Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - March 2022
Personal favourites from March include a white-hot recital of Rachmaninov songs from Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian and Lukas Geniušas, four vivid orchestral works by American composer James Lee III from Marin Alsop and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, a brace of riveting new commissions from Manchester Camerata, and a macabre but mesmerising 'Celebration of Life in Death' from Anna Prohaska and La Folia Barockorchester.
The white-hot charisma which the Lithuanian soprano brings to roles like Salome and Jenůfa registers just as forcefully in the studio as it does on stage, to the extent that every one of these songs really does feel like an opera in miniature - and Geniušas matches her for sheer magnetism at every turn (check out the postlude of What Happiness for a taster). Despite the short running-time (just 45 minutes) it's very hard to feel short-changed - such is the intensity of the performances that you may well need a lie down after that anyway...
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fanny Hensel & Felix Mendelssohn: Arias, Lieder, Overtures
Chen Reiss (soprano), Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, Daniel Grossmann
Fanny Hensel's songs shine brighter than ever here, clad in idiomatic new orchestrations by Tal-Haim Samnon - Die Mainacht and Die frühen Gräber are served especially well, as are the sunlit uplands of Italien - but the real discovery here is the cantata Hero & Leander, which rivals 'Ozean du Ungeheuer' from Weber's Oberon for sea-spray-flecked drama. Reiss is fully equal to its considerable technical demands, her lightish soprano acquiring the necessary edge to cut through the hefty orchestration and cresting the numerous high Cs with apparent ease.
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Among the highlights on this collection of works commissioned for the Manchester-based chamber ensemble are Mark-Anthony Turnage's unsettling Black Milk (a setting of Paul Celan's Todesfuge, where jazz singer Ian Shaw's grainy vocals are appropriately curdling) and Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade’s mesmerising, virtuosic sitar concerto Patdeep Studies. The pearl, though, is Alissa Firsova's Songs of the World, shot through with whispers of Korngold and Berg, and sung with beguiling, Barbara Hannigan-ish sensuality by soprano Daisy Brown - let's hear more from her on record soon, please.
(Songs of the World is only included on the digital version of the album, but the CD comes with a code to access a free download).
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The Michigan-born composer (b.1975) emerges as a master orchestrator and story-teller on this superbly-played collection of four large-scale symphonic works. A Different Soldier's Tale (based on his grandfather's experiences in World War II and moving from tense vigilance to terror to jubilant relief) lingered longest in my memory, but everything here is immensely evocative and engaging - and further investigation proved that his piano works are equally worth checking out...
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
It's so good to hear the Irish bassoonist and conductor taking the spotlight for a full-length album as soloist here, following several collaborative programmes where his cameo appearances shone out; he brings such genial humour and cantabile beauty to the Bassoon Concerto, and he and Bezuidenhout have a ball with the K292 sonata (where the latter indulges in some deliberately clod-hopping flourishes to witty effect in the finale). The Serenade, too, is beautifully done by the Marsyas winds, with some especially fine horn-playing in the outer movements.
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The opening Dies Irae, with Prohaska intoning with hieratic fervour over a drone bass, may suggest that we're in for a pretty gloomy hour, but thereafter there's plenty of edgy vitality on this eclectic recital which spans eight centuries and only slightly fewer countries: Tunder's Ach Herr, lass deine lieben Engelein and Graupner's Die Krankheit, so mich drückt are the most substantial works on the album, but miniatures such as Purcell's Since the Pox or the Plague (delivered with manic gallows-humour) and a grave, touching account of Eleanor Rigby pack no less of a punch.
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This imaginative, scrupulously-researched programme of concertos, sacred and secular arias and folk-songs paints a vivid picture of the diversity of musical life in the English capital during the eighteenth century, with Gaillard switching easily from fluid elegance in the Porpora and Cirri concertos to something much more down-and-dirty in the rumbustious tavern-songs and dances. There are some ravishing vocal contributions too, not least a delectable account of Handel's What Passion Cannot Music Raise and Quell from Portuguese soprano Raquel Camarinha.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
