The musical world owes a debt of gratitude to French conductor Christophe Rousset not only for the vital, exquisite performances he delivers with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques and Choeur de Chambre de Namur, but for his work in bringing to light neglected masterpieces of Baroque opera. Lully's Bellérophon, premiered in 1679, was a huge success in its time, with an initial run of nine months. Part of its popularity was doubtless due to the parallels that could be drawn between its plot and certain recent exploits of Louis XV, but even the earliest critics recognized the score's uniqueness and exceptional quality within Lully's oeuvre, so it's perhaps surprising that it has never been recorded before. The distinctiveness of the music was likely a result at least in part of the fact that Lully's preferred librettist Philippe Quinault was out of favor at the court of Louis XV at the time, so the composer turned to Thomas Corneille for the libretto, and Corneille's literary and dramatic styles were so different from Quinault's that Lully was nudged out of his comfort zone and had to develop new solutions to questions of structure and the marrying of music to text. It is the first opera for which Lully composed fully accompanied recitatives, and that alone gives it a textural richness that surpasses his earlier works. The composer also allows soloists to sing together, something that was still a rarity in Baroque opera. There are several duets and larger ensembles; the love duet, "Que tout parle à l'envie de notre amour extreme!," is a ravishing expression of passion and happiness, as rhapsodic as anything in 19th century Italian opera. The level of musical inventiveness throughout is exceptional even for Lully; the expressiveness of the recitatives, the charm of the instrumental interludes, the originality of the choruses, and the limpid loveliness of the airs make this an opera that demands attention. Rousset and his forces give an outstanding performance that's exuberantly spirited, musically polished, rhythmically springy, and charged with dramatic urgency. The soloists are consistently of the highest order. Cyril Auvity brings a large, virile, passionate tenor to the title role and Céline Scheen is warmly lyrical as his lover Philonoë. Ingrid Perruche is fiercely powerful as the villain, Stéenobée, and Jean Teitgen is a secure, authoritative Apollo. Soloists, chorus, and orchestra are fluent in the subtle inflections of French middle Baroque ornamentation. The sound of the live recording is very fine, with a clean, immediate, realistic ambience. This is a release that fans of Baroque opera will not want to miss. Highly recommended. © TiVo

Jean-Baptiste Lully's Cadmus & Hermione of 1673 was arguably the first true French opera, telling a tragic story (Lully and his librettist Philippe Quinault called it a tragédie en lyrique), employing Italian-style recitatives, and collecting the varied music and dance forms of Louis XIV's opulent court into a coherent narrative that at once celebrated Louis (he is conflated with Cadmus of Thebes) and moved beyond the ceremonial nature of earlier French dramatic music. It's a sprawling work, with five acts, an overture, and a sizable Prologue with its own overture; highlights include a dragon that eats Africans, a monster snake, and a full complement of Greek gods and goddesses. Realization of the work has, until now, been beyond the means of early music performance groups, and this is the world premiere recording of the opera, made in 2019 and based on a 2008 performance at Versailles Palace by some of the same performers. The leader is Vincent Dumestre, conducting the Le Poème Harmonique orchestra and the vocal ensembles Aedes. The forces are large enough to capture the splendor of the music (thankfully, no one-voice-per-part techniques here), and Dumestre is alert to the huge variety of musical devices Lully brings to bear on his story; there are dances, big choruses, bagpipes, and much more. Cadmus & Hermione may be a difficult work to bring to life for modern audiences, but Dumestre keeps things moving along and probably comes as close as anyone could. Of course, anyone interested in the life of the French court in the 17th century will find this an essential acquisition that will keep giving and giving. © TiVo

Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine ("The Human Voice") is a one-woman opera, less than an hour long, about a woman on the phone with her boyfriend as they break up. Set to a text by Jean Cocteau, it puts the woman through strong mood swings. (Country music fans may wish to compare it to As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone, although there, the boyfriend is present to deliver the final blow.) Soprano Véronique Gens is best known for music from the 17th century up to Mozart, but it is easy to believe the claim in the publicity materials for this release that she had always wanted to record this work; its direct, conversational quality, interspersed with occasional freakouts, fits her manner beautifully. It might seem that those freakouts require a bit more intensity than Gens gives them here, but that is not really in the Cocteau spirit and certainly not in the Poulenc spirit. Gens receives sensitive support from the Orchestre National de Lille under Alexandre Bloch, who also ring down the curtain with a lithe performance of the joyous Sinfonietta. There are other strong performances of Poulenc's little opera, which ought to be much more frequently heard and would be ideal for university voice programs, but this one is instantly appealing and quite memorable, and it is no surprise that it made classical best-seller charts in early 2023. © James Manheim /TiVo

This 2010 recording of Tchaikovsky's eternally popular Swan Lake ballet, with Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra might be ideal for dancing, but it is less ideal purely as a listening experience. On the whole, and in most of its parts, theirs is a highly dramatic and very fast-paced performance, filled with plenty of vigor, energy, color, and contrast. The score requires more pathos and bathos than depth and profundity, and Pletnev elicits from the Russian musicians a sweetly soulful and wholly polished performance. But this version misses the lightness and buoyancy of Gennady Rozhdestvensky's classic account of the work, a performance that sacrifices none of the work's drama, and allowing it space to dance. Pletnev's recording has many virtues, though, and the listener may find a place on the shelf for both his and Rozhdestvensky's versions. Ondine's sound is clean and lush, with plenty of detail. © TiVo

