Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - July 2022
Three outstanding world premiere recordings have been dominating my listening this month: Jörg Widmann's song-cycle Das heiße Herz (written for Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber in 2013 and now recorded by Christian Immler and Andreas Frese), Lennox Berkeley's Variations on a Hymn by Orlando Gibbons (commissioned for the fifth Aldeburgh Festival with Peter Pears as soloist and subsequently neglected for decades), and John Frederick Lampe's rollicking burlesque opera The Dragon of Wantley - immensely popular in its day and brought vividly to life here by John Andrews, The Brook Street Band and a cast of fine Handelians who know exactly when to play it straight and when to whoop it up...
John Frederick Lampe: The Dragon of Wantley
Mary Bevan (Margery), Catherine Carby (Mauxalinda), Mark Wilde (Moore of Moore Hall), John Savournin (Gaffer Gubbins/The Dragon), The Brook Street Band, John Andrews
This uproarious send-up of Handelian operatic conventions (transposed to a Yorkshire village and complete with earthy local colloquialisms) works so well because both composer and cast demonstrate are so fully in command of the style that's being satirised; Bevan and Carby have a riot with the coloratura cat-fight 'Insulting gypsy, you're surely tipsy', whilst Wilde delivers the cod-heroics of 'Dragon, to atoms I'll tear thee' (shades of Acis's 'Love sounds the alarm' here) with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek braggadocio.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Colourise
London Choral Sinfonia, Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew Staples (tenor), Elena Urioste (violin), Michael Waldron
The main event here is the world premiere recording of Lennox Berkeley's Variations on a Hymn by Orlando Gibbons, which sank without trace after its Aldeburgh premiere in the 1950s but receives loving rehabilitation here, with Staples bringing Pears-esque plangency to the solo tenor part. And Roderick Williams is at the top of his considerable game in Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs, recorded in the composer's own astute arrangement for voice, choir, piano and strings.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This young American tenor has an arrestingly distinctive voice that's ideally suited to this music - in demand for roles like Belmonte and Ramiro thanks to his flexibility and ease up top, he can also deliver real firepower when necessary, and the range of colours on display here is quite remarkable. Bushakevitz does a wonderful job of conjuring the babbling brooks and finger-cymbals of Deita silvane, and the pair pull off the tricky set of Scottish songs with lusty aplomb.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Even if you're still experiencing Beethoven burnout in the wake of the partially delayed 250th anniversary celebrations, do make time for this: Jurowski delivers one of the most electrifying accounts of the Second Symphony I've heard in recent years, the propulsive energy of the outer movements barely held in check so that the transparent stillness of the Larghetto registers all the more keenly. Upscaled from its original twelve-viola version, Dean's Beethoven-inspired Testament exerts its own uncanny beauty.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Harvey's bright, characterful mezzo and easy, unaffected way with text give constant pleasure in this lovely recital showcasing the breadth of Warlock's style, from the almost Straussian 'Autumn Twilight' to the salty dark humour of 'The Magpie' (later reworked as the rather less salacious 'Yarmouth Fair' due to copyright restrictions). Frederick Howe's folk-song settings dovetail so naturally with the Warlock numbers, often paying obvious homage to the older composer but exerting a straightforward charm of their own.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Games and pleasures' certainly abound in one of the most exuberant, loveable instalments of Antonini's Haydn project to date: the joyous avian cacophony of the Toy Symphony is brilliantly captured by players and mics alike, and the same sense of spontaneity permeates the three full-scale Haydn works, with some especially cheeky interplay between strings and woodwinds in the finale of No. 61.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The selections from Schumann's Harper and Lenau cycles here are beautifully done, with Immler's pleasingly dry timbre and sincerity of delivery proving especially moving in the more introspective songs - but the chief attraction is the title-work by Jörg Widmann, inventive and accessible in equal measure and harking back to works like Dichterliebe whilst throwing Sprechstimme, jazz and cabaret into the mix. It's hard to disagree with Immler's assessment of it as 'among the very greatest song cycles, and not just among those of this century'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
