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Mendelssohn: Choral Works

MDR Leipzig Radio Choir

Choral Music (Choirs) - Released July 7, 2023 | PentaTone

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Néère (Hahn, Duparc, Chausson)

Véronique Gens

Mélodies (French) - Released October 16, 2015 | Alpha Classics

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The soprano Véronique Gens might be thought a natural for the French art song repertoire. But Néère, taking its title from the opening song by Reynaldo Hahn (the reference is to the Greek nymph known in English as Neaera, "white as a fine marble statue, with her rosy cheeks"), is one of just a few albums in the genre she has released. Get hold of it without delay: it's gorgeous. The French mélodie is not a high-register genre, and for a singer like Gens these songs reside in the lower part of her range, where she now brings just a bit of sultriness and smoke with devastating effect. The program includes three composers of the late 19th century who are closely related but contrasting in their individual styles: in the words of annotator Nicolas Southon "the melancholic Henri Duparc, the elegiac Ernest Chausson, the charmer Reynaldo Hahn." You could really dip in anywhere, but sample track 15, Hahn's A Chloris, for a taste of what Gens can do. The playing of accompanist Susan Manoff seems welded to Gens' vocal line, which even with all the voluptuous, erotic beauty has a kind of steely concentration that grows stronger and more impressive as the album proceeds. An absolute gem.© TiVo
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Armin Jordan conducts Debussy, Roussel & Chausson (Live)

Felicity Lott

Classical - Released September 4, 2020 | audite Musikproduktion

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The prestigious Lucerne Festival, which has seen, and still today showcases, the very best conductors, soloists and orchestras on the planet, continues to publish its exceptional archives. This new offering displays the sumptuous return of Armin Jordan who led the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande between 1985 and 1997 and gave a second “golden age” to the Genovese ensemble after the fruitful years of Ansermet (1918-1967).With his Germanic and Latin cultural heritage, Armin Jordan took pleasure in gracing works with a generous and tormented lyricism. His only two appearances at the podium of the ancient Kunsthaus at the festival of his birth town are brought together here with his superb recordings created in 1988 and 1994. Here we find his stunning sense of colour and unique mix of fluidity, transparence and vigour which he made his own.After Prelude to the afternoon of a Faun with its hazy poeticism, we discover the Second Suite of Bacchus and Arriadne by Albert Roussel led by a beating drum with a touring OSR at the top of its game. The strength of this interpretation perfectly fills a gap as Jordan had never recorded this flamboyant work in studio. Such is not the case with Poème de l’amour et de la mer which was recorded in Monte-Carlo for Erato with Jessye Norman.In this 1994 Lucerne concert, he directed his dear companion Felicity Lott. While the voice of this English cantata singer doesn’t have the amber-scented and sensual colour of her American colleague, she nevertheless possesses a timbre of perfect harmony with the style and colour of the Chausson conductor. Finally, one can admire Ansermet’s beautiful orchestration recorded in 1932 with Claude Debussy’s Six Épigraphes Antiques where he displayed the most intricate of details as much as Jordan perfectly translates its flourishes and subtleties. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Fauré: Nocturnes & Barcarolles

Marc-André Hamelin

Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Hyperion

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
The virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin isn't the first pianist one would think of when it comes to Fauré's music, but he has recorded all kinds of things, even ragtime, and as it happens, he does quite well with the dense miniatures heard on this album. Fauré's Nocturnes are at some level connected to Chopin's but are quite different, with murky chromaticism, especially in the later ones, setting the night atmosphere. Fauré is thought of as a musical conservative, but one would hardly know it from the pieces here that stubbornly refuse to settle on a tonal center. The counterpoint is complex, and a successful performance is one that untangles it. There isn't big, pianistic virtuosity here, but Hamelin's ability to balance Fauré's registers is virtuosic in its own way. The Barcarolles, a genre not much pursued by other composers but for Fauré seeming to allow rays of Venetian sunshine into his rather closed-in French world, are lighter but basically cut from the same cloth. Things lighten up with the final Dolly Suite, Op. 56, where Hamelin performs with his wife, Cathy Fuller. (For those wondering, neither Mi-a-ou nor the Kitty-valse has anything to do with cats.) Although Hyperion's church sound is not idiomatic, it does not damage the remarkable clarity in what is a significant entry in the Fauré discography, one that landed on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Corelli: Concerti Grossi, Op. 6

