Fantastic international reviews of Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos recording!

Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos recording received several enthusiastic reviews in the last months. You can read three of those fantastic international reviews below.

La Scena Musicale ★★★

Not to be heard at a single sitting, these are fabulous miniatures for large orchestra – if such a thing is possible – a set of short stories spread across two discs. I’m not advocating plagiarism, but any film composer with a John Williams complex would get a new lease of life from listening to this tone master at work. Pascal Rophé conducts a surprisingly agile Belgian band.

By Norman Lebrecht





The New York Times

What the album makes immediately apparent is that Mr. Dusapin – like his teacher, Iannis Xenakis, as well as modern composers like Harrison Birtwistle and Magnus Lindberg – has an exceptional knack for yoking and shaping the raw power of massed orchestral forces. (…) Mr. Rophé and his Belgian players do superb work, and the recording is thrillingly dynamic.

By Steve Smith


The International Record Review

Although these pieces were premièred by several notable orchestras and conductors, their entrusting to the Liège orchestra should surprise no one given the sheer responsiveness of its players to the composer’s exacting demands, while the authority of Pascal Rophé is evident at every stage. Those who know the second and third pieces in Emmanuel Krivine’s expert recording will find the present accounts an audible advance. The sound makes the most of the Salle Philharmonique’s fabled sense of perspective, and there are detailed notes from Dusapin himself. The opportunity to hear the whole sequence being unlikely, a recording as fine as this ensures that a major undertaking by one of today’s most significant composers can be more fully appreciated.

By Richard Whitehouse

Bertrand Chamayou and the Quatuor Diotima reviewed by the New Yorker!

Bertrand Chamayou plays Franck

“In another naïve disk, the up-and-coming French pianist Bertrand Chamayou takes up an even greater challenge – the music of César Franck (1822-90), the composer whom people love to hate. Belgian-born, and with a German mother, Franck was the principal entry point for the influence of Liszt and Wagner during the early years of the Third Republic. Chamayou’s straightforward but stylish and invigorating accounts of such bedrock works as the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, and the Symphonic Variations (the latter offered with the dynamic accompaniment of Stéphane Denève and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) suggest that perhaps a legacy of heavy-handed performances, rather than the music itself, has limited Franck’s appeal.”

The Quatuor Diotima plays Onslow

“The notion that any substantial German influence could affect France’s triumphant achievements in art, fashion, and cuisine would be, well, incroyable. But music, the relatively weaker sibling, has always been more susceptible to developments across the Rhine. It was George Onslow (1784-1853), the son of a transplanted English nobleman, who first gave France a serious chamber-music repertory – with the help of Beethoven, whose late quartets, performed in Paris in 1828, had a galvanizing effect on Onslow’s String Quartets Op. 54-56, newly recorded by the Quatuor Diotima (Naïve). These surprisingly powerful works, heard in suave and energetic performances, reveal a composer who combined a mastery of thematic development and chromatic harmony with a lightness of touch – and a bold, operatic lyricism – that remains utterly French.”

By Russell Platt

 You can also read the reviews on the New Yorker’s website.

All you always wanted to know about Christophe Rousset!

Ahead of his performance of Handel’s Semele at the Barbican last night, Christophe Rousset was interviewed by Dominic McHugh for the MusicalCriticism website.

Below are a few extracts from the interview:

One of the most versatile musicians of today, Christophe Rousset divides his time between such varied activities as conducting, researching new scores to perform and playing the harpsichord. (…)
This season, Rousset has conducted productions of Handel's Semele in Brussels and Paris, and he will bring the Paris cast to London's Barbican on Thursday for a concert performance. The soloists include Danielle de Niese and Vivica Genaux, and it promises to be a superb occasion. I took the opportunity to catch up with Rousset on the eve of that appearance to ask him about the piece, as well as his plans for the twentieth anniversary of Les Talens Lyriques next season.

Handel’s Semele

We begin with Semele. Rousset has commented on the 'sumptuous beauty' of the score. Does he read this sensuality as a subversion of the oratorio genre (which Handel was forced to associate with the piece), or as a successful attempt to blend aspects of both opera and oratorio? 'Surely if Handel calls Semele an oratorio, it is not in the sense of sacred music,' Rousset explains. 'To my mind, it is less of a subversion but more an attempt to blend opera to the new pattern which he felt compelled to adopt - an oratorio in the sense of a concert version of an opera. In reality, Congreve's libretto was meant to have been an opera. Only the choruses were added. And with the choruses and their large, almost Germanic architectural style, Handel was inspired by his own sacred music. The sensuality of Semele's music is a fact but this sacred music is not more controversial than sacred images in Rome such as Bernini's Ecstasy of Santa Teresa!'

