The six young singers of the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix, selected from several hundred candidates, offer us a musical journey through some of the finest pieces in the Italian repertory, from a Banchieri madrigal to Haydn’s Orlando paladino. Thanks to an outstanding training programme and the musical values transmitted by William Christie and Paul Agnew, here is a chance to discover both some splendid vocal gems and a group of new performers who honour them with talent, grace and humour. Sheer delight! © harmonia mundi

This new recording in the Edition Vivaldi series – the first of two volumes dedicated to Vivaldi’s "cantate da camera" for soprano – displays the energetic vitality with which a new generation of artists in their thirties is encountering the baroque repertoire. This sixty-eighth album of the Edition highlights the expressively powerful voice of the soloist, soprano Arianna Vendittelli, already heard in the operas Il Tamerlano (2020) and Il Giustino (2018) conducted by Ottavio Dantone, as well as the artistic vision and high standards of the harpsichordist, organist and conductor Andrea Buccarella, who in 2018 carried off the first prize at the Bruges International Early Music Competition with his Abchordis Ensemble. In these six cantatas – of around thirty attributed to the Venetian master and composed between 1718 and the mid 1730s – these artists display their enhanced vocal and instrumental artistry, and a profound understanding of Vivaldi’s scores. No subtlety escapes these artists in their interpretation of this secular vocal genre, so fashionable during the 18th century, and still being rediscovered today, with its alternating arias and recitatives.

A young ensemble of instrumentalists and singers revives the precious historical practice of singers accompanying themselves (already brought back into currency by the soloist Vivabiancaluna Biffi), thus producing a wholly new sound in music usually assigned to unaccompanied voices. With Concerto di Margherita, self-accompanied singing becomes "collective" for the first time in our era, and is amplified in a shared gesture in which all the members of the group – playing and singing together with extraordinary coordination – produce a sonority unprecedented in this repertory. Created at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, the group (which is named after the Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga) performs as a consort of five voices, theorbo, harp, viola da gamba, guitar and lutes, inspired by the "Concerto delle dame" of Ferrara. The recording debut of Concerto di Margherita presents arrangements of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works (madrigals, villanellas and canzonas), drawing on music by De Wert, Gastoldi, Monteverdi and the "blind man’s buff" scene from Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1580). © Arcana

This fourth publication by the French pianist Philippe Guilhon-Herbert on the Artalinna label was recorded during the same session as his second volume of Schubert, including Sonata D. 959. It sets forth a short history of the art of keyboard playing with three landmark composers, showing the fundamental role that nature plays in the evolution of forms and languages. © Artalinna

Download not available

Pianist Saskia Giorgini found both critical and commercial success with her 2022 recording of Liszt's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, and this 2023 release, which immediately climbed onto classical best-seller charts, follows directly on the earlier album, with the same Bösendorfer piano and the same recording location, the Lisztzentrum in Raiding, Austria. Listeners will not be disappointed, for Consolations has all the virtues of her first Liszt album and adds a few more. The wonderfully controlled lyricism of the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses recurs in the heavily programmatic title work, where Giorgini's playing hints at the presence of all kinds of stories. She plainly excels in the religious, late Liszt, and there are two wonderful examples here, the Deux Legends, portraits of St. Francis of Assisi praying to the birds, and of St. François de Paule. These are difficult works that combine mysticism with Lisztian virtuosity; annotator Mark Berry is right to stress that Liszt did not fully renounce the virtuosity in his later years, but that is not all. Giorgini is just as good in the flashy Three Caprices-Valses and the reflective Liebesträume, the best-known music on the album. In the Valse-Impromptu, she has an uncanny way of suggesting the feeling of spontaneity that seems to have marked Liszt's own playing. Will Giorgini go on with Liszt? She certainly has the technical and emotional wherewithal to do so and to take on more famous works than these.© James Manheim /TiVo

For sonic showcases, Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 in C minor, "Organ," is increasingly recorded by orchestras eager to show off their virtuosity and distinctive tone colors, so this HDCD from Reference Recordings is typical for its flashy program and high-fidelity reproduction. Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony deliver this celebrated Romantic symphony with extraordinary vitality, crisp articulation, and brilliant sonorities, and their performances of the two filler pieces are equally vivid and exciting. Of special note are the soloists, organist Jan Kraybill in the symphony, violinist Noah Geller in the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, and the duo of Geller and cellist Mark Gibbs in La muse et le poète, who give a heightened sense of drama and panache to their respective parts. But the real star of this album seems to be the 24-bit high definition recording, which really sets the musicians in sharp relief and gives them credible dimensions and presence. For listeners who have several recordings of the symphony, this disc will be fun to hear, if not necessary to own, though newcomers to Saint-Saëns could do a lot worse than to add this terrific sounding recording to their collections. © TiVo