Accademia Bizantina

Classical - Released October 27, 2023 | Hdb Sonus

Hi-Res Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Debut Recital

Martha Argerich

Classical - Released January 1, 1995 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Distinctions The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Profesión

Sean Shibe

Classical - Released November 17, 2023 | PentaTone

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There are certainly contemporary guitarists who can match Sean Shibe for technical facility, but very few can match him for an ability to entrance an audience with a single stroke or strum. He has recorded Spanish music in the past in strikingly unusual ways, but this is his first album of South American works. It is splendid. There is a "bonus track" included on the physical album and, in some online versions, a recording of Villa-Lobos' Prelude No. 3 in A minor (Homage to Bach); recordings with this are recommended, for it makes an arresting beginning. Shibe proceeds to the three-movement La Catedral of the underrated Agustín Barrios (here, Agustín Barrios Mangoré), whose mysterious, mystical style fits Shibe beautifully. The album title, Profesión, comes from a poem, Profesión de Fé ("Profession of Faith"), by Barrios, reproduced in the booklet. The 12 Studies of Villa-Lobos are dispatched with a suitably commanding style, and when they seemingly reach an absolute peak of intensity with the final one, Shibe deftly steps into new territory with Alberto Ginastera's Guitar Sonata, Op. 47. That, too, is a somewhat underrated work; it is Ginastera's only composition for guitar, despite the popularity of the instrument in Argentina, and it deftly fuses the folk and modernist strands of his musical character. It makes an elegant finale to an album that fascinates from beginning to end. An added attraction is the double set of notes by Shibe and Hugh Morris, delving into the history of the repertory. The church sound, one feels, is not quite right, and yet producer Matthew Swan does succeed in capturing Shibe's larger-than-life quality. This release made classical best-seller charts in the holiday season of 2023; it will be around long after that season is over.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Im Freien

Zlata Chochieva

Classical - Released May 19, 2023 | naïve

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Nicholas Angelich: Hommage

Nicholas Angelich

Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Warner Classics

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Pianist Nicholas Angelich, even more admired in Europe than in his native U.S., passed away tragically early in 2022 at the age of 51. One way to look at this Hommage is to note that it took quite a bit of research power, much of it apparently donated, to put together this massive seven-volume tribute, assembled from live performances and radio broadcasts between 1995 and 2019. That is a lot of Angelich, but fans here will find much that sheds new light on his genius. Consider the Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 24, which Angelich rarely played in concert. It receives a wonderfully controlled performance in which the tricky architecture of this work comes to the surface. Angelich was a fine virtuoso, and the Liszt Transcendental Etudes and the big Russian works generally have a layer of excitement added by the live performance. However, Angelich is equally effective in subtler pieces, thoughtful in the likes of Zemlinsky and the Bach Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, where the sequence of events feels somewhat different from in the pianist's 2011 studio recording even as the über-Romantic slow tempos are retained. His opening aria is even slower than on the studio version. The mastering of these immensely diverse sound sources from Erato is as good as such a thing can be, and physical album buyers get some fine reflections on the pianist's work. This is, in short, an effective tribute to a pianist whose life and work were brutally cut short.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Reflet

Sandrine Piau

Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
In a world of "singles," pursued even by classical music labels nowadays, here is a whole album that makes up a single, sublime musical utterance. Reflet is a follow-up, similarly concerned with light effects, to soprano Sandrine Piau's German-language Clair-Obscur of a few years back. The German songs might have been a bigger stretch for Piau than the French material here, but Reflet has possibly an even more sublime coherence. One feels that every note is almost foreordained as the program opens with classic orchestral songs from Berlioz, Henri Duparc, and the less common Charles Koechlin, proceeding into darker, more mysterious realms with Ravel's Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, and ending with the youthful ebullience of Britten's Quatre chansons françaises. An illustration of how carefully calibrated everything is here comes with two Debussy pieces, Clair de lune and "Pour remercier la pluie" (from the Six Épigraphes Antiques), arranged for orchestra from other media. These serve as entr'actes between the sections of Piau's program, and they should by all rights have been annoying: aren't there enough genuine orchestral pieces that could have filled the bill? But just listen. These fit into the patterns that run through the whole album, and they make perfect sense, just like everything else. Piau's voice is delicate, soaring, and richly beautiful; one of the miracles of the current scene is its durability and versatility. Her support from conductor Jean-François Verdier, leading the Victor Hugo Orchestra, is confidently smooth, never intruding on the spell Piau weaves. A magnificent orchestral song recital that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Chopin: 24 Préludes, Piano Sonata No. 2

