Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - September 2022
September always provides rich pickings indeed in terms of new releases, and narrowing the field to a mere eight recordings has been quite the challenge this month...But absolute stand-outs from the past few weeks for me have included an irresistible Coleridge-Taylor anthology from Chineke!, a dazzling all-French programme from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under their dynamic new Music Director Domingo Hindoyan, and a Schwanengesang for the ages from Ian Bostridge and Lars Vogt (who died last month aged just 51).
Chineke! play out of their boots on this marvellous collection showcasing the breadth of Coleridge-Taylor's imagination and his gift for orchestration, from the evocative incidental music for a 1912 production of Othello to the Hollywood-esque Ballade in A minor and the lighter, occasionally slightly Impressionist Petite Suite de Concert from 1910, which closes with a tarantella of disarming grace. Urioste is a commanding soloist in the expansive Violin Concerto, composed for Maud Powell in the final year of Coleridge-Taylor's short life.
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With razor-sharp ensemble, fabulously detailed textures and a keen awareness of the dance impulses driving much of the music here, this debut recording from Domingo Hindoyan suggests that he's already absolutely at home with his new orchestra: the many tempo-changes in Debussy's Jeux feel absolutely organic rather than micro-managed, Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane packs some real gut-punches, and the Faun's Afternoon has rarely sounded so unashamedly sensual. I can't wait to hear what he'll do next...
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Extending up to an easy high D (and he has more in reserve above that!), the Brazilian male soprano's voice is an extraordinary instrument, with never a hint of strain up top and plenty of colour in the middle and lower regions. The flurries of stratospheric staccatos in arias by Vivaldi, Galuppi and Piccinni are executed with audacious ease, but de Sá is no mere canary: he has a real gift for declamatory drama and pathos as well as for pyrotechnics, and sounds fully inside every character in this recital of Italian baroque rarities.
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Bach and Platti are seamlessly interwoven with music from Selaocoe's native South Africa to form a rich and unique tapestry on this arresting, unmissable debut album, which sees him exploiting virtually every sonic possibility his instrument can offer (try Zawose, where Selaocoe imitates the Tanzanian zeze) as well as serving powerful expressive vocals and percussion along the way. The exuberant Qhawe ('Hero') and the closing Ancestral Affirmations stand out, but everything here exudes charisma and conviction.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Belgian soprano's small but perfectly-formed voice really does glitter in this constellation of forgotten French operatic gems, all of them associated with her compatriot Marie Cabel - and there's more than enough light and shade in terms of both timbre and repertoire to ensure that the dazzle never becomes relentless. I loved Elizabeth I's lament over a drunken Shakespeare from Thomas's Le songe d'une nuit d'été and the rousing call-to-arms from Halévy's Jaguarita l'Indienne, and there's a lovely opportunity to hear Auber's Manon emerge from the shadows of Massenet and Puccini...
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Weinberg: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 7
Kirill Gerstein (harpsichord), Marie-Christine Zupancic (flute), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
This successor to the much-garlanded recording of Symphonies Nos. 2 and 21 from the same forces proves absolutely worth the wait: the weird and wonderful Seventh Symphony surprises at every turn, kicking off with a neo-Baroque-meets-jazz harpsichord solo and showcasing the full might of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie strings in the Shostakovich-esque scherzo. The Third, with its eerie klezmer-ish violin solos and nods to folk dances, may call to mind Mahler for some listeners, though Weinberg's voice is always very much his own.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The fact that this wonderful recording would be the German pianist's own swansong renders an already deeply affecting interpretation almost unbearably poignant in places (Ständchen and Der Doppelgänger in particular may prove a difficult listen in context) - but there's joy and ebullience too, as Vogt conjures spring in especially vernal glory and bids a smiling farewell to the pleasures of Die Stadt. His chemistry with Bostridge (in superb, virile voice throughout) is writ large in every phrase - how grateful I am that such a special meeting of musical minds was preserved on disc.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
I adored the first instalment of baroque songs and dances with a spit-and-sawdust twist from these freewheeling Norwegian musicians, and its successor - focusing on the Restoration theatre rather than the tavern, though the atmosphere of boozy disinhibition remains - is no less intoxicating. Highlights include a rumbustious set of sea-shanties, some rollicking reels, and an aria from Dido and Aeneas as you've never heard it before - I'd love them to give the whole opera the same treatment...
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