Fauré's Requiem, “funeral lullaby” written for enjoyment as the composer put it, has a unique place in history. It's soft, simple and modest poetry conveys moments of gentle contemplation and moving expressiveness which are entrusted to both the choir and the two soloists. With his Ensemble Aedes and the orchestra Les Siècles, Mathieu Romano is committed to render a Requiem faithful to its first performance. We hear thus the score in its original 1893 orchestration, where the organ plays a great role, and where Latin is pronounced in the French way as it used to be. The clearest articulation of the Ensemble Aedes then perfectly fits Éluard’s Figure humaine set to music by Francis Poulenc. We have never heard these sublime poems sung with such intelligibility before! Finally, the three Songs by Debussy elegantly close the album. Here again, the quality and clarity of the voices are stunning. Artistic director and founder of Ensemble Aedes has established himself as a magician of voices in a cappella scores. And voices ideally melt with the strings of Les Siècles under his baton. A 100% French cast in a 100% French music disc for a triple rediscovery. Essential! © Aparté

Few will dispute George Friderick Handel being one of the most accomplished composers of the Classical era, but it should also be noted he possessed to an equal degree, a perhaps less-than-esteemed-but-vital gift in those pre-copyright days, the art of self-promotion. Even in the early stages of his career Handel was well-aware of his prodigious talent and sought to promote it to the utmost. It was that ambition which led the young composer in 1706 to Florence, at the behest of one of the Medicis, to assist in establishing the opera in that city. Handel later decamped for Rome where, his reputation preceding him, he quickly made the acquaintance of leading patrons of the arts among the nobility and upper echelons of the Catholic Church, leading to many commissions.One of those commissions came from Cardinal Carlo Colonna for the major work on this recording, a setting of the Psalm, 109 in the Vulgate, 110 in the King James, Dixit Dominus (The Lord said unto my Lord). Regardless of the composer’s young age of 22, it is the work of a mature master. Even more remarkable, Handel, though from a strict and observant Lutheran upbringing, was able to work with his Catholic patrons, setting a Latin text suitable for use in Catholic worship.There are many recordings of Handel’s Dixit Dominus and this is certainly one of the finest, with brilliant performances by soloists, orchestra, and chorus. Conductor Bart Van Reyn’s tempos are on the sprightly side, but never seem excessive or rushed. There is a wonderful freshness and sparkle to this reading, both in performance and the superb high-resolution sound. Particular praise must be made of the three soloists, whose virtuosity and sensitivity to the text are exemplary.A welcome bonus is a much lesser-known masterpiece by a much lesser-known composer, Giovanni Battista Ferrandini: his Marian cantata (mistakenly attributed until recently to Handel), Il pianto di Maria. In the excellent program notes, Aurélie Walschaert writes this lament differs from earlier ones modeled after the medieval text Stabat Mater, where a narrator describes the sorrows of Mary. Most of the text in this composition is in the first-person, with Mary herself describing the sorrows she is witnessing, thus deepening even further the emotion. A prize should go to mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert, whose astonishingly empathetic delivery of the text will move any listener, whatever their religion. This is a must for every classical library.  © Anthony Fountain/Qobuz

Stéphane Denève has established himself as a versatile maestro with a highly varied repertoire, from concert fare to operas, but his recordings have revealed him to be a specialist in French orchestral music, notably in his coverage of works by Albert Roussel and Guillaume Connesson. This double hybrid SACD from Chandos offers Denève's interpretations of the orchestral works of Claude Debussy, and the lavishly detailed and expressive performances by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra show a conductor and an orchestra in complete sympathy with the music. Because the presentation by Chandos is first-rate from an audiophile perspective, with spectacular reproduction and close-up, credible presence, the listener is immersed in Debussy's dazzling colors from the opening of Images, and surrounded by fully dimensional sonorities throughout the album, which includes such other masterpieces of impressionist music as Jeux, Nocturnes, La Mer, Printemps, and Prélude à l'après-midi d'une faune. When the clarity of the notes, the richness of the timbres, and the depth of the orchestra's sound are appreciated altogether, it's truly a seductive experience, and Debussy's lush and atmospheric music achieves its potential in this impressive package. Indeed, it's difficult to pull away from these gorgeous performances, so prepare to listen to both SACDs in one long, leisurely sitting. It's that good.© TiVo