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Camille Saint-Saëns: Phryné
Hervé Niquet
Opera - Released February 11, 2022 | Bru Zane
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Everyone knows Camille Saint-Saëns has a great sense of humour thanks to his Carnaval des Animaux in which no one escapes ridicule, not even him. Now the Palazzetto Bru Zane Foundation and Hervé Niquet have unearthed Phryné, a forgotten comic opera from 1893 enriched with recitatives composed by André Messager three years later.Received with immense and lasting success in its time, this brilliant work eventually fell into the abyss, never to be seen again. Fortunately, fans of Saint-Saëns made great efforts to rediscover his works on the centenary of his death in 2021. Phryné captures the "Grecomania" that was prevalent in all the arts in France at this time, especially in Offenbach’s music and even in architecture (just think of the beautiful Parisian district of New Athens in the 9th arrondissement). Ironically, and perhaps a little cheekily, Saint-Saens confessed that he was “working on this little piece with infinite pleasure” and was infatuated with this courtesan musician who had served as a model for the sculptor Praxitele.Always keen to discover a forgotten repertoire, Hervé Niquet brought together a few singers, Florie Valiquette, Cyrille Dubois, Anaïs Constans and Thomas Dolié, to breathe some life back into Phryné with his Concert Spirituel, with the aim of producing a concert version to be performed in the Opéra de Rouen Normandie in 2021. Though Lucien Augé’s libretto may seem tasteless today with its hefty dose of misogyny, Saint-Saens’ music is simply delicious, with a succession of arias and ensembles. This modest and charming opera-comedy, which Charles Gounod so enjoyed, offers a less serious and less academic take of a composer that well and truly deserves to be rediscovered. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Prokofiev: Visions fugitives, Piano Sonata No. 8, Romeo & Juliet
Nicholas Angelich
Classical - Released January 22, 2021 | Warner Classics
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The third and last of the "war Sonatas", the Eighth Sonata was premiered by Emil Gilels in 1944. Serious and virtuosic, it is also the longest and, probably, the most "human" (Michel Hofmann) sonata by its author. The French-American pianist Nicholas Angelich gives a fascinating translation, with great fluidity, with much left unspoken, and a heightened sense of poetic and dreamy sound. This album, which is wholly dedicated to Prokofiev is of a very high standard. Thanks to his exceptional technical mastery and his musical intelligence, Nicholas Angelich manages to reveal the infinite richness of a music too often known for its virtuosic side, which tends to be, under some fingers, quite brutal. The twenty pieces of Visions Fugitives unfold with a wide variety of refined, liquid and mysterious timbres. The performer's fine filigree work perfectly matches that of the composer in this beautiful recording that ends brilliantly with a selection of five pieces from the ballet Romeo and Juliet transcribed for the piano by the composer himself. The variety of the colours and the power of Angelich's piano would almost make us forget the orchestral magic of this famous score. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Brunch Classical Music
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Classical Music: 50 of the Best, Claude Debussy, Edvard Grieg, Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach,
Classical - Released March 10, 2020 | Armasi
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Heritage
Fedor Rudin
Chamber Music - Released November 19, 2021 | Orchid Classics
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On this fascinating new release, violinist Fedor Rudin and pianist Boris Kusnezow perform works by mid-20th-century Russian composers Edison Denisov, Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, including previously unpublished music. French-Russian violinist Fedor Rudin explores and pays tribute to his heritage via this rich collection of works, including his own arrangement of Denisov’s orchestration of Debussy’s Prelude and Duo, which comes from Debussy’s unfinished opera, Rodrigue et Chimène. Other gems include Denisov’s rarely-heard Three concert pieces for violin and piano (1958), and his previously unpublished Sonatina (1972), which marks a return to his melodic youth after the musically experimental interim years. Those years are represented here by Denisov’s dodecaphonic Sonata (1963). We also hear an unfinished Sonata by Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Hopak from his opera Sorochinsky Fair, and Prokofiev’s unusually theatrical Violin Sonata No. 1. © Orchid Classics
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Parry: Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Blest Pair of Sirens
London Mozart Players
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released September 8, 2023 | Chandos
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Gramophone: Recording of the Month
Hubert Parry's Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, from 1880, here receives its world-recorded premiere. Perhaps recording companies thought there wouldn't be much of a market for a heavy 19th century choral work with, it must be said, a ponderous text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Prometheus was a play intended to be read, not performed, just to give an idea). How wrong they were. This release made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023, and it is altogether enjoyable. At the time, Parry was under the spell of Wagner, whom he traveled to Bayreuth to meet. That influence certainly shows up in Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, with its basically declamatory text, partly through-composed music, wind-and-brass-heavy orchestration, and splashes of chromaticism. Yet what is remarkable is that the music does not come off as an imitation of Wagner at all. Rather, it uses elements of his style to match a specific kind of English literary text. The work gradually disappeared, but it would be surprising if Elgar, whom it clearly prefigures, did not know it well. The performances here are luminous, with William Vann using the lighter-than-expected London Mozart Players to create transparent textures against which he can set the substantial voices of Sarah Fox, Sarah Connolly, and other soloists. Parry did write some shorter pieces that remain in the repertory; one of these, Blest Pair of Sirens, is included here as a finale. However, the Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound are the main news here, and this performance, showing how this kind of thing should be done, may generate a new life for the work.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Céphale et Procris
Reinoud Van Mechelen
Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Psyché
Christophe Rousset
Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye, Tombeau de Couperin, Shéhérazade
Les Siècles
Symphonic Music - Released April 13, 2018 | harmonia mundi
