BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - December 2020 Choices
Top honours in this month’s issue go to Diana Damrau for her vivid depictions of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Elisabetta with Antonio Pappano, the Orchestra e Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and singers from the Young Artist programme at Rome Opera on Erato; the German soprano impressed Alexandra Wilson with her ‘mixture of vulnerability and fearlessness’ as Maria, and with her ability to capture Anna’s ‘kaleidoscope of emotions’ as she too faces the headsman. You can read my interview with Pappano about his recent conversion to bel canto and his admiration of Damrau’s ‘very sincere and probing’ approach to this repertoire here.
Recording of the Month
Donizetti: The Tudor Queens
Diana Damrau (soprano), Orchestra e Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano
'Damrau, luminous of voice, is surely the perfect exponent of this repertoire: adept at surmounting the music’s technical challenges in its dramatic moments, yet equally capable of exhibiting the tenderness for which these roles call...Pappano coaxes the most delicate and refined of performances from the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Orchestral Choice
Vaughan Williams: Job & Songs of Travel
Neal Davies (baritone), David Adams, Darius Battiwalla; Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder
'Elder’s Hallé are particularly good at catching the strongly English flavour of the work, and its umbilical connections to folk dance. The playing is sharply etched and bristling with confidence...Even if you already own the reference recordings by Boult, Handley and Davis, it has something new to say, and the sound is excellent.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Concerto Choice
'It’s every bit as exciting as the first volume...[No. 4] opens with a pungent fanfare, its colours stemming from jazz-band instrumentation and the absence of orchestral violins. Stephen Waarts plays the solo part with brilliant attack...Eschenbach has a special feeling for this music, and his project is well worth exploring.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera Choice
Puccini: Suor Angelica
María José Siri (Suor Angelica), Anna Maria Chiuri (La zia Principessa), Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Valerio Galli
'Siri, with her rich-hued voice and impeccable sense of line, is outstanding in the role. A superbly naturalistic actor, she is utterly endearing as this naïve innocent whose optimism is constantly crushed. Anna Maria Chiuri is equally convincing as La Zia Principessa: implacable to the last, her voice as dark as her black suit and her ominous mood.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Puccini: Suor Angelica (DVD)
María José Siri (Suor Angelica), Anna Maria Chiuri (La zia Principessa), Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Valerio Galli, Denis Krief
'Krief’s austere, angular, copper-coloured set with barred windows provides an appropriately oppressive ambience. The lack of visual distraction ensures our attention is firmly focused where it needs to be: on the tense emotional psychodrama at the heart of what is arguably Puccini’s most devastating work.'
Available Format: DVD Video
Puccini: Suor Angelica (Blu-ray)
María José Siri (Suor Angelica), Anna Maria Chiuri (La zia Principessa), Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Valerio Galli, Denis Krief
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Picture format: 1080i60
Available Format: Blu-ray
Choral & Song Choice
'In her latest recording, Barton shows that she is a dab hand at contemporary repertoire and artistry on a more intimate scale...Throughout this recital, Barton and Heggie move seamlessly from the dramatic (‘Ice Cube Aria’ from the opera If I were you) to the droll (‘Once Upon a Universe’ in Of Gods and Cats), the mezzosoprano’s tone clear as a bell.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber Choice
Shostakovich: Piano Quintet & Seven Romances of Alexander Blok
Trio Wanderer, Ekatarina Semenchuk (mezzo-soprano), Catherine Montier (violin), Christophe Gaugué (viola)
'A performance that is comprehensively responsive to the various different strands in the work. In a relatively unmannered interpretation, the Wanderers negotiate the Quintet’s complex narrative with total conviction...The individual members of Trio Wanderer capture the cycle’s contrasting moods of despair, passion, violence, mystery and gentle lyricism with playing of magnetic power and imagination.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Instrumental Choice
'Farr has plotted a course through it all that makes for an alluringly cogent recital...[He] makes light work of [the Toccata's] formidable challenges, powering purposefully through with dauntless bravura and pungent characterisation...It all shows off the superb Rieger organ of St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh to thrilling effect...Resonus has done MacMillan proud.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Screen Choice
Alexandre Desplat: Airlines
Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Myriam Lafargue (accordion), Florentino Calvo (mandolin); Orchestre National de France, Alexandre Desplat
'The virtuosic Airlines and the sprawling tone poem Pelléas et Mélisande prove Desplat to be a composer with something to offer beyond the cinema screen...[but] it's the film suites that truly capture the imagination. While there’s joy to be had in the sheer familiarity of the hummable themes, Desplat’s ability to capture the heart of film stories is made clear, and they are stories he retells here with great flair and abundant musicality.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Jazz Choice
'Hamasyan is a jazz fusion phenomenon...This fourth album for Nonesuch renews Hamasysan’s commitment to his home culture, and densely packed compositions incorporate Armenian modes into fiery, sometimes bewildering, improvisation across 10 tracks...File under F for fantastic, in both senses of the word.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
