Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - August 2021
Véronique Gens blazes and beguiles as heroines and anti-heroines from the French baroque, Kit Armstrong explores the legacy of John Bull and William Byrd with boundless energy and imagination, and Iain Burnside and a trio of fine young Irish singers prove compelling guides to the songs of Ina Boyle, who spent most of her live in seclusion in Wicklow.
Ina Boyle: Songs
Paula Murrihy (mezzo), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Ben McAteer (baritone), Iain Burnside (piano)
Recorded in an empty Wigmore Hall last autumn, this is a real box of delights – the Irish composer emerges as a hugely versatile voice and a natural melodist, characterising de la Mare’s ‘Mad Prince’ and E.L. Twiss’s itinerant fiddler with equal aplomb. The real stand-outs, though, are the two lullabies (‘Sleep Song’ and ‘A Mountain Woman Asks for Quiet That Her Child May Sleep’) and the dialogue ‘Have You Heard News of My Boy Jack?’, sung with moving eloquence by Murrihy and McAteer.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A real labour of love from the Norwegian National Opera’s former conductor Terje Boye Hansen, this splendidly-performed collection of seven overtures and two dances made me avid to experience all of these forgotten works in their entirety; highlights include the Sibelius-esque music from Catharinus Elling’s Kosakkene (1894) and the Mendelssohnian overture to Martin Andreas Udbye’s Fredkulla (1859).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Less overtly folk-influenced and more harmonically adventurous than the Lithuanian composer’s first two quartets (which received their world premiere recordings from the same forces last year), these works abound in lyrical beauty and rhythmic vitality and receive incisive, gutsy performances from the Vilnius Quartet who revel in the frequent contrapuntal interplay and soaring lines.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ridout’s own transcription of Schumann’s Dichterliebe comes off wonderfully here, and speaks of a deep understanding of the work’s emotional trajectory which rivals the finest interpreters of the original – his imaginative use of the instrument’s different registers gives the sense that the cycle is being shared out between contrasting voices (a Bostridge-esque tenor for the early songs, a meaty bass-baritone for the more declamatory Im Rhein and Ich grolle nicht), yet everything coheres beautifully.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Inventive, authoritative and often audacious, Armstrong’s mission to showcase the keyboard music of Byrd and Bull in glorious technicolour may raise the hackles of purists, but if you’re not allergic to hearing this repertoire performed on a concert grand you’ll likely find the colour and vitality of these performances impossible to resist. Bull’s Les Buffons is dizzying and dazzling, and there’s plenty of earthy brio in John Come Kiss Me Now and The Maiden’s Song.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
One of the most eclectic (and electrifying) solo projects to emerge from lockdown, this unaccompanied recital sees Croisé extracting every possible sonority from his instrument without ever sounding gimmicky or try-hard; Sollima’s Concerto Rotunda opens the album in a blaze of weird and wonderful glory, and his accounts of the great Ligeti and Kodály sonatas are up there with the finest.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Passion
Véronique Gens (soprano) Ensemble Les Surprises, Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas
Fifteen years on from her first compelling gallery of Tragediennes, Gens remains unparalleled in this repertoire - the voice is as fresh and distinctive as ever, exuding a combination of regal authority and vulnerability which brings Médée, Circée, Armide and company vividly to life. Chorus and orchestra, too, are on scintillating dramatic form, particularly in the tempest from Collasse’s Thétis et Pélée and the inferno from Lully’s Proserpine.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The only things being murdered here are those park-dwelling pigeons – Lehrer’s songs (which he effectively released into the public domain last year) lose none of their acerbic sparkle in these terrific new a cappella arrangements by members of the Windsor-based vocal ensemble and friends, with the interplay between voice-parts providing additional comedy and the pure-toned upper voices lending a deliciously deadpan charm to the sagas of Oedipus, Alma, Agnes et al.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