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Recording Ravel's music on period instruments is the kind of thing that might raise a smile... until you realise just how much the production of instruments has changed in less than a hundred years: it's the return of catgut strings, skin drum heads, the French basson (and not the German system bassoon which is used across all the world's orchestras today), shaper tips, trumpets and trombones of French manufacture. At the head of his orchestra Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth gives a new, orthodox, historically-informed version of Ma Mère l’oye (complete ballet), the Tombeau de Couperin and Shéhérazade, the long-neglected "ouverture de féérie" [Fairy Overture] which is pure Ravel. This return to the roots is clearly easier and more straightforwardly authentic for this period of music history, because, unlike earlier works, we possess recordings which date back to the 1920s, and even earlier, which can tell us about the style, the colours, the phrasing and the tempo. But it isn't enough just to have all this historical information to hand to make something interesting. What makes this record thrilling is that all the musicians in the Siècles are excellent, and François-Xavier Roth is a talented artist himself, who knows this music inside out. At which point, his complete recording of Stravinsky's Firebird has already struck us with its quality. This rediscovery of Ravel resounds with clarity and finesse; it is a feast of well-defined timbres which cuts against the "beautiful sound" which prevails in orchestras around the world today. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Handel: Finest Arias for Base (Bass) Voice, Vol. 1
Christopher Purves
Classical - Released December 2, 2012 | Hyperion
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There's no shortage of Handel aria recitals these days, especially in Britain, but this one by bass baritone Christopher Purves stands out from the crowd in several respects. First of all, it is rare in collecting arias for bass voice, which was, in Handel's time as it was later on, generally associated with a few fixed and generally negative character types (tyrants, rogues, repressive patriarchs). Second, it's a very pleasantly varied collection of tunes, including displays of brilliant passagework, out-of-the-norm writing in service of characterization (Fra l'ombre e gl'orrori, from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, track 4), and high climactic drama (the big, three-part Revenge, Timotheus cries, from Alexander's Feast, track 19, is a familiar example). Finally, Purves unearths some rarely heard pieces and programs them intelligently. When did anyone last year anything from Muzio Scevola, or Riccardo Primo, rè d'Inghilterra, which must have pleased London audiences in 1727 despite its Italian-language text. Purves does not have the biggest voice in the bass baritone universe, and there could be a bit more sound in the very low notes. But the dimensions of the music are right for the period. He's pleasingly accurate in the passagework, and he's a real actor who makes these potentially stilted characters come alive. Listeners will want to hear Purves in a small production of one of these operas after hearing this album, preferably accompanied by the strong historical-instrument group Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen, as he is here.© TiVo
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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 3, Polonaise & Coronation March
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Classical - Released October 8, 2021 | Alpha Classics
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Mozart: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3: K. 280, 310, 311, 330 & 457
Christian Zacharias
Classical - Released March 27, 2020 | Warner Classics
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Anton Rubinstein: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, Pièces caractéristiques, Op. 50
Anna Shelest
Classical - Released August 18, 2023 | Music and Arts Programs of America
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The music of Anton Rubinstein is rarely played except for a few short encore-type pieces. He wrote five piano concertos that are not common in the repertory, at least outside Russia, and pianist Anna Shelest, backed by Neeme Järvi and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, have little competition in their complete series. Perhaps it is Shelest's smooth performance, making short work of the Lisztian virtuosity in these pieces, that put this album on classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023. Maybe it is the quite rare orchestrations of two of his characteristic piano pieces that serve as an entr'acte, but geopolitics might also have had something to do with it. Rubinstein, even more than his successor Tchaikovsky, represented a Western orientation in Russian music, and when one sees Shelest's Ukrainian folk garb, performing together with the national orchestra of a country that may be menaced by Russia, it begins to make up a convincing package. The appeal of these early Rubinstein concertos is that their patterns are Classical, and the composer has a variety of ingenious ways of shoehorning extreme virtuosity into them; Shelest not only hits the notes but also catches the deceptive restraint. She is ideally backed by Järvi's crisp orchestral treatments, and the modest dimensions of the orchestra's hall also work to the music's advantage. It may be that geopolitics will rewrite the repertory a bit, but the truth is that Rubinstein was already due for a bit of a comeback, and Shelest has contributed to that.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Leontyne Price - Verdi and Puccini Arias
Leontyne Price
Classical - Released January 13, 2015 | RCA Red Seal
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Clementi: Sonatas, Op. 1 & Op. 1A
Carlo Alberto Bacchi
Classical - Released September 29, 2023 | Piano Classics
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Rameau : Castor et Pollux
Raphaël Pichon
Full Operas - Released April 27, 2015 | harmonia mundi
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Bernstein, Barber, Crawford & Ives: Americans
James Gaffigan
Symphonies - Released May 28, 2021 | harmonia mundi
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Vivid testimony to the multifaceted partnership of James Gaffigan and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, their latest release invites us to explore the conductor’s American roots, from the most mischievous (Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story) to the spiritual (Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 3, based on his works for solo organ). With dramatically potent dissonances, Ruth Crawford’s Andante for Strings casts a spell in the form of a hypnotic and restless nocturne, while Samuel Barber’s boldly athletic Toccata for Organ and Orchestra reveals a rarely heard aspect of this well-known master. An electrifying performance! © harmonia mundi
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Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty - A Dramatic Symphony
Kristjan Järvi
Classical - Released November 13, 2020 | Sony Classical - Sony Music
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Cadmus & Hermione
Vincent Dumestre
Classical - Released May 1, 2021 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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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
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Lac des Cygnes, op. 20 (Intégrale)
André Previn
Classical - Released July 2, 2007 | Warner Classics
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