Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - May 2020
Some personal favourites from this month's releases include Amy Beach's glorious Piano Quintet of 1907 from Garrick Ohlsson and the Takács Quartet on Hyperion, a sensitively-staged Zemlinsky rarity from Berlin, and an infinitely touching recital centring on Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen from Ilker Arcayürek and Fiona Pollard on CAVI.
At 32, this commanding Welsh singer has already established herself as one of the finest Tatyanas and Lisas around, and her affinity with Slavic repertoire is equally in evidence on this thrilling debut recital-album, which showcases her big, bright, appealingly gritty soprano and visceral dramatic gifts to perfection. Valešová, a guiding light for so many of today’s singers in this repertoire, is equally arresting, especially in the Rachmaninov songs.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
There’s a touch of the very young Jonas Kaufmann about this wonderful Turkish-Austrian tenor, though the sound is marginally brighter and more ‘forward’; Mahler’s Wayfarer songs, sung with plangency and disarming emotional candour, are worth the price of the album alone, but it’s fascinating to hear them alongside unexpected bedfellows like Liszt and Léhar and in particular the Serbians Miloje Milojević and Stevan Hristić.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ichmouratov: Symphony 'On the ruins of an Ancient Fort' & Overtures
Orchestre de la Francophonie, Jean-Philippe Tremblay
Listening ‘blind’, I’d have sworn that most of these colourful, melodically memorable orchestral works dated from the first half of the twentieth century, though in fact everything here’s less than a decade old: listen out for cheeky homages to Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance, Fučík’s Entry of the Gladiators and Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812, and whispers of Rossini and Miklós Rózsa.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet of 1907 was a new discovery for me, and Ohlsson and the Takács do it proud: following a shimmering, almost Ravel-ish opening (the stark octaves in the strings immaculately tuned here), the first movement springs into muscular, athletic life, and the substantial central Adagio boasts one of the loveliest melodies that’s come my way in a long while. Ohlsson, quite closely recorded, knows exactly when to take centre stage and when to recede, and the strings emulate the brawn of an entire section when required.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Adès’s understated but hugely engaged and engaging playing on last year’s recording of Winterreise with Ian Bostridge was a welcome reminder of what a wonderful pianist this eminent composer is, and his Janáček shares many of the same virtues: his clarity of voicing, rhythmic precision and ability to summon such a range of colours that you’d swear he was switching between different instruments in the blink of an eye illuminate this ‘overgrown path’ to perfection.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Somervell’s settings of Housman have been somewhat eclipsed by Butterworth’s cycle from seven years later, but I’ve had a soft spot for the directness and character of this alternative Shropshire Lad ever since hearing a friend perform it in a student recital fifteen years ago; Williams’s unfussy eloquence brings it movingly to life here, with Allan conjuring the ‘soldiers’ tread’ of the young conscripts and the pealing bells of Bredon quite wonderfully.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
It was thanks to the music of Leonardo Vinci (specifically Virgin Classics’s tremendous recording of his Artaserse, back in 2012) that I first discovered the remarkable voice of Franco Fagioli, and what a treat it is to have an entire album dedicated to this inventive, prolific Neapolitan. The album’s unusually light on bravura for a Fagioli project, showcasing instead Vinci’s gift for long-lined melody and pastoral word-painting, with Medo’s Sento due fiamme a particular highlight, and some ravishing obbligatos from Il Pomo d’Oro’s winds.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Zemlinsky: Der Zwerg
Elena Tsallagova (Donna Clara), Emily Magee (Ghita), David Butt Philip (Der Zwerg), Mick Morris Mehnert (Der Zwerg - actor), Philipp Jekal (Don Estoban); Deutsche Oper Berlin, Donald Runnicles, Tobias Kratzer (director)
On one of our last trips to the theatre before lockdown a friend of mine remarked that if he never saw another smartphone-fixated opera production again it would still be too soon, but I venture that Tobias Kratzer’s astute, moving contemporary staging of Zemlinsky’s 1922 one-acter centring on self-image and discrimination would prove the exception; Elena Tsallagova is marvellously unsympathetic as the brittle, Instagram-famous Princess, whilst British tenor David Butt Philip and actor Mick Morris Mehnert collaborate to powerful, ultimately agonising effect as the open-hearted but maligned Dwarf gifted to her as a birthday-present.
Available Format: DVD Video
Zemlinsky: Der Zwerg (Blu-ray)
Elena Tsallagova (Donna Clara), Emily Magee (Ghita), David Butt Philip (Der Zwerg), Mick Morris Mehnert (Der Zwerg - actor), Philipp Jekal (Don Estoban) Deutsche Oper Berlin, Donald Runnicles, Tobias Kratzer (director)
Picture Format: HD 16:9
Sound Format: PCm Stereo and DTS 5.1
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