Les Talens Lyriques

Next season sees the twentieth anniversary of Les Talens Lyriques. What was his goal when he established the group, and has he achieved what he hoped to? 'My goal in setting up Les Talens Lyriques was to rediscover the forgotten masterpieces of composers who wrote at the same time as Haendel and Mozart or to revisit the classics of composers such as Monteverdi and Cavalli. Les Talens Lyriques have achieved more than I ever hoped for in exploring so much undiscovered music. And having Decca publish CD's like Mondonville, Traetta or Leo, and most recently Louis Couperin and Froberger's keyboard music on the Aparte Label, was a real personal victory.'

His dreams and plans for the future

As a great musical archaeologist, what other unknown pieces would he like to perform? 'That's a secret!' he laughs. 'I won't tell you, but suffice to say that I would love to do more Traetta and Jomelli. Of all the lost operas, I would love to find one of Monteverdi's lost opera scores – actually not just one, but all of them! For example, it would be amazing to find Monteverdi's Ariana. We are aware of this opera because of the one famous surviving aria. Or alternatively Andromeda.
'I found the original manuscript for Lully's Bellérophon in an antiquarian bookshop. The hand-written manuscript dates back to the premiere in 1679. I later discovered a second edition from 1701. It's fascinating being able to consult the original manuscripts and later editions for how they vary. Maybe one day I will be lucky and find a completely lost work…'
What other ambitions does he have for the future? 'An absolute dream would be to be free to programme any work or opera. At the moment, I am mostly asked to conduct specific projects but it would be amazing to have carte blanche to produce anything. There are so many surprise rabbits I have stored up in my magician's hat. A major ambition is to explore more the music from the nineteenth century. The single aria of Les Troyens by Berlioz, which we recorded with Veronique Gens as part of the second Tragediennes disc on Virgin Classics, has given me a flavour for this repertoire. It's also convinced me that it isn't beyond the reach of a mere harpsichord player. We already have more plans to record more Berlioz and his contemporaries.'

By Dominic McHugh

The full interview is available on the MusicalCriticism website: there Christophe Rousset also talks about his musical education or other Naïve artists for instance.

Interview with Christophe Rousset

Christophe Rousset - master harpsichordist, conductor and musical archeologist - was once described by the Guardian as "music's greatest mischief-maker". He took it as a compliment. In 1991 he founded the stunningly virtuosic period instrument group Les Talens Lyriques and together they have trawled the archives in search of the forgotten composers and forgotten repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries - contemporaries of giants like Mozart and Handel who in their day were often more famous and more successful than the greats they inspired. Composers like Martin y Soler, Cimarosa, Jommelli, Traetta, and, of course, his compatriot Lully. In this exclusive audio podcast Rousset talks in his Paris apartment between performances of Handel's Semele.

The apartment is shared with a Burmese cat named Hermione and two no less exquisite and venerable harpsichords. In the "library", lavishly bound scores attest to Rousset's archival spirit with his latest pride and joy laid out on the table - the original full score and continuo parts for Louis XIV's favourite opera: Lully's Bellérophon which Rousset and his group will present in the first performances in modern times later this year - including one in the newly restored L'Opéra Royal at Versailles. Rousset's latest CD release is of rarely heard harpsichord suites by Louis Couperin, uncle of the better known Francis.

You can access the interview's audio file from the Arts Desk website.

Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques through Handel’s Semele in Paris… and tonight in London!

Last week, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques performed Handel’s Semele in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. Tonight, they will be singing (and conducting!) Handel’s drama at the Barbican in London.

Below are some extracts from the Arts Desk review of the concert in Paris… and we hope other great reviews will come up after tonight’s performance!

“one of the most impressive Handel casts I've heard for years”

“With the emergence of this snaky, sexy, sequenced, Enlightenment glam rocker whose glistening red tails and bizarre cavorting mirrored perfectly the slinky bejewelled duplets on oboe and strings that Rousset was conjuring up, the whole production took off.”

