Classical CDs
Sebastian Scotney
This album Firedove (Sony Classical), surely, has to be seen as part of a bigger story: that of organist, choir director and broadcaster Anna Lapwood, who, still in her twenties – just – has become an essential part of the (often cautious and conservative) classical music fabric of this country at a pace which defies belief. She works punishingly hard and has thoroughly earned her pivotal position both as performer and as advocate. Her passion for the organ as an instrument with a unique power to appeal to large audiences has already upturned perceptions, changed attitudes, broadened Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Lieder Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Gerold Huber (piano) (Sony)The concert I attended of Brahms Lieder in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in October 2024, with Christian Gerhaher in fabulous voice and Gerold Huber at the peak of his craft was fabulous – five star review of that very special evening here. I was therefore overjoyed to discover only recently that they had made this recording of a very similar programme just one week before. The whole disc is a wonderful outpouring from a gloriously intelligent singer; maybe that’s all it’s necessary to know.The programme is a Read more ...
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Jürg Frey: Voices EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble/James Weeks (Neu Records)A new CD from EXAUDI is a guaranteed treat for all the senses: the sound quality is always impeccable, the CD presentation a tactile pleasure. Heck, it even smells good (a mixture of new car and old bookshop). VOICES presents the music of Swiss composer Jürg Frey (b. 1953), which is an intriguing mixture of the sophisticated and the almost naïve, a surface simplicity revealing submerged depths, a place where fragility and steely inner purpose meet. It is music that is extreme in its singlemindedness, the long spans over Read more ...
graham.rickson
All We Imagine as Light focuses on the lives of three women in contemporary Mumbai; as shown by director Payal Kapadia, the city is arguably the film’s fourth major character. Kapadia eschews convention, her metropolis painted in muted colours with dark skies and heavy rain a constant.We first see Prabha (Kani Kusruti) on the long journey home to the cramped flat she shares with her younger colleague Anu (Divya Prabhu); as in many western cities, their key worker salaries aren’t sufficient to allow them to live a reasonable distance to their city centre hospital.Kusruti is an extraordinary Read more ...
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Thomas Adès: Orchestral Suites London Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Adès (LPO)Here are three orchestral suites taken from stage works by Thomas Adès, from different stages of his career, captured at live performances at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2018 and 2023. So not new recordings, but good to have these in one place to trace the composer’s career from prodigious breakthrough to acknowledged master. I have not always been convinced by Adès as a conductor when I’ve seen him live – he seems a bit hyperactive and prone to micromanagement – but judging just aurally by the results Read more ...
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Vox Feminae: music by Barbara Strozzi, Antonia Bemba, Hieryonymus Kapsberger... Les Kapsber’girls/Albane Imbs (Alpha)What a complete transformation from one album to the next. The last one, Vous-avez dit brunettes? – "did you say brunettes?" – (Alpha, 2021) opened tongue-in-cheek with the bleating and bells of a flock of sheep, then launching into occasionally over-theatrical songs about shepherds, love or drinking. Vox Feminae, a collection of works from Italian women composers, is in a different league altogether, and is surely going to end up winning some awards. Lutenist Read more ...
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Donizetti: Songs Vols. 3 & 4 Michael Spyres (tenor), Carlo Rizzi (piano) – Vol. 3, Marie-Nicole Lemieux (mezzo-soprano), Giulio Zappa (piano) – Vol. 4. (Opera Rara)“The songs Donizetti poured forth during his composing career have [..] been unjustly neglected…. In their totality these compositions make a powerful case for Donizetti as a key figure in nineteenth-century domestic music-making,” writes Roger Parker, who acts as repertoire consultant to Opera Rara, and is in the process of establishing a new critical edition of them. Opera Rara is releasing a total of eight volumes, or Read more ...
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Quartets Through a Time of Change: music by Ravel, Durey, Tailleferre and Milhaud Brother Tree Sound (First Hand Records)There are plenty – and I mean plenty – of recordings of the Ravel String Quartet, the majority, I would guess, paired with the Debussy Quartet, in what has become something of a programming cliché. The Brother Tree Sound quartet take the rather more enterprising approach of putting it alongside three other French quartets written between 1917 and 1919, none of which are very well-known if they are known at all. It works really well, both as exposure for the lesser Read more ...
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Snow Dance for the Dead: Choral Music by Seán Doherty New Dublin Voices/Bernie Sherlock (Voces8 Recordings)I have come across the choral music of Seán Doherty more and more recently and always liked what I have heard. His music is imaginative, wide-ranging and original, and all these things are evident in his debut disc with New Dublin Voices, under their enterprising conductor Bernie Sherlock. Doherty has been a member of the choir since 2015, and Sherlock describes him as “a tap that pours out great choral music”. There is certainly more than enough variety to sustain a full album – Read more ...
graham.rickson
Michael Tilson Thomas: The Complete Columbia, Sony and RCA Recordings (Sony)Big box sets continue to arrive. This one’s a whopper: 80 discs celebrating Michael Tilson Thomas’s 80th birthday. Artistic qualities aside, the production values here are superb, Sony’s 200-page hardback book accompanying individual discs replete with original sleeve art and spines that display each CD’s contents. This is a minor detail but a significant one, making it easy to find the performance you’re looking for. As with the recent Paavo Järvi set, it’s nice to see a celebration of a conductor who’s very Read more ...
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Reynaldo Hahn: Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet, Songs Karim Sulayman (tenor), Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Chandos)I’ve been a fan of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for some time, having heard them in concert and on their excellent previous albums, which often seek out under-recorded composers and give them the spotlight: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Fanny Mendelssohn, Alma Mahler, Luise Adolphe le Beau. This album is another example of that, comprising chamber and vocal pieces by Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947), not someone whose music I was previously familiar with. From being a darling Read more ...
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Paavo Järvi: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Big box sets celebrating great conductors are piling up thick and fast, and this one, unusually, features an artist who’s very much alive. Paavo Järvi is just 62 (still young for a conductor). These 31 discs contain the albums he released for Virgin Classics, EMI and Erato between 1996 and 2015: classical CDs were still a big thing back in the late 1990s, and it’s remarkable to see how much quirky repertoire Virgin Classics allowed Järvi to record, including Stenhammar, Arvo Pärt, Eduard Tubin and Erkki-Sven Tüür. One of the earliest Read more ...