Recent and Forthcoming Releases - Review Highlights

Classical Music

This month we are largely featuring the winning CDs from Gramophone Magazine's 1998 awards, together with excerpts from the reviews that appeared in Gramophone's October issue. All the CDs featured can be ordered through Red Planet - just email us muzik@globalnet.co.uk or telephone 01822-612242 to place your order!

But first..

Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheoghiou – Verdi: Duets and Arias II ~These two real life love birds are wonderful singers and the music is wonderful too. Its bound to be extremely popular!

And now to the Gramophone Awards..

Barber – Violin Concerto: Bloch – Baal Shem: Walton – Violin Concerto – Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/David Zinman (Decca) ~ Winner of the Concerto Award "..The parallels between Barber and Walton have often been pointed out, both of them are romantic lyricists, here at their most yearningly intense in works written during the same period around 60 years ago. There have been many outstanding recordings of both works, but these are among the very finest, superbly recorded and offered with a welcome makeweight in the soulful Bloch piece".

Bartók – The Miraculous Mandarin: Hungarian Dances – Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer (Philips) ~ Winner of the Orchestral Award. "..a sordid tale of seduction violence and ultimate redemption set to music that combines Bergian sensuality with kicking syncopations reminiscent of jazz, a touch of oriental promise and a healthy smattering of paprika. The folk tunes are deliciously orchestrated morsels where earth and air meld and the playing conjures rustic dwellings and the joy of the dance. Fischer’s Budapest orchestra are Hungary’s best and Philips’s recording reproduces them in all their splendour."

Bartók – String Quartets – Takács Quartet (Decca) ~ Winner of the Chamber Music Award. "..Bartók’s six string quartets are sufficiently vibrant and striking to serve lovers of jazz or "Indie" pop as dramatic access points to classical music. The first quartet commemorates an unrequited love; the second harbours a wildly dancing scherzo, the third packs a huge amount of action into 15 minutes, the fourth toys with insects, the fifth has swinging rhythms and the sixth is a heartbreaking farewell to home, country and life itself. The Takács Quartet get straight to the heart of this ever-changing music and make it new all over again."

Birtwistle – The Mask of Orpheus – Soloists (including Jon Garrison, Peter Bronder, Jean Rigby, Anne-Marie Owens) BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis, Martyn Brabbins (NMC) ~ Winner of the Contemporary Award "..Birtwistle’s opera is about the Orpheus myth but the story has been fragmented, several different versions of its main events being presented, sometimes simultaneously, often non-chronologically. This performance, recorded at a performance in London’s Royal Festival Hall, is fully worthy of the stature of this score. There are no weak links in the extremely fine cast. The recording, direct and pungent but by no means lacking in atmosphere leaves nothing to be desired. "

Frank Martin – Mass for Double Choir & Passacaille: Pizzetti – Messa di Requiem & De Profundis - Choir of Westminster Cathedral/James O’Donnell (Hyperion) ~ Record of the Year and Winner of the Choral Award ".. a work of elevated feeling" which " here receives a moving and eloquent performance. Pizzetti’s Messa di Requiem has been called "the most serene and lyrical of all requiems from Mozart’s to Fauré’s". James draws singing of a rapturous intensity from his Westminster Choir matched by a recording of clarity and warmth… not only as one of the most outstanding issues of the year but also of the decade"

Mompou – Piano Works – Stephen Hough (Hyperion) ~ Winner of the Instrumental Award "..Quiet simplicity and the bare minimum of notes make for a quite extraordinary atmosphere in these amazing miniatures by the Catalan composer, Federico Mompou. Stephen Hough’s imaginative performances penetrate below the surface to reveal the music’s poetic core. On the rare occasions when Mompou is in extrovert mood, Hough is scintillating. This is an hypnotic disc."

Monteverdi – Madrigals, Book 8 - Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini (Opus 111) ~ Winner of the Baroque Vocal Award. "..an astonishing variety of music appears in the last and grandest of the madrigal books Monteverdi published in his lifetime. Concerto Italiano meet this challenge with a quite remarkable range of performance styles. This is ensemble performance on a very high level"

Rameau – Les fętes d’hébé – Les Arts Florissants/William Christie (Erato) ~ Winner of the Early Opera Award Rameau’s Les fętes d’hébé was first performed in 1739 and was an instant success. "..The libretto is nothing to write home about but the level of musical inspiration is consistently high. The dances are always an irresistible element in his operas and Christie makes the most of them with a band that includes a merry section of musettes, pipes and drums. There are beguiling airs and choruses too, evocative and expressive of a range of different moods. None of the subtle nuances are lost on this experienced ensemble and the result is very rewarding"

Rameau – Ouvertures – Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset –(L’Oiseau-Lyre) ~ Winner of the Baroque Non-Vocal Award "..Rameau was an orchestrator of rare and individual genius and his operas, ballets and dramatic entertainments contain some of the most original and alluring dances, overtures and assorted symphonies to emerge from the eighteenth century. This is immensely rewarding music and both Rousset and his international colloquium of instrumentalists prove to be fine exponents of it."

Rossini – Il turco in Italia – Soloists (including Michele Pertusi, Cecilia Bartoli, Alessandro Corbelli, Ramón Vargas) Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan/Riccardo Chailly ~ Bartoli is the most popular mezzo of the day and Riccardo Chailly, a master Rossinian conductor, is Winner of the Artist of the Year Award. "..fiery, subversive and full of passion, running all on impulse, Italian through and through".

Classical Collections

Canciones y Ensaladas – Ensemble Clément Janequin/Dominique Visse (Harmonia Mundi) ~ Winner of the Early Music Award "..ribald, pungent and a lot of fun, this selection of songs and instrumental music from 16th century Spain will put a smile on your face for its sheer theatricality and invention."

The Ladykillers & Other Ealing Films – Royal Ballet Sinfonia/Kenneth Alwyn (Silva Screen) ~ Winner of the Film Music Award.."A collection of film scores that conjure up the comic style that emerged from the Ealing studios."

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