“Peter Rose's incredibly solid, fabulously old-school interventions as a stentorian Cadmus and comically sleepy Somnus, reminded one how important a good bass is to the working of a Handel opera - and how rarely we hear one of this calibre.”

“Danielle de Niese's Semele should have been the star turn. And in many ways she was. In terms of coloratura, control and word-setting, she shone. And her voice is bigger, stronger than I have ever heard it.”

By Igor Toronyi-Lalic

You can read the full article here.

Vivaldi - Ottone in Villa: Fantastic interviews with the cast members

Our forthcoming release of Vivaldi's first opera Ottone in Villa on the Vivaldi Edition will soon be available to purchase (estimated release date: 25 October). To wet your appetites, here are some great videos taken from a performance of the work in Kraków featuring interviews with key cast members:

Recording details:

Sona Prina Ottone
Veronica Cangemi Cleonilla
Julia Lezhneza Caio Silio
Roberta Invernizzi Tullia / Ostilio
Topi Lehtipuu Decio

Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini conductor

“With a terrific band and technically accomplished singers, Ottone in villa will be an exciting CD.” – The Arts Desk (http://bit.ly/9QsDpJ)

Let us know your thoughts!

Bertrand Chamayou by Norman Lebrecht

Long a staple of orchestral concerts with his Symphonic Variations and D minor symphony, the Belgian-French composer has fallen way off the agenda. Bertrand Chamayou attempts to reverse that trend with a disc of two piano works with orchestra (Scottish National, conductor Stéphane Denève) and two piano solos, none of them life-changing but performed with enough grit and passion to remind us that Franck is worth an occasional hearing. The stunner comes in the finale – a prelude, fugue and variation for piano and harmonium (Olivier Latry) that so aptly and exquisitely conveys the Paris of Napoleon III it must surely be used before long as a television or movie soundtrack. It is so far removed from the austerity of most of Franck’s work that it will make you look again at this neglected inventor.

By Norman Lebrecht, La Scena Musicale

This month, Classic FM Magazine compared two recordings of Onslow’s works and the Quatuor Diotima received the best ranking. ★★★★

This is where rare repertoire resembles a bus line: George Onslow is a composer so rarely played that there’d be no need to apologise for never having heard of him, but now two CDs of his chamber music have arrived at once. (…)

The music [written by Onslow] is well-wrought, technically challenging and very enjoyable to listen to even if it can’t exactly live up to the implications of Onslow’s nickname, ‘the French Beethoven’. Still, Berlioz was among Onslow’s greatest admirers, declaring his music to be among ‘France’s most beautiful musical glories’. (…)

The Quatuor Diotima’s offering is more upbeat, its playing every bit as slick and polished as the presentation and sound recording.

If you want to read the full article, please refer to the June edition of Classic FM Magazine.

Back to the Quatuor Mosaïque: here goes another fantastic review!

The Independent on Sunday, 13 June 2010

The dry, almost dusty acoustics of Studio la Borie mimic the close atmosphere of Der Tod und das Mädchen’s private premiere in 1826. Often paired with the Quartettsatz of 1820, this knowing tale of early death is instead paired with the early G-minor Quartet (D173). The Amish severity of Quatuor Mosaïque’s gut strings acquires a narcotic quality in the Andante con moto variations of the later work. Boldly articulated and intelligently shaped, this is a claustrophobic, dramatic performance. AP

David Greilsammer interviewed by Jessica Duchen in the Jewish Chronicle

The man who dares to rethink Mozart

David Greilsammer, the virtuoso Israeli pianist and conductor, has a radical new approach to classical music. He talks to Jessica Duchen.

Every so often, along comes a recording that stays alive in your mind long after you have heard it. One that arrived recently was a CD of Mozart’s piano concertos, played and conducted by the young Israeli pianist David Greilsammer, with an orchestra mysteriously named Ensemble Suedama. The strength of purpose of Greilsammer’s interpretations made the disc stand out as something out of the ordinary.

And Greilsammer himself is an artist out of the ordinary. At only 32, he has several highly acclaimed recordings to his name — he has just been appointed music director and conductor of the Geneva Chamber orchestra, and next season will see his debuts with the san Francisco symphony orchestra and the Salzburg Mozarteum orchestra, among others. First, though, London audiences can hear him in recital at Wigmore Hall next week. His first appearance there last year was hailed by one critic as “among the most authoritative British debuts in years”.

