Five years after her solo debut recording, Direct Message, which programmed 20th and 21st century works for trumpet and piano, trumpet player Matilda Lloyd departs the traditional repertoire (aside from the two Arban arrangements from the Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet). Instead of following more well-worn routes, Lloyd elects to present a program of Romantic period opera arias, mostly in arrangements for trumpet and chamber orchestra (undertaken here by the Britten Sinfonia under Rumon Gamba) by William Foster, who worked closely with Lloyd on this project. Lloyd's skill as a musician is evident throughout, though the two Arban tracks most clearly allow her abilities to shine. The arrangements throughout are good, though how much they add to the performances rather than transcriptions and transpositions is up for debate. Lloyd notes with excitement the decision to include two pieces by Pauline Viardot, and one of the highlights here is the treatment of Viardot's Havanaise. This is certainly a trumpet release aimed at a wider audience than trumpet and brass circles, and it has already found success on the retail market. Chandos delivers just the right atmosphere from the Church of St. Augustine, Kilburn, in London. The future is bright for this trumpeter, and one looks forward to where her path may take her. © Keith Finke /TiVo

This fiery performance of L'incoronazione di Poppea (referred to here as Il Nerone, the title used in Busenello's libretto) is driven by the resonant honesty of the characters' extreme and frequently volatile emotional states, which the soloists convey with singing of exceptional individuality, purity, and tonal beauty. The 2009 recording was made soon after a series of staged performances in France, Germany, and Italy, and it shows; the singers and instrumentalists have the freedom that comes from an easy familiarity with the score and with each other that allows them to perform with a spontaneity that sounds like they are making the music up on the spot. Characterizations are especially strongly drawn, and conductor Claudio Cavina is able to lead the group with the extremely flexible tempos that Monteverdi is known to have advocated. The instrumental ensemble is dominated by plucked strings, so the accompaniment initially sounds somewhat twangy and brittle, but the program notes make a strong case for the historical precedent for the use of these instruments, and the ear eventually adjusts to the sound. The performance really takes off when the principals make their entrances, and by the third scene, the erotically charged bedroom interaction with Poppea and Nero, the listener is likely to be swept up in the musical excitement and drama. Among the fabulous soloists, almost all of whom are simply outstanding, Roberta Mameli as Nero, Emanuela Galli as Poppea, Ian Honeyman as Arnalta, Xenia Meijer as Ottavia, Francesca Cassinari as Drusilla, Alena Dantcheva as Valetto, and Pamela Lucciarini as Damigella make especially vivid impressions. The only weak link is Raffaele Costantini's underpowered Seneca. The opera requires performers to make difficult editorial decisions because it exists in two very different versions, a "clean" copy of the score from Naples, and a performing score from Venice full of annotations and revisions, and neither is the original manuscript. (Neither, in fact, even definitively identifies Monteverdi as the composer.) Cavina works from the Naples version. Most significantly, he performs Act I, scene 11, exactly as written. A strophic song with a ritornello and alternating verses for Ottone and Poppea, its verses for Ottone are written in a key eccentrically distant from that of the ritornello and of Poppea's verses. Most modern performances follow the directions from the Venice version, in which a note in the hand of composer Francesco Cavalli instructs the performers to transpose Ottone's part to a more conventional key. The visceral punch the "unimproved" version delivers is a powerful musical illustration of the emotional chasm between Ottone and Poppea and is evidence that the composer may have actually known what he was doing. Cavina makes a few inoffensive editorial changes, adding some brief instrumental sinfonias, mostly by Cavalli, that were needed to cover scene changes in the staged performances. Glossa's sound is immaculate, warm, and present. Highly recommended. © TiVo

This is a Barbiere "di qualità, di qualità": in fact, of very great quality indeed, from Deutsche Grammophon. Recorded in London in the summer of 1971, it is one of the first meetings of Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra. It is also the first of Alberto Zedda's philological editions of Rossini's works, whose scores have been covered over by inherited errors for over a century. Getting rid of the additions which have, quite wrongly, become traditional, means restoring certain interruptions and the fine instrumentation of the period; and above all, singing and playing without exaggerations, thanks to an innate sense for the theatre. It's a spot of spring cleaning which has restored the youth of the 24-year-old composer's masterpiece. Bravo, signor barbiere, ma bravo! It is a dream record, with singers who are well-versed in the repertoire. Everyone is right where they need to be, from Teresa Berganza's wiley and cheeky Rosina, to the refined and hard-working Figaro played by Hermann Prey, via Luigi Alva's frivolous Count and the utterly ridiculous Basilio played by the outrageous Paolo Montarsolo. We're amused by their antics, as we admire the well-oiled and unstoppable machine of Rossini's theatre, under the unceasingly inventive and thrilling baton of Claudio Abbado. © François Hudry/Qobuz

At the turn of the seventeenth century, the madrigal migrated from the seclusion of private rooms to the theatre. With this came new expectations in order to create a greater spectacle for viewers. Among them was the demand for increased dramatic expressiveness.Monteverdi's Seventh Book of Madrigals (1619) was written when the composer had settled in Venice. He finally enjoyed complete freedom directing the Cappella Marciana, the choir of St Mark's Basilica in Venice. This, combined with the artistic vivacity that runs through the City of the Doges provides a libretto that is fascinating in its polyphonic explorations and written complexity. This is a stark contrast to the Sixth Book, published five years earlier. The quest for a perfect, almost physical equivalence between the text and the music has led to instrumentation that serves as an ideal setting for the vocals.Always at the top of their game, Rinaldo Alessandrini and the Concerto Italiano beautifully perform this music sparkling with purity and beauty. Soprano Monica Piccinini’s ethereal tone particularly stands out. Her voice is truly indispensable to the ensemble's productions. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

