Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - November 2022
Personal favourites from November's crop of new releases include orchestral lieder by composer and mathematician Hans Sommer (with a fine line-up of soloists in Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter and Benjamin Appl), a centenary tribute to George Walker from The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, warm and witty Poulenc from the late Bramwell Tovey and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and a searing all-Russian recital from cellist Gabriel Schwabe & pianist Roland Pöntinen.
This is the only full-length album of Walker's orchestral works released to commemorate his centenary (though Washington's National Symphony Orchestra have a cycle of the Sinfonias in progress), and Welser-Möst and the Clevelanders do him proud - ideas come thick and fast in this dense, complex music, but everything's given space to breathe here. Latonia Moore is a luminous, compelling soloist in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lilacs, whilst Tony F. Sias delivers the composer's own powerful texts with authority in the Sinfonia No. 5 (written in response to the Charleston AME Church shooting of 2015).
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Hans Sommer: Orchestral Songs
Mojca Erdmann (soprano), Anke Vondung (mezzo), Mauro Peter (tenor), Benjamin Appl (baritone); Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Guillermo García Calvo
The centenary of Sommer's death this year has prompted a modest but very welcome revival of interest in his songs, the neglect of which can perhaps be accounted for by the fact that his parallel career as a eminent mathematician left him with relatively little time to promote his music. A certain kinship with his friend Richard Strauss can be keenly felt in the orchestration and vocal lines alike (try 'Kennst du das Land' for size), although there are echoes of Mahler's Wunderhorn settings in the four folksy songs from Hunold Singuf, and even a whiff of Wagnerian Magic Fire in the setting of 'Rastlose Liebe'.
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What would turn out to be the British conductor's final recording is a joyous, often deliciously irreverent affair, testifying to his sense of fun and acute ear for orchestral colour: there's something to make you smile in practically every bar of Les Animaux modèles (which really deserves to be as widely known and loved as Saint-Saëns's more popular musical menagerie), and the two short excerpts from Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel are marvellously uproarious.
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The second of two superb interpretations of Schwanengesang to come my way in as many months, this could scarcely be more different from Ian Bostridge's aching, careworn account of the work with the late Lars Vogt, but I can see myself returning to it just as often: firm and even throughout the range, Schuen's virile, oaky baritone is a pleasure in itself, and his broader-brush approach to the text is no less vivid than Bostridge's more pointillistic interpretation.
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This is an absolute treat, delivering everything it promises on paper and more...there's no sense of gilding the lily in Williams's evocative orchestrations, which exude affection and intimate acquaintance with all the repertoire here, but spring many delightful surprises along the way (the grandeur of William Browne's lovely 'To Gratiana, singing and dancing' being one example). If you can listen to his delicate, haunting arrangement of 'The Lads in their Hundreds' without choking up, you're made of sterner stuff than I am...
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Schwabe's big, brawny tone and evident rapport with Pöntinen certainly pack a punch in the opening movements of the Prokofiev and Shostakovich sonatas in particular, but he's just as compelling when thinning his tone down to the merest thread of sound or stepping into the role of accompanist; Kissin's brooding one-movement Cello Sonata from 2016 showcases his ringing upper register, whilst both artists generate an edge-of-the-seat frisson in the hectic passage-work of Prokofiev's early (and under-recorded) Ballade from 1912.
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Don't be fooled by the ultra-serene (and if I'm honest, oddly cultish!) cover-image here: this brilliantly-sung and played programme of sacred and secular Handel includes plenty of vocal fireworks in between the stretches of calm beauty - of which Desandre's 'As with rosy steps' and Davies's 'O Lord whose mercies numberless' stand out. Both singers excel in the excerpts from Semele, with Davies a neurotic, imperious Juno (the first time I've heard a countertenor in this role) and Desandre's bright, athletic mezzo easily encompassing the soprano heroine's stratospheric excursions in 'No, no, I'll take no less'.
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Hughes's pure, clear but supremely expressive soprano is the ideal vehicle for this poignant recital exploring the themes of loss and mourning, which takes its title from a powerful new song-cycle by Watkins setting texts by Rossetti, Dickinson, Yeats, Larkin and Harsent with unflagging imagination and sympathy. The Purcell songs are beautifully done, as are Watkins's performances of astutely-chosen movements from Bach's solo keyboard works, and Errollyn Wallen's radiant 'Peace on Earth' makes for a cathartic closer.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