A soft-spoken Israeli with a hybrid accent — he livedin New york for nine years and is now based in Paris — Greilsammer admits, if slightly sheepishly, that he felt destined to become a musician because his mother had decided this for him before he was born. (…)

Greilsammer’s acclaimed CDs of Mozart concertos came about through a determination to follow a path of his own, rather than one dictated by the occasionally creaky workings of the music industry. The name of ensemble Suedama, of course, is “Amadeus” backwards — he formed the orchestra himself.

“I have some problems with the ways things are sometimes done in the classical world,” Greilsammer says. “I wanted to do a first project my own way - something new and fresh. so I decided to surround myself with a completely new orchestra, made up of enthusiastic young soloists who had the same affinities and trains of thought that I had. We made two discs of Mozart concertos — they are all well-known works that have been recorded by all the great masters, but we wanted to approach them as if it were the first time. I’m a little obsessed with not being influenced by the past.

“The problem with classical music is that essentially it’s an art form that’s completely focused on the past,” he continues. “We play mostly pieces by dead composers, and we worship their scores. We spend our days looking at music that was written up to 400 years ago and that’s where we take our inspiration and life-force as classical musicians. This is where the problem begins — in an art that’s so preoccupied with the past, it’s very difficult to make it live today.” (…)

More explorations will follow — in the autumn Greilsammer will be back in London for a concert at King’s Place of sonatas by scarlatti and, on “prepared piano”, John Cage. That will mark the launch of his next CD; a world premiere recordings of works for piano and orchestra by Alexander Tansman and Nadia Boulanger, plus the more familiar Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin.

His exclusive contract with the French record label Naïve has made Paris his ideal home (“though I don’t expect living in Paris will last forever,” he adds, rather ruefully), and he spends much time in Geneva with his orchestra there. He is enjoying his activities as
conductor, but the piano, he says, will always remain his first love. Destiny? Perhaps it really is.

If you want to know more about his childhood or his latest Wigmore Hall concert, please refer to the Jewish Chronicle of 28th May 2010 for the full article.

Amazing five-star review of Brad Mehldau and Anne Sofie von Otter at the Wigmore Hall... first Naïve release in September 2010!

The Financial Times ★★★★★

Brad Mehldau closed the opening season of his two-year curatorship of the Wigmore Hall’s first jazz series with a two-concert flourish. The jazz content of his duet with the formidably voiced Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter was more flavouring than main dish, as a romantic classical first set was balanced by a contemporary second half. But two days later, Mehldau’s solo piano recital delivered trenchant jazz, albeit with a composer’s logic.

Von Otter was the focus of the first concert, wringing emotion from each syllable of lyrics that sounded life-changing when she sang them. Mehldau impressed for adjusting touch and timbre for first-half readings of Brahms, Fauré and Richard Strauss, and bringing out the influence on jazz pianists today of Sibelius’s sparse rhythmic pedals.

The second set opened with a selection from Mehldau’s song cycle Love Songs. His composed settings of Sara Teasdale’s poems had all the Mehldau hallmarks – closely argued chords, subtly altered motifs and a light pulse – and when combined with von Otter’s voice were the highlight of the evening. The pianist then revealed his jazz chops while von Otter applied full operatic measure to Lennon and McCartney, the American Songbook, “Windmills of my Mind” – sounding surprisingly profound when sung in French – and a sprightly double encore.

Mehldau’s second recital was a breathtaking solo performance that took full advantage of the Wigmore’s pin-drop acoustics. The set was bookended by themes from his orchestral album Highway Rider – the arpeggiated central motif to start, the sombre “Old West” to finish – but mostly stuck to the songbook repertoire. Each theme launched improvisations that tugged at meter and key. A fast and chirpy “Get Happy” developed a wayward bass line and did strange things to the tempo while sticking strictly to the underlying form, and “My Favorite Things” climaxed with a thunderous rumble.

Mehldau’s pathways verged on the abstract and even bluesy interjections resolved in odd places, though a lone bass note signposted the original theme. His fifth encore was “Waterloo Sunset”, and then he had to do “one more for playing Ray Davies and the Kinks”. The evening ended in a shimmering chordal wash.

By Mike Hobart

You can also read the review here.

