Editor's Choices include a Schubert album with 'a meant-to-be quality' from Sandrine Piau and Quatuor Psophos on Alpha Classics, a 'splendid' account of Saint-Saëns's final opera L'Ancêtre from Kazuki Yamada in Monte-Carlo (with a cast headed by Jennifer Holloway and Gaëlle Arquez) on Bru Zane, and 'myriad delights' from Javier Perianes in an all-Scarlatti programme on Harmonia Mundi.
Recording of the Month
Purcell: Dido & Aeneas
Joyce DiDonato (Dido), Michael Spyres (Aeneas), Fatma Said (Belinda), Beth Taylor (Sorceress), Hugh Cutting (Spirit), Laurence Kilsby (Sailor), Alena Dantcheva and Anna Piroli (Witches); Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev
'DiDonato mines the character development of Dido, exploring all her emotions with relish..Emelyanychev draws a diverse range of instrumental colours from Purcell's score.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Editor's Choices
Bliss: Cello Concerto
Guy Johnston (cello), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze
'Guy Johnston cuts a dashingly articulate figure, and he generates a nourishing rapport with Andrew Manze and a meticulously prepared RLPO.'
Available format: Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Nielsen: Clarinet Concerto, Helios & Symphony No. 5
Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
'There's nothing generalised about Edward Gardner's response to Carl Nielsen's distinctive idiom... listeners will be struck most forcibly by the ebullience, clarity and flow of the music-making.'
Available formats: SACD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
JS Bach: Sonatas For Violin and Continuo
Isabelle Faust (violin), Kristin von der Goltz (cello), Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord)
'Throughout this programme, we are treated to Bach duo-playing of exemplary engagement and purring quality.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Love and Loss
Rudersdal Chamber Players
'Throughout this programme, the Rudersdal Chamber Players convey an empathy that could only result from close familiarity...admirers of both these composers will need little encouragement.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Scarlatti
Javier Perianes (piano)
'The subtle inflections and pointed left-hand accentuations that Javier Perianes brings to the D major Kk491 that opens this album foreshadow the myriad delights up ahead.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Echoes of Exile
Sueye Park (violin)
'If we needed any further proof that Sueye Park's intellectual programming muscles as are as strongly supple as her physical ones, her fifth album for BIS, for solo violin, firmly settles it.'
Available format: SACD
Monteverdi: Il Sesto Libro de Madrigali
Rossoporpora, Walter Testolin
'Testolin manages [the] changes of textures smoothly. In his hands, this last book of completely polyphonic madrigals has a dreamlike quality that matches many of their pastoral overtones.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 24 bit)
Schubert: Quintette Imaginaire
Sandrine Piau (soprano), Quatuor Psophos
'Her clear, precise voice, musical intelligence and relationship with language were made for this composer...these transcriptions by composer Jacques Gandard work so well that the album has a meant-to-be quality.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Saint-Saëns: L'Ancêtre
Jennifer Holloway (Nunciata), Gaëlle Arquez (Vanina), Hélène Carpentier (Margarita), Julien Henric (Tébaldo), Michael Arivony (Raphaël), Matthieu Lécroart (Bursica) Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo, Kazuki Yamada
'Yamada is attentive to detail and the playing of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo is splendid...A fine addition to Bru Zane's Saint-Saëns catalogue.'
Available formats: CD + Book, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Video Choice
Doppelgänger
Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Helmut Deutsch (piano), Claus Guth (director)
'Staged song-cycles can literalise what is usually conveyed through the art of suggestion and can confine meaning to a single viewpoint. Not here...Kaufmann is fuelled by freedom of physical movement and specific dramatic purpose.'
Available format: CD + DVD Video
