Category Choices include a Four Seasons with 'panache and personality' (plus narration from Sir Michael Morpurgo) from Daniel Pioro and Manchester Camerata on Platoon, a 'glorious compilation' of Bach, Brahms, Busoni and Reger from Kazakh pianist Samson Tsoy on Linn, and the world premiere of Nigerian-American composer Shawn E. Okpebholo's Songs in Flight (a tribute to enslaved people who fled their captors in North America, drawing on the Freedom on the Move database at Cornell University) on Cedille.
Recording of the Month
'Perhaps the major discovery is the Violin Concerto by the exiled Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik...Quite simply, Kopatchinskaja lives and breathes every note, enabling her and the excellent Camerata Bern to invest the music with a spellbinding variety of colours, dynamics and timbres.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Orchestral Choice
'The engineering abets the peerless attention to detail, always his greatest asset; every dynamic, every sonority is in place...the best way possible to celebrate what is, unbelievably, Rattle's 70th birthday.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Concerto Choice
'This release successfully captures the excitement and vitality of live performance. Pioro’s welcome interpretation oozes with panache and personality, serving also as a benchmark for 21st-century attitudes to this canonical repertoire. Bravo!'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Opera & Stage Choice
Vivaldi: Arsilda
Benedetta Mazzucato (Arsilda), Vasilisa Berzhanskaya (Lisea), Marie Lys (Mirinda), Shira Patchornik (Nicandro), José Coca Loza (Cisardo), Nicolò Balducci (Barzane), Leonardo Cortellazzi (Tamese); La Cetra Basel, Andrea Marcon
'Vivaldi actually reserves his most highly charged music for the more complex character of Lisea, ardently sung here by mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya who draws on an expressive palette of colours to paint the wide-ranging part.'
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Choral & Song Choice
Shawn E. Okpebholo: Songs in Flight
Iwona Glinka (flute), Rhiannon Giddens (folk singer), Reginald Mobley (countertenor), Will Liverman (baritone), Karen Slack (soprano), Paul Sánchez (piano), Violina Petrychenko (piano), Anna Bura, Maryna Hromadska, Silviia Fudela (violin)
'Never sentimental and sometimes forceful, Okpebholo’s imaginative score of ten simmers with sharp dissonance but also draws on elements of folk, lullaby, protest song and spiritual... The performances are equally outstanding.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Chamber Choice
'Musical lines pass in a single, continuous breath from one instrument to the next, and the sensual, dreamlike soundscapes are tinged with immaculately drawn moments of both despair and joy. An alluring and, in time, vintage recording.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Instrumental Choice
'It is indeed a glorious compilation, benefiting hugely from Tsoy's magic keyboard touch : the tenth Chorale Prelude, Herzlich tut mich verlangen, opens in a luxuriously warm glow. And the album’s centrepiece, the Handel Variations, held me spellbound.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Jazz Choice
The Moment Of Truth: Ella At The Coliseum
Ella Fitzgerald, with Jimmy Jones, Bob Cranshaw, Sam Woodyard, The Ellington band
'It’s all here: the flawless diction balanced with heartfelt emotion, the effortless range and flow, and the natural warmth and character of her voice that allowed her to make any song her own without pulling it to pieces, even when deploying her legendary scatting and impromptu lyrical tinkering.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Archive Choice
The Korngold Symphony
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (piano), Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, John Mauceri
'[Korngold plays] a piano version of his only Symphony from 1952, in a private recording perhaps intended as a guide for conductors...Flawed but fascinating, this is a unique insight into Korngold’s musical intent.'
Available Format: 2 CDs