Outstanding five-star review of Anna Vinnitskaya’s debut album of piano sonatas

Anna Vinnitskaya’s debut album of piano sonatas was acclaimed by the BBC Music Magazine last month.

Performance ★★★★★
Recording ★★★★★

As winner of the 2007 Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition and the 2008 Leonard Bernstein Award, Russian-born pianist Anna Vinnitskaya is clearly a name to reckon with. Her imaginatively devised and vividly recorded programme juxtaposes late-Romantic bravura (Rachmaninov and Medtner) with the more acerbic language of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata and Gubaidulina’s abrasive Chaconne. There’s little doubt that she has the measure of each work, demonstrating not only formidable technical control but also a truly remarkable range of tonal colouring. One might quibble that in adopting a more reflective pose in the opening movement of the Rachmaninov (here in the later 1931 version) she doesn’t always convey the composer’s prescribed Allegro agitato. Yet there’s no denying the sheer beauty and richness of her sound, the central movement presented in a particularly haunting manner. The Medtner, too, is spellbinding with a veiled quality that captures the music’s sense of nostalgia as well as its fragility.

Gubaidulina’s rugged Chaconne of 1962, mixing strongly percussive writing with more enigmatic and withdrawn passages, is a highly accessible work played here with tremendous brilliance. Finally Vinnitskaya offers an extremely compelling account of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata with a terrifyingly relentless Finale. By opting for an unusually fast and furious tempo for much of the first movement she certainly coveys the music’s sense of unease, though some might argue that in the slow movement her approach is too chilly, somewhat in contradiction to Prokofiev’s marking of Andante caloroso.

By Erik Levi

Christophe Rousset talks about culture in an interview with Classic FM magazine

Ahead of his London concert at The Barbican on 8 July where he will lead Les Talents Lyriques through Handel’s ‘Semele’, Christophe Rousset talks about culture in a ‘cultural exchange’ with Classic FM Magazine.

Been to any good exhibitions lately?
I went to the ‘Monumenta 2010’ at the Grand-Palais in Paris. There was an incredibly moving piece of art called Personnes by Christian Boltanski. It’s an evocation of concentration camps of the Second World War using mostly clothes on the floor or in a huge heap. A crane is lifting some pieces up and releasing them back to the heap. The noise and movement of the crane in contrast with the dead multicolour forms on the floor makes it very effective.

What’s your favourite cultural city and why?
It has to be between New York and Paris. I would dream of a blend of both cities – the crazy avant-garde of New York and the freedom in opera and music you get in Europe. For dance and art, New York is the best.

Why is culture important?
Because it makes humanity stop and think. Because some people are able to use their brains and sensibility in a more extended, deeper, clearer way. They make us understand ourselves and our world better. Our politicians are making a big mistake cutting budgets devoted to culture.

What are you looking forward to seeing next?
The Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy. He makes you see the world in another way.

Excellent reviews of the Quatuor Mosaïques's recording of Schubert's 'Der Tod und das Mädchen'

The Times, 15 May 2010 ★★★

The Mosaïques’ gut strings bring a dark and husky colouring to the quartet in which Schubert stares death in the face, D 810 (Death and the Maiden). The Takacs Quartet’s exemplary rendering for Hyperion in general packs the mightier punch, but the Mosaïques still shine in the slow movement’s lyricism. Also featured is an earlier, tauter Schubert quartet (D 173), with two disquieted outer movements framing a nimble scherzo and an andantino of much courtly charm, dispatched here with unforced beauty. GB

The Sunday Times, 23 May 2010 ★★★★

Schubert’s teenage quartets don’t rank high, but the period-instrument Quatuor Mosaïques show that the G minor is worth hearing, not least the incisive opening movement’s brief but striking development section, whose ghostly sonorities the group bring out vividly. Their performance of Death and the Maiden is music-making of a high-order, felt and carried out by players animated as though by a single mind and impulse, yet each of them seeming to respond afresh at every moment. If they don’t generate quite the headlong impetus of the Takacs’s recent recording, their colours and phrasing, and the subtlety of their playing, are a marvel. At a slightly slower tempo, the presto finale’s strange harmonies and eerie silences are all the more frightening. DC

The Daily Telegraph, 1st June 2010 ★★★★

Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet is so often played it’s in danger of becoming hackneyed, but the Quatuor Mosaïques have restored its freshness. The CD box reproduces Marianne Stokes’ painting in which Death comes to the Maiden as a gentle figure, rather than a grimacing skeleton. The performance is similarly unexpected – chastely serious rather than despairing, but dramatic when it needs to be. Ivan Hewett