Martha Argerich

Classical - Released January 1, 1977 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Bartók, Janáček, Szymanowski

Piotr Anderszewski

Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Warner Classics

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After well-received albums devoted to Bach and Schumann, pianist Piotr Anderszewski turns to music of his native Eastern Europe on this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller charts early that year. Anderszewski is known for his artfully curated and constructed programs, but this one is not so cohesive; the excerpts from Janáček's On an Overgrown Path set were recorded in 2016, while the short pieces by Szymanowski and Bartók were added in 2023. The Janáček works, though short, are of a slightly different kind from the other pieces, which are real miniatures. When Anderszewski gets to those, however, he hits his stride. Especially interesting are Bartók's 14 Bagatelles, Op. 6, presented in full. These aren't heard overly often. Anderszewski says that "the works recorded on this album carry within them a spirit of rebellion," which doesn't quite fit these short pieces, but then on his second try, he comes much closer: "No room here for stylization or decorum; they draw upon the very roots of music." Early works composed in 1908, they contain ideas that Bartók would explore over his entire career. They have folkish accents but also intensive exploration of mode and rhythm. Anderszewski's careful style is ideal here, and the listener hearing the whole set will become increasingly engrossed. Hardly less appealing are the six pieces from Szymanowski's 20 Mazurkas, Op. 50, which explore the folk dance model in a less radical but no less detailed way. For the lover of Eastern European music of the early 20th century, which is finally and rightfully finding a consistent place on concert programs, this is a recording that will merit multiple hearings.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Diaries: Schumann

Tiffany Poon

Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | PentaTone

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Physical buyers of the album will get reflections from Tiffany Poon about "feeling all the feels" and other similarly general concepts (the diaries, apparently, are hers rather than Schumann's), but this young pianist turns out to have a real feel for Schumann, and this release, her first on the PentaTone label, promises much. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of available recordings of the three Schumann works here, but Poon succeeds in standing out from the crowd. The most remarkable performance of all is one of the most popular works, Kinderszenen, Op. 15, and within that, one can sample the single most beloved Scene of Childhood, Träumerei, Op. 15/7. Poon, in a world full of heavily rubato-laden interpretations of these pieces, takes Robert Schumann's advice to Clara to heart and plays them not far from fixed tempos, but there is nothing dispassionate about her performance, which makes a great deal out of very small gestures. Later in the program, which builds in intensity as it proceeds, Poon unleashes some drama in the Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, works that are close to Schumann's heart and expressive of his fantasy life. Even here, everything is under perfect control. It has been a very long time since such freshly conceived and brilliantly executed Schumann has graced CD players and hard drives, and audiences responded by placing this album on classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Granados: Goyescas - El pelele

Javier Perianes

Classical - Released December 1, 2023 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
The Goyescas of Enrique Granados are a suite of six pieces plus a seventh of similar inspiration, El pelele, that is often performed with the set (as here by pianist Javier Perianes). These are technically difficult pieces, surely among the heights of the Spanish piano repertory. The Goyescas were inspired by the art of Francisco Goya, but only two works -- the tenebrous "El amor y la muerte" and El pelele -- can be traced to specific Goya works. Both the performance by Javier Perianes and the excellent notes by Claire Fraysse illuminate why this is not the problem it might seem. Goya's paintings captured a whole milieu, forming a picture of what might be called hip Madrid society around 1800; both Goya and Granados, in Fraysse's works, were fin-de-siècle artists. Granados' pieces also have a stream-of-consciousness quality, seeming to tell a story even when the story is not there. It is this quality that is captured in Perianes' playing, which is not only technically confident but also moves forward as if animated by buried thoughts. Sample the second Goyesca, "Coloquio en la reja," which has the flavor of a conversation at the window, even if one does not know what is being talked about. If it wasn't based on an actual Goya painting, it could have been, as it were. Perianes is brilliant when he needs to be, but it is the small subtleties that put this performance across. There are plenty of performances of the Goyescas, many of them Spanish, going back to that of Alicia de Larrocha, but this one has what it takes to stand out.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Unlocked, Brescianello Vol. 2