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Carried off by an intestinal perforation at the age of 33 in Puteaux, at the gates of Paris, this son of Catania is still greatly appreciated in his native city, where this new studio recording of Il pirata, Vincenzo Bellini's first major opera, first performed at La Scala in Milan in 1827, was made. With this work, the young Sicilian author distanced himself from the Rossinian style then in vogue by giving free rein to his incomparable melodic verve.Chopin's unbounded admiration for Bellini is well known, and the melodic contours of his music ripple through the works of the Polish composer, who was not an admirer of too many other people. The Pirate is full of superb melodies, such as Imogene's aria 'Lo sognai ferito' in the first act, Gualtiero's cantilena 'Pietosa al padre' and the last scene of the work, whose instrumental introduction presages Norma's famous 'Casta diva'.Recorded in the summer of 2020 at the Teatro Sangiorgi in Catania, a recently restored old Liberty style theatre, this new version, vigorously conducted by Fabrizio Maria Carminati at the head of the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, is distinguished by its absolute completeness, with all the repeats, original cadenzas and variations written by the singers, and with its rarely performed Finale.Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka reigns supreme over this recording released by Prima Classic, her own label. Alongside this immense bel canto, Javier Camarena was needed to overcome the extraordinary difficulties of a score that is not sparing of those vocal effects and top notes that can enchant an entire hall. A bel canto specialising in the works of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, the Mexican tenor triumphs on the great stages of the world, especially at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he is one of the very few singers to be recalled to the stage. © François Hudry/Qobuz

From the beginning of this album which kicks off with great fanfare, it’s clear that the latest recording from Simone Kerles is a joyful carnival that shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The tone is established even before listening, with the kitsch cover that appears to suggest Kermes is the Lady Gaga of baroque music, a star who is in fact indirectly present on the album, alongside… Udo Jurgens. You could wonder what Erbame dich, mein Gott from the St. Matthew’s Passion is doing in this light-hearted romp. Allow Simone Kermes to explain: this album is a political act which questions whether humility and temperance still have a rightful place in this world stained by climate change, mass extinction, terrorist attacks and megalomania. The result fourteen pieces cover four centuries and touch on the seven cardinal sins as well as the seven Christian virtues by means of music by Leonardo Vinci (not Da Vinci!), Handel and several Italian and German baroque composers with detours via present day jazz and rock musicians: the aforementioned Lady Gaga, Jimmy Page and Sting. A cheeky and invigorating way of taking a closer look at all of society’s many foibles and paradoxes that we’re living through today. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria by Monteverdi poses a lot of problems for modern performers. There exists no definitive manuscript – although one may doubt how much people bothered back then with "definitive" versions of works which were re-written from one performance to the other, depending on the singers and instrumentalists that were on hand, the tastes of this or that star, the diktat of the Church – and the only copy dating from the composer's time, discovered in Vienna in 1881, is incomplete. When we try and compare this manuscript with different copies of the libretto which are still around today, the difficulties only increase. For this recording by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, recorded live at concerts in September 2017, the decision was taken to fill in everything that could be filled in with a few passages borrowed from earlier works by Monteverdi. The Return of Ulysses dates from 1640, when Monteverdi was 74 years old, so there was a lot to choose from for these fillers. This version is almost certainly the closest approximation we have to the original yet, the singers have worked hard to give the most accurate reproduction possible of the vocal inflections demanded by the various formats employed by Monteverdi. These inflections are often very declamatory and sometimes sung to the fullest. The recitations and the melodies, the ensembles and the choirs: everything is treated with the utmost care and the effort put into contrast and clarity only enhances the quality of this recording. A magnificent rendition. © SM/Qobuz

Fabio Luisi and his musicians from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, for which he has been the musical director since 2014, worked extensively to play the vast corpus of Carl Nielsen's Six Symphonies before recording them for Deutsche Grammophon over three sessions in 2022. We immediately revel in the beauty of the sound recordings made in the warm acoustics of the Copenhagen Symphony Hall built by Jean Nouvel. With a reverberating sound giving an airy sense to the entire ensemble, the sound plans are clearly defined and always remain readable, without overloading or saturating the ears.In the Scandinavian countries and Northern Europe, the symphony took some time to really take off. In the 19th century, the Swedish recluse, Franz Berwald, did not have a following despite the very original and personal style he gave to his four symphonies. While a few adventurous composers have made attempts, it wasn’t until after the two masterful cycles by Sibelius and Nielsen that the genre really came into its own.Composed between 1892 and 1925, Carl Nielsen's Six Symphonies are, like those of Sibelius, six masterpieces. They represent an immense field of research, with an expressive power of great force. While the first two remain somewhat dependent on the Brahmsian model, they already demonstrate a very personal fearlessness, combining both style and harmony. The array of moods expressed in these works did not escape Maestro Fabio Luisi, who endeavoured, above all to exalt the dark and dramatic, even violent, side of Nielsen's music, demonstrating similar levels of drama previously created by Bruckner, Mahler, and Shostakovich. He is accompanied by an all-encompassing orchestra of exceptional quality, endowed with a great richness of tone and incredible sound power resources. It represents an essential gateway for appreciating a great composer’s music, one who’s symphonic repertoire can be considered somewhat “off the beaten track,” in a world where we usually say “well-worn.” © François Hudry/Qobuz