Always more stars for Bertrand Chamayou’s recording of César Franck’s works

The Guardian, 6 May 2010 ★★★

This is an intriguing collection of César Franck’s five works involving a solo piano, all featuring the up-and-coming French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. Two of them are rarely heard, and another is a genuine oddity. The familiar pieces are the Prélude, Choral et Fugue for piano alone, and the Variations Symphoniques, for piano and orchestra, both of which are heard in concert and recorded regularly enough for Chamayou’s perfectly adequate but under-characterised performances to face stiff competition. But he demonstrates that both the solo piano Prélude, Aria et Final and Les Djinns, a compact symphonic poem for piano and orchestra based upon a Victor Hugo poem, deserve to be heard far more frequently. Meanwhile, the texturally rather awkward Prélude, Fugue et Variation, for piano and harmonium, in which Chamayou is joined by Olivier Latry, provides a reminder that Franck was an organist first and foremost, and then a pianist. Andrew Clements

The Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2010 ★★★★★

César Franck was no slouch when it came to writing for the piano. The Prélude, Choral et Fugue has long been among the keyboard repertoire’s toughest challenges, and here its sturdy counterpoint, elaborate flourishes, ripe textures and serpentine harmonies are conveyed with impressive panache and interpretative seriousness by the young French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. Franck’s model was clearly Bach, his inspiration the organ loft. But Franck clothed any baroque exemplars in a cloak of richly romantic hues and the diapason of the keyboard writing, if at times sounding as though Franck might have conceived it while seated at his Cavaillé-Coll instrument in Paris’s church of St Clotilde, is vigorously pianistic. Even more so is the piano obbligato part in the exciting, nervy symphonic poem “Les Djinns” and in the once-popular Variations Symphoniques. Strangest of all the works on this disc is the Prélude, Fugue et Variation combining piano with the nasal wheeze of the harmonium, but it sounds charming and completes a fascinating compendium of Franck’s music. Geoffrey Norris

Fantastic reviews of Rousset's recording of Froberger's Suites by 3 influential newspapers

The Sunday Times, 9 May 2010 ★★★★

Five of the half-dozen suites on this disc are from the autograph collection of 1656; the other comes from that of 1649. All are in French style, in four stylised dance movements. Christophe Rousset plays a rare and distinguished harpsichord, made by the Flemish builder Joannes Couchet in 1652, but restored and expanded in 1701. More important, it makes a beautiful, richly resonant sound, rendering it ideal for Froberger’s expressive and often melancholic music. Equally well suited is Rousset’s meditative, infinitely flexible approach. His playing is always lovingly articulated and carefully decorated. SP

The Observer, 9 May 2010

Johann Jakob Froberger wanted all his music burned after his death because he didn’t think anyone else would be able to play it well enough. He would surely have been reassured by the deep understanding of Christophe Rousset, who uses an exquisite 17th-century Couchet harpsichord, unequally tuned. The grave eloquence of Froberger’s sarabandes is perfectly captured and only the long pauses before repeated sections seem overdone. The programmatic “Lament on the Death of Ferdinand IV” evaporates at the top of the keyboard, the rising scale disappearing into a cloud of angels in the manuscript. Nicholas Kenyon

The Independent on Sunday, 16 May 2010

Christophe Rousset makes a welcome return to the keyboard in this poignant selection of Forberger’s suites, played on a 1652 Couchet harpsichord that was extended in 1701 to include a four-foot stop. Rousset’s fluid grace-notes never obscure the seriousness of these introspective dances, the finest of which is the Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della real Maestà di Ferdinando IV, and allows silence to register between the phrases. A thoughtful and distinctive alternative to Richard Egarr’s ebullient performance. Anna Picard

Fantastic four-star review of 'Ottone in Villa' - next Vivaldi Edition opera to be recorded - at the Barbican on Friday!

elow is undoubtedly the first of a long series of fantastic reviews of 'Ottone in Villa' which was performed last Friday at the Barbican in London. In line with the great reaction of the audience after the performance, here are some highlights from the four-star review of 'Ottone in Villa' by The Guardian.

