Despite its rather bizarre Scottish setting, Ariodante is one of Handel’s more convincing opera seria with a plot lifted from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. No magic here, no cross-dressing – just a highly effective tale of love, jealousy and betrayal. As a result it has held its own on the stage and there are fine recordings against which to measure this newcomer. Alan Curtis has had a long, perhaps hit-and-miss career championing lesser-known Handel, but in this case I am pleased to announce a palpable hit. Il Complesso Barocco is in excellent form with vigorous but flexible tempi and ravishing orchestral colour. And this recording is blessed with no less than three quite perfect female voices. Heading the list is probably the greatest Handel mezzo of today: Joyce DiDonato in superlative voice, thrilling in attack and responsive to text. Her great Act 2 aria, Scherza infida, is utterly riveting and most moving. The other cast members are not overshadowed in the slightest. Ginevra is given an intense and elegant reading by the remarkable Karina Gauvin, bringing a refreshing depth to her character, while the insinuating Polinesso is sung with great panache by silky-toned contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux. There are excellent… Continue reading…

I’ve always found Richard Strauss’s character a real mystery: a smug, rather banal bourgeois with a narcissistic streak, he wrote sublime music which itself often teeters on the edge of banality. I enjoyed this Heldenleben but, at 47 minutes, the hero, while not exactly an arthritic Colonel Blimp, isn’t a young buck full of rising sap, either. This is surprising, considering Yannick Nézet-Séguin is one of the most athletic conductors around today. The opening lacks the self-confident swagger that Beecham brought to it for EMI (at the age of 80). In the second movement, the “battle” rages effectively enough, although I can never escape the feeling that Mahler depicts his critics far more bitingly in the Rondo burlesque of his Ninth Symphony. Strauss’s wife Pauline, a granite-jawed termagant in real life, comes across relatively sympathetically in the extended (and ravishingly played) violin solo of the third movement. The ending, depicting the hero’s retrospective contemplation, is simply too slow, although the Rotterdam Philharmonic’s horns are glorious. The orchestra, which plays well throughout, also sounds very distant and was recorded at a curiously low level. I’d prefer any of Karajan’s readings, or Fritz Reiner’s legendary RCA one. The… Continue reading Get unlimited…

Argentinean cellist Sol Gabetta was named Gramophone Young Artist of the Year in 2010, but she had turned heads internationally as one to watch even before the release of the Vivaldi Project album in 2007, her first foray into Baroque music played on gut strings. On that recording she opted for the Italian group Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca but for this second instalment she has formed her own Cappella Gabetta. Ensemble playing in the opening Cello Concerto RV423 is crisp and clean bordering on dispassionate, but the Cappella perks up for the taut unison introduction to the G minor RV416, and in the final Allegro Gabetta dashes off rapid virtuosic passages with brio and finesse. She is equally at ease with the gold-spun cantabile lines of the RV420 Andante. The bold Allegro doesn’t have the cracking pace of Han-Na Chang and the London Chamber Orchestra for EMI – as a result Gabetta’s intonation is more precise, her phrasing more subtle and expansive. The Sonata for Cello and Continuo RV42 breaks from the homogenous string orchestra sound for a sombre, more intimate setting, stylish and warm enough to leave me hoping for Gabetta’s Bach Cello Suites on… Continue reading Get…

This live Lucia from the Mariinsky Theatre boasts remarkable music-making from the orchestra, coupled with some impassioned singing from the star principals and the chorus. But it ultimately falls short in musical and dramatic cohesion, perhaps because it was a concert presentation. Dessay’s performance is engaging throughout, yet she only really thrives during her signature mad scene, where she employs a wide palette of vocal colours to convey Lucia’s descent into insanity. Beczala demonstrates outstanding technical control throughout the demanding role of Edgardo, but his phrasing is unimaginative and his performance low on dramatic insight. The dark, rich baritone of Vladislav Sulimsky adds depth to the oft-overlooked role of Enrico and contrasts nicely with the light tonal qualities of Dessay and Beczala. The chorus has some great moments (even if its Italian diction leaves much to be desired) and the orchestra delivers some thrilling climaxes, but more lyrical sensitivity in the Act 1 love duet would have created a more satisfying musical performance overall. The highlight of this recording is Dessay’s mad scene, including the original chilling glass harmonica accompaniment, played by Sascha Reckert. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The first thing I noticed was the spectacular fidelity of the recording and how beautifully the harp arpeggios are captured at the very beginning of Harold in Italy. One unique feature of this recording of Berlioz’s strange concertante work/tone-poem hybrid is the restoration of virtuosic passages in the first movement, expressly composed for the dedicatee, Paganini, and later suppressed by Berlioz (why has it taken so long for someone to restore them?). Carpenter’s tone is sumptuous but the quintessentially elegiac voice of his viola is enlivened with wonderfully mercurial flashes from both the soloist and Ashkenazy with the hyper-alert orchestra. The pilgrims seem a happy band and the Serenade of the Abruzzi mountaineer to his sweetheart is winsomely played by the American violist. The final movement, The Brigands’ Orgy, is particularly dramatic. I don’t think anyone can surpass Charles Munch in his old Boston performance on RCA, but these forces come close. Among modern competitors, I’d put Sir Colin Davis and Tabea Zimmermann (LSO Live) and Lorin Maazel’s New York Philharmonic version with Cynthia Phelps (Deutsche Grammophon) on the same level. The only problem I had with this release was the choice of fill-ups. The Beatrice and… Continue reading Get unlimited…

Grosvenor finds plenty of poetry in the lyricism of Chopin, Liszt and Ravel.

