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The 2010s: 25 Great Recordings
As our series of Great Recordings by Decade moves into very recent territory, many of our past Recordings of the Week (and one or two Presto Recordings of the Year) make a reappearance, including John Nelson's stupendous 2017 account of Les Troyens from Strasbourg (a project so garlanded with accolades that we had to reconfigure our product-page!) and Víkingur Ólafsson's mesmerising recital of Rameau and Debussy (which makes the cut by just four months, having been recorded in the summer of 2019).
You can also browse the first five instalments of this series, focusing on the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s; stay tuned for our selections from the 1950s in the coming weeks, and we'll be running a special offer on the whole series as part of our anniversary celebrations towards the end of the month.
The Argentinian countertenor’s laser-beam top notes and prodigious agility quite take the breath away on this programme of showpieces composed for the bad-boy soprano castrato Gaetano Majorano; the blazing martial aria by Gennaro Manna which closes the disc is capped with a stupendous top D, though perhaps the most distinctive feature of his singing is his use of a robust chest-voice that descends well into baritone register. A recording which reset expectations and boundaries for high male voices. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Grażyna Bacewicz’s string quartets seem to hold a mirror up to the upheavals that her native Poland underwent during her career. Studying with Nadia Boulanger in the 1930s, responding to the trauma of the Second World War, bending to government policy under Communist rule while incorporating elements of Western avant-gardism, and ultimately hinting at a partial re-embracing of more conventional structures, these seven uniquely personal statements in music show the Silesian Quartet at the height of their powers. (David Smith)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Everything about this recording just sounds so ‘right’ - the clarity of textures, the beautiful phrasing, the natural and distinct voice-leading and the rhythmic vitality. Murray Perahia’s innate musicianship, completely free of any mannerisms or distractions, demands repeated listening: you never tire or get bored, but hear new and charming subtle details at every turn. (Chris O'Reilly)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Levit's Diabelli Variations brim with exuberance, vitality and often humour, tumbling into one another with unstoppable energy but with such lightning-like shifts of character that the overall experience is exhilarating and exhausting. In the Goldbergs, conversely, there's an almost meditative quality about Levit's playing that borders on the sublime; the sense of catharsis when the aria returns at the close is, for me, more tangible than in any other interpretation I've experienced. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bellini: Norma
Cecilia Bartoli (Norma), Sumi Jo (Adalgisa), John Osborn (Pollione), Michele Pertusi (Oroveso); Orchestra La Scintilla & International Chamber Vocalists, Giovanni Antonini
Bartoli sings Norma entirely on her own terms, without pushing her instrument to emulate any of her illustrious predecessors, and whilst listening to this recording I simply can’t imagine the role sung in any other way. If you don’t already have this opera on disc, this is wholly convincing on its own terms; if you already own and love the Callas, Sutherland or Caballé recordings, it makes for a fascinating contrast. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
George Benjamin: Written on Skin
Christopher Purves (The Protector), Barbara Hannigan (Agnès), Bejun Mehta (First Angel/Boy), Victoria Simmonds (Second Angel/Marie), Allan Clayton (Third Angel/John); Mahler Chamber Orchestra, George Benjamin
Made during the opera's premiere run at Aix-en-Provence in the summer of 2012, this recording captures all of the macabre beauty of one of the most compelling and original new works of the decade, with Hannigan bringing a febrile eroticism and vulnerability to the pivotal role of Agnès, Mehta catching The Boy's strange mixture of sensuality and other-worldliness, and Purves terrifying yet often profoundly sympathetic as The Protector. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Combined with an extraordinary tone and perfect intonation, you can feel the intent and conviction behind every single note that Isabelle Faust plays in these exceptional accounts of the violin concertos by Berg and Beethoven. Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart provide exquisitely sensitive support, ensuring that even the tiniest details of orchestration can be heard clearly. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Berlioz: Les Troyens
Joyce DiDonato (Didon), Michael Spyres (Énée), Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Cassandre); Orchestre et Choeur philharmonique de Strasbourg, Badischer Staatsopernchor, Choeur de l’Opéra du Rhin, John Nelson
The Strasbourg orchestra play out of their boots for Nelson throughout: the entire score glitters, and the woodwind in particular cover themselves in glory. Spyres’s Énee is a revelation – the tremendously taxing role could have been written for him - and the process of working on Didon seems to have unleashed darker colours and a formidable ‘blade’ in DiDonato's silvery mezzo. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded live at Claudio Abbado's final concert on 26th August 2013, this very special performance with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra is magisterial in every way, with sweeping lines and satisfyingly monumental climaxes. The symphony's closing moments are sublime: the strings bring an autumnal glow to their final phrases, and the horns almost suspend time itself as they hold their last chord for what seems like an impossibly long duration. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Víkingur Ólafsson's third album for Deutsche Grammophon is for me his finest, from the sheer virtuosity of works by Rameau such as Le Rappel des Oiseaux, La Rameau, and Les Tourbillons, to an enchanting account of the Prélude from Debussy's cantata, La Damoiselle élue and transcendent, radiant performances of Debussy's Hommage à Rameau and Ólafsson's own arrangement of the Act IV Entrée from Rameau's final opera, Les Boréades. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Donizetti: Les Martyrs
Michael Spyres (Polyeucte), Joyce El-Khoury (Pauline), David Kempster (Sévère), Brindley Sherratt (Félix), Clive Bayley (Callisthènes), Wynne Evans (Néarque); Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sir Mark Elder