The Guardian ★★★★

Premiered in 1713, Vivaldi’s bitter little comedy Ottone in Villa was his first opera and stands, in some respects, at a tangent to its successors. At just over two and a half hours, it is short by his standards, while its taut dramaturgy precludes the sprawling quality that hampers his later stage works.

The subject – standard 18th-century fare, but handled with great sensual frankness and moral astuteness – is the relationship between desire and politics.

(...)

Caio’s emotional and moral anguish gradually exposes the self-seeking superficiality that surrounds him. An exacting, complex role, it was sung unforgettably in this concert performance by Julia Lezhneva, who combines flawless technique with emotional veracity. Sonia Prina’s Ottone was all rapid-fire coloratura and smug self-deception.

Tim Ashley

You can read the full article here and consult more reviews of the performance on the Vivaldi Edition facebook page.

Vivaldi's 'Ottone in Villa', RV729 (1713) - The next recording project for the Vivaldi Edition

From the moment we learnt that the next Vivaldi opera to be recorded for the Vivaldi Edition would be Ottone in Villa - Vivaldi's first opera produced in Vicenza in 1713 - we here at Naïve Classics in London were filled with great excitement and anticipation as to what it would be like.  

Although it is not the first time this opera has been recorded, a new recording of the work is long overdue and with Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini attached along with internationally acclaimed soloists, there is no doubt this is going to be a truly stunning recording.  Artists confirmed for recording include:

Sona Prina Ottone

Veronica Cangemi Cleonilla

Julia Lezhneza Caio Silio

Roberta Invernizzi Tullia / Ostilio

Topi Lehtipuu Decio

Il Giardino Armonico

Giovanni Antonini conductor

The full cast are currently touring this work throughout Europe and will be appearing on the following dates:

24 May 2010 Valladolid (Spain) 

29 May 2010 Valladolid / Concert
02 June 2010 Valladolid 

We attended the performance of the work last Friday (http://bit.ly/btIJGJ) at the Barbican in London and were overwhelmed by the reaction of the audience as the third and final act came to a close.  One journalist wrote:  “With a terrific band and technically accomplished singers, Ottone in villa will be an exciting CD.” – The Arts Desk (http://bit.ly/9QsDpJ)

Please find below fantastic video footage taken from the first concert of the European tour in Kraków:

Please head to the venue’s website to view fantastic images from the performance - http://www.operarara.pl/en/7/142/158/photo-gallery.

We would be interested to hear what you think. A good choice for the next Vivaldi Edition opera?

BBC Music Magazine award-winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja featured in Gig Magazine

Independent labels such as Naïve were this year’s “big winners” at the BBC Music Magazine Awards according to Gig Magazine.

“Of the 10 discs receiving awards at the ceremony on 13 April, only two were released on major labels.”

Below is an extract from the article, mentioning Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Naïve.

“In the Orchestral category, voters chose violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Philippe Herreweghe conducting the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (Naïve).”

Gig Magazine, 27 April 2010

Edna Stern’s recording of Chopin’s works reviewed by The Times!

The Times ★★★

Mercurial and meditative, Stern’s interpretations are distinctive enough. But it’s her piano that makes the big difference: an 1842 Pleyel, which clouds most of the notes in a velvety darkness, transforming textures and cutting out scintillating display. Odd? Perhaps. Yet this muffled sonority was what Chopin favoured. Stern, a pupil of Krystian Zimerman, works hard extracting magic from her difficult instrument, triumphing in the sombre Funeral March. The rest of the bill includes waltzes, ballades and preludes.

By Geoff Brown

An excellent review of Mark Minkowski conducting in Bruxelles… to help you wait until August!

Mark Minkowski’s ‘Haydn Symphonies’ will be released in a few-month time and we know, it is hard to wait. So here is a review of Don Quichotte which was performed in Bruxelles last week… conducted by Mark Minkowski. Below is an extract of the review but you can read the full article here.

“The production's greatest asset has to be its conductor, Marc Minkowski, who is on formidable form here. From the off, he drew wild, excited thrusts from his band, with basses sounding as if lit from below, and the rest duly adjusting to their steaming pulse. Sounding like Tchaikovsky on speed, those martial passages in the score that depict the peregrination of the Don and also his somewhat unhinged self-image completely suffused the house. Equally evident, though, was a keen lyric tinge, which came out most persuasively in the final act, where Minkowski held his left hand at constant attention, always dimming the ardour of the tragic music, waiting instead for the explosions of the final chords, which shattered the ears when they finally came. A thoroughly enjoyable, pleasingly confusing, evening in the theatre.”

