Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - March 2020
Personal highlights this month include high-octane tales of dark deeds from Stéphane Degout and Simon Lepper (which I was hoping to have heard live at Wigmore Hall last month), a witty and varied collection of living composers’ responses to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations written for and performed by Rudolf Buchbinder, and an imaginative, affectionate tribute to the virtuoso pianist Leopold Godowsky from fast-rising star Andrey Gugnin.
Red in tooth and claw, this macabre collection of Gothic tales is one of the best things I've heard all year: Degout and Lepper spin these ripping yarns to perfection, so that even if you already know what fate has in store for Wolf’s Feuerreiter or Schumann’s Belsatzar the pair will still have you on the edge of your seat. Lepper is especially brilliant in the gypsy flourishes of Liszt’s Die drei Zigeuner, and when Degout’s stentorian Grenadier sings of the burning of his old wound I can’t help but wonder if Wagner’s Amfortas beckons…
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This lovely album brims over with affection, exuberance and inventiveness, not only in the companion-pieces written for Buchbinder by composers including Shchedrin, Brett Dean and Max Richter, but also in the veteran Austrian pianist’s energetic account of Beethoven’s original. Of the new works, Christian Jost’s rambunctious Rock it Rudi and Jörg Widmann’s delicious ‘wrong-note rag’ variation (taking in boogie-woogie and the Radetzsky March along the way) are particular delights.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Liebeck’s lyrical, spacious approach to the Schoenberg concerto should win this still under-recorded work many new fans, and the account of the Brahms (which has similar virtues) also emerges as a serious contender in a much more competitive market: the leisurely orchestral introduction sets the tone for an interpretation that’s refreshingly free from bombast, and the interplay between soloist and principal oboe in the slow movement is particularly beautifully handled here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Before JJ Orliński cornered the market for countertenor acrobatics at Glyndebourne last summer, there was Christophe Dumaux, back-flipping his way through Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare, and the muscular athleticism of his singing on this long-overdue debut solo album comes across just as strongly without the visuals: the moustache-twirling virtuosity of villains like Polinesso and Egeo is tossed off with devil-may-care panache, and it’s a rare treat to hear him as ‘good guys’ such as Bertarido and Cesare, in whose laments he generates sincere, unaffected pathos.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
There’s a wonderfully spontaneous, almost rough-and-ready quality to these performances of five Tartini concertos (three of which are real rarities), which often sound like they’re being improvised after-hours by the band in an Italian taverna: resin flies and rhythms swing in the stomping gigas, whilst the mesmerising siciliana of the first concerto on the album is full of chromatic twists and turns that wouldn’t sound out of place in music written two centuries later.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Many of these pieces composed for the Polish-American virtuoso receive their world premiere recordings here, and I’d venture to say that in lesser hands one or two of the Rachmaninov and Debussy pastiches might outstay their welcome, but the brilliant Russian pianist treats them all like gems: my personal favourites include Theodor Szántó’s bracing Étude Orientale (think Islamey-lite), Joseph Holbrooke’s Gaspard-ish Une nuit ténébreuse, and Ignacy Friedman’s exquisite little music-box-like Tabatière à musique, which you can enjoy in full here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
As so often with Hannigan's albums, this programme’s infinitely more coherent in practice than it appears on paper: the Haydn may look like the odd man out, but in fact the segue from Nono’s hypnotic monologue for solo soprano feels strangely organic, and the performance of the symphony is shot through with the same febrile energy that Hannigan brings to the outer works. The highlight, though, is the haunting Grisey cycle, which received its premiere under the baton of Sir George Benjamin and inhabits a similar orchestral soundscape to his subsequent operas (two of which included bespoke roles for Hannigan).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
