Quatuor Ebène and Antoine Tamestit's new recording of Mozart's String Quintets K515 & K516 take the top honours this month, with reviewer Richard Wigmore observing that 'no detail of Mozart’s miraculous inner part-writing escapes the ear...as ever, they make you aware of the vocal nature of Mozart’s inspiration'.
Editor's Choices include Isabelle Faust's 'glorious' account of Stravinsky's Violin Concerto with François-Xavier Roth and the period instruments of Les Siècles (which Edward Seckerson likens to 'having one’s ears freshly syringed'!) on Harmonia Mundi, Benjamin Grosvenor's 'unerringly alert' interpretation of Schumann's Kreisleriana on Decca, and Rosalind Ventris's 'consistently impressive' recital of music for solo viola by women composers on Delphian.
Recording of the Month
Mozart: String Quintets K515 & K516
Quatuor Ebène, Antoine Tamestit (viola)
'While it’s always dangerous to nominate an outright ‘winner’ in this inexhaustible music, the Ébène are second to none in colour and vitality, and unrivalled in their lyrical tenderness. For me they become a new benchmark.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Editor's Choices
'For Dupree, it’s a jog in the park. The fluency and rhythmic élan on display throughout this disc are the kind that make you smile and shake your head in disbelief.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto & Chamber Works
Isabelle Faust (violin), François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles
'Three-dimensional – with a startling inner clarity and rhythmic keenness that brings if off the page in ways you couldn’t imagined.'
Available format: Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Busch: Chamber Works
Dimitri Vecchi (flute) Sarastro Quartett
'You will be hard-pressed (or fortunate) to make a lovelier chamber-music discovery this year.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 16 bit)
JS Bach: Clavichord
András Schiff (clavichord)
'As with his previous period-instrument ventures, Schiff opens up a new world and thoroughly adjusts his temperament, his ‘pianism’ and his artistry to it.'
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Schumann & Brahms
Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
'All in all, this is an album that reaffirms Grosvenor’s status as one of the most accomplished pianists around.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Chopin: Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3
Rafał Blechacz
'Blechacz is simply a great Chopin player...robust, intense and heartfelt performances that engage you as a great actor might in some dramatic monologue.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Romeo & Juliet: Tchaikovsky on the Piano
Yevgeny Sudbin (piano), with Bella Sudbin (piano)
'[In the Glinka], and in the Romeo and Juliet Overture, Sudbin’s capacity for quasi-orchestral texturing and digital aerobatics is perfectly showcased: scintillating, and then some.'
Available format: SACD
Sola: Music for Viola by Women Composers
Rosalind Ventris (viola)
'With sound that brings out the full timbral and expressive range of the musician’s playing, this adds up to a consistently impressive statement of intent.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
DVD/Blu-ray of the Month
Mascagni: L'amico Fritz
Salome Jicia (Suzel), Charles Castronovo (Fritz), Teresa Iervolino (Beppe), Massimo Cavalletti (Davide); Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Riccardo Frizza, Rosetta Cucchi
'Cucchi evokes a lively society, never overstated, of friendship and good cheer...Frizza controls the ebb and flow in masterly fashion. The whole thing is very nicely done.'
Available format: DVD Video
Reissue/Archive Issue of the Month
'[The Kodály is] truly sensational: impassioned, almost confessional-sounding in the slower music, with a top-speed, dazzlingly brilliant finale that conjures whirling dervishes.'
Available format: CD