Treading the path of many revered rockers who have dared to dabble in classical music late in their careers, Tori Amos makes her Deutsche Grammophon debut with a contemporary song cycle drawing on the music of Bach, Schubert, Debussy et al. as a harmonic framework. Luckily, the patron saint of female singer-songwriters has the right mix of indie cred and training as a classical pianist (ending in rebellion) to pull it off in style. The eclectic range of pieces that comprise Night of Hunters illumines Amos’s narrative of a relationship in crisis, told in a curious blend of mythical and prosaic language. The high-octane, Nymanesque opener Shattering Sea (Alkan) sets a turbulent scene, John Philip Shenale’s propulsive chamber arrangement featuring bassoon, clarinet and strings. Not all the songs live up to this promise though. The Satie Gnossienne suffers most, as Amos awkwardly breaks up words to fit what should be a floating melody – only her own newly composed bridge section charms the ear. But Fearlessness, Job’s Coffin and Nautical Twilight are exemplary Amos ballads in classical garb (with a girlish, Kate Bush vocal twist), while Edge of the Moon reveals the singer-pianist at her most vulnerable, to… Continue reading…

This 2-CD set of dance numbers from Rameau operas captures Jordi Savall’s period-instrument band Le Concert des Nations playing with all the lusty, effervescent joie de vivre the music demands. The “suites” put together by Savall trace a similar but more unified trajectory to Marc Minkowski’s Imaginary Symphony Rameau album (Les Musiciens du Louvre on Archiv). The present collection is a reminder that the composer’s instrumental music was just as thrilling and inventive as what he wrote for the voice: earthy and robust like a good Provençal stew, without sacrificing the majestic air of refinement that captivated the court of Versailles. One can only marvel at the punchy phrasing in the overture to Zoroastre and be seduced by the exotic percussion in Air des Incas from Les Indes Galantes. An authentic musette, that rare and peculiar Gallic bagpipe, makes an appearance in Naïs to spice up the French Baroque palette. Natural horns in Les Boréades, Rameau’s final tragédie en musique, are less graceful than Les Arts Florissants’ under William Christie (Opus Arts DVD) but richer for their pungency. Surging strings, turbulent transverse flute and a wind machine summon elemental forces, while delicate gavottes have more charm… Continue reading Get unlimited…

The greatest music — say, a late Beethoven piano sonata — exists in its own realm. It does not automatically conjure up images of the period in which it was written. Chopin’s waltzes do, and that is why they are sometimes thought of as glorified salon music. It takes a pianist with the sensibility of Stephen Hough to reveal the art behind their mixture of effervescence and sentimentality. Chopin himself regarded his waltzes as comparative trifles; he only published half of them and often gave the manuscripts to young ladies as gifts. Hough’s facility with lighter music is well documented in his mixed recitals. He has an instinctive knowledge of when to relax and when to press forward, which is used to charming effect in this beautifully recorded collection. In both the Minute and the C-sharp minor waltzes (from the Op 64 set) Hough subtly caresses the melodic lines, and breezes through the scale passages with an evenness of touch, never making too great a point of virtuosity. Mirroring the composer’s achievement, this is the art that conceals art. The delicacy of Hough’s approach also benefits the unpublished waltzes, many of which are less complex and less polished than the… Continue reading…

I hate to sound like an old fogy here but I guess it’s unavoidable.

Zubin Mehta has had a distinguished, if occasionally uneven career. His tenure with the New York Philharmonic was not one of the orchestra’s more successful appointments. Elsewhere he has done some outstanding work: his conducting of Turandot on Decca with Sutherland is probably the finest on disc, Richard Bonynge observing that Mehta’s scrupulous attention to detail at the recording sessions was remarkable. More recently he led the less famous forces in Valencia in a remarkable Ring Cycle. Now we have this new release from a concert he gave with the IPO in Tel-Aviv in 2007. From the outset, Dvorák’s Ninth is flabby and untidy, with the IPO’s strings sounding very indifferent. This is surprising, for the one of the IPO’s greatest strengths has always been its famous string section. There is some fine solo woodwind playing in the slow movement and the scherzo clips along nicely. Nonetheless, you don’t have to look far to find superior performances on CD. The New World Symphony is teamed with Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, and as couplings go it doesn’t get much stranger than this. What some orchestras can present together in a concert hall may seem incongruous on a recording…. Continue reading Get…

It’s good to see the Scandinavian company BIS persevering with the high-end SACD format at a time when the majority of music buyers no longer seem to care about quality audio reproduction at all. This disc has three audio layers to choose from: SACD Stereo, SACD Surround and standard-CD. When played through a good system boasting SACD reproduction, it shows just what the format is capable of. The sound here is simply superb. The violin has its natural warmth with plenty of bite, and the detail in the orchestral sound is exemplary, revealing layer on layer. Of course, that would be worthless if we were listening to a mundane performance. This is anything but. Soloist Vadim Gluzman and the Bergen Philharmonic under Andrew Litton give a committed interpretation of Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, and we can understand from this fine account why the success of this work overshadowed the rest of the composer’s career.  The Romance for Violin and Orchestra is a pleasant enough piece, much like a stocking-filler at Christmas. But the rarely heard String Quartet in A minor is a revelation. Written in 1918 when the composer was 80 and near the end of his life, this… Continue reading Get unlimited…