The drama fairly leaps out of the speakers on this first-ever complete recording of Donizetti’s 1840 opera, and the cast meet the score’s fearsome vocal demands head-on; Spyres delivers real heroic ring and tremendous facility in the stratosphere and El-Khoury is equally fine as his conflicted wife Pauline, singing with tireless passion and pathos in the substantial dramatic duets with the three men in her life. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Juxtaposing two precursor Requiems that might have served as models for Mozart’s own K626, Vox Luminis take us back in time to Vienna at the turn of the 18th century and present a surprisingly contrasting duo of works. Johann Kerll’s 1689 work represents the personal concerns, emotional and religious, of a composer who was himself approaching the end of his life, and accordingly has moments of great intensity, while Johann Fux’s dark-hued 1701 Kaiserrequiem emphasises the solemn, ceremonial aspects of the liturgy. (David Smith)
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Haydn: The Seasons
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Jeremy Ovenden (tenor), Andrew Foster-Williams (bass), Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Wrocław Philharmonic Choir, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh
Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli have become firm favourites among the Presto team for their series of ambitiously-scaled period performances of well-loved choral masterworks. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of their majestic account of Haydn’s Seasons. The sunrise early in the Summer section is glorious, the storm Beethovenian in its drama, the autumnal hunting scene brought to romping life by the gusto of ten horns, and the concluding “moral”, looking beyond the returning grip of winter towards Divine redemption and renewal, is duly uplifting. (David Smith)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This debut album from John Wilson's newly-formed orchestra, Sinfonia of London, is something of a stunner. He brings a sense of purpose and drive to Korngold's Symphony that is utterly invigorating, never allowing himself to wallow indulgently in the glorious music, but equally refusing to sacrifice any of the weight or profundity in the ardent slow movement. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mendelssohn: Symphonies & Overtures
London Symphony Orchestra, The Monteverdi Choir, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
This is a delightfully sparkling set from John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra, from the infectious joy of the Italian Symphony to the Caledonian swagger of the Scottish. It also includes a dazzling account of the incidental music from A Midsummer Night's Dream, where the bright and breezy Scherzo sits alongside an elegant Nocturne. Even that most familiar of pieces, the Wedding March, sounds fresh in Gardiner's hands. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: 4 SACDs + Blu-ray Audio, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Centring on music from the Scènes d´Enfants and Música Callada, this adorable recital captures the Catalonian composer's warmth, wit and genius as a miniaturist; Volodos clearly loves this music, and plays with an open-hearted sincerity that's entirely beguiling, each piece unfolding with the same sort of improvisatory freedom and grace that have made guitarist Sean Shibe's interpretations of Mompou's music such a winner in recent weeks. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
I must confess that I hadn't fully appreciated just how much the timbres of early twentieth-century instruments differ from their modern counterparts until this revelatory recording came my way back in 2017; the veiled, soft-grained sonorities bring out all the hazy sensuality of Ravel's score. Roth and Les Siècles have delivered equally ear-opening accounts of works by Debussy, Berlioz and Saint-Saëns in the intervening years, but this recording still holds a special place in my heart. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The partnership of Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova and French pianist has produced many fine recordings, perhaps none more so than this 2011 disc of the complete music for violin and piano. The central Blues movement of the Sonata in G major is entertainingly stylish, and the Perpetuum Mobile that follows it shows off the virtuosity of both performers, as does a staggeringly awe-inspiring account of the showpiece Tzigane. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schiff defines Schubert by ‘his modesty, his humility, his lack of ego’; the same qualities are evident in every bar of these performances, which quietly command absolute attention rather than clamouring for it. These are profoundly affecting interpretations born out of a long-term loving relationship with both music and instrument, and ones to which I see myself returning for decades to come. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
There have been many impressive instalments in Andris Nelsons's cycle of Shostakovich symphonies with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but I think this is perhaps the greatest of them all: a roller-coaster-ride of a performance of the Fourth Symphony is coupled with a desolate, ominous account of one of Shostakovich's most austere symphonies, the Eleventh. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Pretty much every single one of the Pavel Haas Quartet's recordings has had a slew of awards thrown at it, and there is arguably none more deserving than this powerful account of Smetana's two quartets. From the impassioned viola solo at the start of the first quartet to the breathlessly ferocious third movement of the second quartet, it's a truly exhilarating album. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Vinci: Artaserse
Philippe Jaroussky (Artaserse), Max Emanuel Cencic (Mandane), Daniel Behle (Artabano), Franco Fagioli (Arbace), Valer Barna-Sabadus (Semira), Yuiry Mynenko (Megabise);Concerto Koln, Diego Fasolis
Vinci’s score is a revelation: there’s something so very distinctive about his raw, red-blooded sound-palette, and he has such imaginative ways with Metastasio’s famous metaphors. Jaroussky’s plangent timbre is ideal for the predominantly lyrical title-role, Cencic sings the 'skirt-role' of Mandane with blazing theatricality, and Franco Fagioli is simply astonishing as the beleaguered Arbace. (Katherine Cooper)
Available Format: 3 CDs
Weinberg: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 21
Gidon Kremer (violin), Kremerata Baltica, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's debut album on Deutsche Grammophon pairs two symphonies by the Polish-born Soviet composer, Mieczysław Weinberg. With Kremerata Baltica she offers a performance of Symphony No. 2 that is bleak and melancholic yet also hopeful and stirring; they join forces with the CBSO to present a haunting account of Weinberg's last completed symphony, intended as a memorial for Holocaust victims from the Warsaw Ghetto. (James Longstaffe)
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
