is bright and crisp, but never harsh or brittle, and the recording is in accord with Hyperion’s usual high standards of fidelity. Osborne has released over 20 albums since signing with Hyperion in 1998; many have met with…

A fine souvenir for those who attended, and an enjoyable recital for all music lovers.

Brazilian pianist Fabio Martino studied and now lives in Germany. His second solo recital disc concentrates on the big guns of the Romantic repertoire: Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 23 (Appassionata); Liszt’s three Liebesträume, and Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Op. 17. Martino’s Appassionata is clearly conceived as a whole. He saves the surging drama for the final movement, notably the closing Presto, and deliberately understates the work’s opening movement, which proceeds prettily with no overt suggestions of significance. The work unfolds naturally: an approach I like in Beethoven. The Liszt pieces are sympathetically done, with poise and a feeling for rubato that gives them an improvisational feel. Martino seems especially in touch with the sound world of Schumann. In the rhapsodic Fantasie of 1835 he sweeps through the Sturm und Drang with passion, and is suitably restrained in the final movement. Here’s a young artist whose superlative technique is placed completely at the service of the composer. Who is Zequinha de Abreu? He wrote the song Tico Tico, made famous by an older Brazilian bombshell, Carmen Miranda. Marc-André Hamelin’s challenging arrangement provides the quirky (and, to be honest, not entirely appropriate) encore to this recital. Martino tosses it off… Continue reading…

A dynamic French pianist is out to demonstrate just how expressive and individual these short etudes can be.