La Serenissima

Classical - Released October 27, 2023 | Signum Records

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The title "Unlocked" for this album by the historical performance group La Serenissima and director/violinist Adrian Chandler refers to the making of the album as the musicians emerged from pandemic-time lockdowns. However, it also might indicate the status of composer Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello, whose music has been little explored even though he was among the first composers to write symphonies (here, "sinphonie") in Germany. Brescianello was certainly a transitional figure. It is likely that he encountered the music of Vivaldi in Venice before moving to Germany to work as a valet for the Electress of Bavaria (who paved his way to lucrative court positions). The works here, mostly taken from the composer's Op. 1 publication of Concerti & Sinphonie, resemble Vivaldi's in general sound, but the consistent harmonic rhythm of the Baroque is starting to break up, and in the violin concertos, especially there is a new kind of expressiveness. Chandler is quite effective in these, catching the small details that an audience of the time would have found new. In the final Ouverture for strings and continuo in A major, Brescianello seems a bit constrained by the French Baroque dance forms, but this sets off the innovations that were present in the concertos and symphonies. The second of a pair of albums devoted to Brescianello by La Serenissima, this may be of most interest to those fascinated by the pre-Classical era, but it is listenable in a Vivaldian vein for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Richard Strauss : Also sprach Zarathustra... (Live)

Riccardo Chailly

Classical - Released September 6, 2019 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

Hi-Res Distinctions Diapason d'or / Arte
Leading the Lucerne Festival for two summers running, conductor Richardo Chailly has honoured composers that the musicians had never yet recorded: Igor Stravinsky in 2018, and Richard Strauss in 2019. The sumptuousness of the orchestration of the latter here affords a glittering clarity, just as much in the concertante parts as in the tutti. The writing conjures a Straussian atmosphere: a marvellously apt terrain for the Lucerne orchestra. In Zarathustra, the strings, in particular the double-basses, rumble away as under one bow, with gobsmacking precision in Von der großen Sehnsucht ("Of the Great Yearning") and Genesende ("the Convalescent"). Richard Strauss deploys a romantic counterpoint in his writing – in particular in Von den Hinterweltlern ("Of the Backworldsmen") – and the strings of Lucerne brilliantly bring his limitless lyricism to life. The following works, (Tod und Verklärung, Till Eulenspiegel and finally The Dance of the Seven Veils) bring to mind other epithets that we might apply to this perfect recording: epic majesty, burlesque humour, serpentine voluptuousness: all ingredients of Strauss's symphonic poems. The sound quality does justice to the beauty of the orchestra, and the mix doesn't leave anyone out: every counterpoint is defined, every pizzicato twangs appropriately and we hear even the softest touch of the timbal. Demanding in their extremity (in both nuance and difficulty), these scores make a perfect fit for the Lucerne orchestra, a meeting of the greatest soloists of the international stage, brought together by the festival. The only drawback comes from precisely this concentration of quality. While we are gripped by Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils, we are perhaps more impressed than moved by a piece that has been stripped of some of its finest orchestral ornamentation. © Elsa Siffert/Qobuz
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Chopin: Nocturnes (Complete)

Stephen Hough

Classical - Released October 29, 2021 | Hyperion

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Horowitz return to Chicago (Live at Orchestra Hall, 1986)

Vladimir Horowitz

Classical - Released November 6, 2015 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone Editor's Choice - Choc de Classica
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Mozart & Strauss: Lieder

Sabine Devieilhe

Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released March 29, 2024 | Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
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Paysage

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released March 15, 2024 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet