Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - May 2021
Personal favourites from May's new releases include a voluptuous vulpine tall tale from John Wilson and Sinfonia of London, a vivid Roman rogue's gallery from mezzo Kate Lindsey and Arcangelo, a luminous recital of rediscovered songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor from Elizabeth Llewellyn and Simon Lepper, and an enormously likeable 'Hero's Life' from Sir Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Dutilleux: Le Loup
Adam Walker (flute), Juliana Koch (oboe), Jonathan Davies (bassoon); Sinfonia of London, John Wilson
Listening to this shimmeringly sexy, deliciously macabre account of Dutilleux’s 1953 ballet about an unfaithful bridegroom who claims lycanthropy as an excuse for jilting his wife-to-be, it’s difficult to fathom why the piece isn’t better known and loved: think Ravel’s Ma mère l'Oye shot through with echoes of Peter and the Wolf. The strings are particularly magical in the Boudoir and Forest episodes, and flautist Adam Walker (who also shines in Kenneth Hesketh’s orchestration of the Sonatine for flute) contributes some beguiling solos.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Heart & Hereafter: Collected songs of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Elizabeth Llewellyn (soprano), Simon Lepper (piano)
Llewellyn’s debut recording has been well worth the wait, both in terms of programming and execution: her big, richly-coloured lyric soprano and mature artistry do full justice to this glorious programme of songs by the Anglo-African composer, from the casual, cabaretesque charm of ‘Big Lady Moon’ to the expansive intensity of ‘Thou art risen, my beloved’ (setting a feverish text by Radclyffe Hall). The folk-inspired African Romances are also beautifully done, illustrating why Coleridge-Taylor was compared to Mahler in contemporary reviews.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The eponymous tyrant here is Nero (whom Lindsey’s portrayed onstage in several incarnations), and the American mezzo captures every facet of the emperor’s frighteningly mercurial personality, particularly in the world premiere recording of Scarlatti’s astonishing La Morte di Nerone in which the ghosts of his victims materialise before him. She’s scarcely less compelling as the ill-fated women in his life (Agrippina and Poppea) - but the stand-out is the flagrantly erotic duet with Lucano from Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, her breathless exchanges with Andrew Staples barely Safe For Work.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben & Burleske
Bertrand Chamayou (piano), Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano
The composer-hero emerges as unusually grounded (though crucially never earth-bound) from the very first phrases of this loveable, refreshingly unbombastic Heldenleben, thanks to Pappano’s spacious tempi and the broad, generous sweep of the Santa Cecilia strings; there’s a thrilling edge to the brass in the battle-scene, and leader Roberto Gonzales-Monjas is ideally capricious and beguiling in his depiction of Strauss’s wife Pauline. And Chamayou’s deft, exuberant pianism in the early Burleske is a joy.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This lovely programme of works by Debussy, Messager, Widor, Rabaud, Poulenc and Saint-Saëns is the perfect companion for an early summer’s evening: though several of the works here were written as competition-pieces for the Paris Conservatoire, everything feels like real chamber-music rather than display-vehicles, with Collins and Ogawa bringing bags of poise and wit to the entire programme. Poulenc’s tiny Sonata for Two Clarinets (for which Collins is joined by Sérgio Pires) is such fun that I found myself wishing it was at least four times longer.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Taking in music by Luzzaschi, Frescobaldi, Rossi, Bull and others, Rondeau’s cosmopolitan Anatomy of Melancholy has all the pathos and elegance which the title suggests - but there’s fire in the belly too, notably in the rumbustious Picchi dances and the majestic account of Sweelinck’s large-scale Fantasia Chromatica, where he summons an almost organ-like range of sonorities from his modern replica of an eighteenth-century Italian harpsichord.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Newly-weds Anna Fedorova and Nicholas Schwartz are clearly having a ball here as they repurpose violin, viola and cello repertoire for double-bass, and it’s impossible not to be swept along by the sheer joie de vivre of their playing; Schubert’s Arpeggione and Bloch’s ‘Prayer’ (From Jewish Life) really sing under Schwartz’s hands, with not so much as a hint of murkiness resulting from the downward transposition, and the final ‘Gato’ from Cinco canciones populares argentinas sweeps all before it.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