It doesn't always follow that serial international competition winners go on to make either recordings or careers that win over the “real world” critics. However Bomsori Kim has done so. Regarding the latter, her concert calendar is full of invitations to prestigious festivals and halls, concerto appearances with major orchestras and conductors, and chamber collaborations with other young names who are fast making names for themselves. As for recordings, there was her well-received 2017 debut album on Warner, imaginatively pairing Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2 (Kim having carried off no less than eleven prizes at the 2016 Wieniawski Competition) with Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1. Then came her strong 2019 debut on Deutsche Grammophon, partnering with pianist pianist Rafał Blechacz for Violin Sonatas by Fauré, Debussy and Szymanowski. So the stage was fully set for her orchestral debut on DG to be an impactful one. Now that it's here, “Violin on Stage” is certainly impactful in certain regards. A programme of works written for or inspired by opera or ballet, it further cements Kim's affinity for Poland's music and musicians, both by her partners being the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic under Giancarlo Guerrero, and by its being topped and tailed by more Wieniawski – culminating in his 17 and a half minute showpiece, the Fantasia on Themes from Gounod's “Faust” . The album equally cements the impression of her as an immensely lyrical violinist with a clean, sweetly singing sound which dances with balletic suppleness; indeed if any violinist's sound were a perfect fit for a programme evoking the worlds of ballet and opera then it's Kim's, and her playing confirms that in spadefuls, whether it's her elegantly fiery, twinkle-toed rendition of Waxman's Carmen-Fantasie, or the sweetly melancholic, singing romance she brings to Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits, appearing here in a new transcription for violin and orchestra. Which brings me to the programme's final theme, of following in the footsteps of the likes of Heifetz and Milstein in championing the culture of virtuoso violin transcriptions of popular works – and the Pas de deux from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker is also heard in a new transcription. So lots of positives. Yet overall, I can't help but feel that this programme hasn't quite done Kim justice. In attractively frothy, easy listening terms it's a winner, and there's nothing wrong in principle in skipping the main course to head straight for the Chantilly. It's also very welcome to have a violinist so clearly dedicated to championing Wieniawski's often-overlooked, highly virtuosic music. But ultimately she made a far stronger case for taking Wieniawski seriously on that aforementioned Warner debut. Plus, there's very little real emotional or stylistic contrast to be heard across this programme's succession of crowd-pleasing shorts. Or sense of surprise. Even massively-recorded pieces such as the Massenet Méditation will pack a punch when cleverly programmed, but here it merely blends in. Consequently, while “Violin on Stage” amply displays all Kim's elegance, charm and technique, I'm already crossing fingers that her next orchestral foray with DG might be more clearly reflective of her concert diary rather than of playlist culture, and give her the chance to properly display her interpretative and creative programming mettle. In the meantime though, this is at least very stylishly done. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

"Four oeuvres, four pianos" might be a better way of looking at the cover of this album by Alexander Melnikov: Schubert is played on a (simply stunning) Viennese Graf fortepiano from around 1835, Chopin on an Érard grand piano from 1837, Liszt on a Bösendorfer from 1875 and Stravinsky on a modern-day Steinway - the only work which is not played on an instrument contemporary to its composition, as Petrushka dates from 1911, and most certainly not from 2014 like the Steinway in question! The differences between the four instruments are not immediately obvious, but Melnikov's project is to demonstrate just how closely art and instrument follow one another: the Wanderer Fantasy benefits from the clarity of the Graf fortepiano which, while it lacks powerful volume, offers a startling palette of different sounds for the artist to explore. Chopin's twelve Études Op. 10 on the Érard – still within a few years of the Graf – increased the power of the sound in particular, but at the cost of reducing the range of colours in the palette. With the Réminiscences de Don Juan by Liszt, the Bösendorfer unleashes real pianistic thunderbolts, which almost overshadows the content! Finally, Petrushka on the Steinway takes us back into a rather more familiar territory. This is a concept of pairing from Melnikov, whose fondness for historical instruments is well-known. © SM/Qobuz

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

A huge record! A must! This is a merger of two Supraphon LPs which were released in the 1960s. Boasting a dazzling cast, with four of the greatest singers of the Czech national scene (Libuše Domanínská, Marie Mrázová, Ivo Žídek, Dalibor Jedlička!), Les Noces was recorded between the 28th and 30th of May 1964 in the Rudolfinum Studio in Prague, while the Cantata and the Mass were recorded three years later in the Domovina Studio - on the 3rd and 4th of April, and the 20th of June 1967 for the Cantata, and on the 28th and 29th of March for the Mass.Karel Ančerl's Les Noces are unforgettable in more ways than one: the rhythmic acuity and vocal and instrumental precision never obscure the very authentic, often mischievous tone of these strange 'Russian choreographic scenes'. Karel Ančerl achieves heights of poetic intensity in the final passage, in which the gamelan melody gradually encroaches upon the musical space, before triumphing immediately after Jedlička's sublime story is concluded.The other side of this 2004 reissue is no less vital. In comparison to the very fine version by Colin Davis (1964), in Karel Ančerl's hands the Cantata becomes a marvel of fluidity; the woodwinds of the Czech Philharmonic shine in the 'verses'. And the two singers, both the marvellous Barbara Robotham with her incredibly luscious tone in Ricercar I and Gerald English, perfect in style, spirit and singing (especially the high notes!), in his long and very difficult narrative segment in Ricercar II, are absolutely unmatched by any other recording of this material. This is pure poetry. A more difficult score, the Mass displays all the spirit of its darker side (Gloria), and its powerful harmonies. Once again, the Czech Philharmonic provides great moments of musical beauty. These are impressive recordings, without a doubt. © Pierre-Yves Lascar/Qobuz