By Stephen Graham

Fantastic features of the Quatuor Diotima in the international press!

The Quatuor Diotima has received excellent reviews from the British and American press in the last months. Below are two features from the UK's newspaper The Guardian and the American's newspaper The Dallas Morning News.

The Guardian ★★★★

Admired by Beethoven and Schubert, George Onslow (1784-1853) has become that rare phenomenon, a composer who was internationally popular in his own lifetime and for a considerable time afterwards, yet who virtually vanished in the next century. Despite his English name, Onslow was essentially French; born in the Auvergne to an English father and a French mother, he studied with Cramer and then Reicha in Paris, and later succeeded Cherubini as director of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Onslow composed symphonies and operas, but it was his chamber music – put on a par with Mozart’s by Mendelssohn and Schumann – with which he made his reputation. Onslow composed more than 30 string quartets, and an equal number of quintets, so the Quatuor Diotima are only scratching the surface with this selection of three from 1834. They reveal a composer caught on the brink of Romanticism; some moments recall late Beethoven or Schubert, others anticipate Mendelssohn and Schumann, or look back to Haydn and Mozart. It’s a fascinating historical snapshot, beautifully rendered by the Diotima, who lavish immense care on every bar.

By Andrew Clements

You can also read the article on The Guardian website.


The Dallas Morning News

Born to a British father and a mother from the Auvergne region of France, George Onslow (1784-1853) was trained by some of the most esteemed teachers of the day: Jan Ladislav Dussek, Johann Baptist Cramer and Antoine Reicha. A skilled pianist who also knew his way around the cello, Onslow was especially prolific as a composer of chamber music – 34 string quintets and 35 string quartets.
Brought up in a solid classical tradition, Onslow reportedly was shocked by the bold new language of Beethoven's late string quartets. Then, in the early 1830s, he turned around and penned these three quartets very much in the vein of late Beethoven, albeit with a bit more sheer flamboyance. They need no apologies even next to Beethoven, and they get brilliant performances from this young French quartet.

By Scott Cantrell

You can also read the article on the Dallas News website.

Minkowski’s recording for St Cecilia reviewed by The American Record Guide: still fantastic!

Here are three major works in honor of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, by three major composers in new recordings made in January of 2009. Each of the composers had a special relationship to England. Purcell was a native son. Handel became an Englishman by adoption. Haydn was an esteemed visitor whom the English took to their hearts.

Hail! Bright Cecilia (1692) was the last and greatest of Purcell’s odes for celebrations of the saint’s day (November 22) that were organized by the Gentlemen of the Musical Society of London in the late 17th Century. He wrote three earlier odes—two in English and one in Latin—but they are not as ambitious or colorful as the 1692 ode. He would write a large scale Te Deum and Jubilate with accompaniment of strings and trumpets for the St Cecilia celebrations of 1694. They were the canticles sung at the church service preceding the celebratory banquet. The text for the 1692 ode was a new poem by Nicholas Brady, who evidently used John Dryden’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (1687) as his model.

Handel turned to Dryden’s ode for the text of his Song for St Cecilia’s Day in 1739. Both Dryden and Brady consider the musical instruments and declare them all inferior in dignity and resources to the organ, the instrument especially associated with St Cecilia. Irresistible opportunities for exploitation of instrumental colors are imaginatively taken by both composers.

Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass was originally composed in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the shrine at Mariazell (Missa Cellensis in Honorem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae). It is thought that a later performance on St Cecilia’s Day in Vienna may account for its other title. It exists in two versions. The earlier one— performed on this recording—dates from 1766 and includes only the Kyrie and Gloria. The later version of 1773 includes the entire Mass Ordinary and is the lengthiest of Haydn’s masses, comparable in scale to Bach’s B minor Mass or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. As an encore here, Minkowski includes the two concluding movements of the 1773 Credo.

These are highly polished performances of great energy and subtlety. Marc Minkowski takes quick tempos very quickly, but rarely do they seem rushed. The rapid-fire repetitions of the words “must be forced” in ‘Wondrous Machine’ from Purcell’s ode come close to sounding frantic. Bass Luca Tittoto is more than able to keep up, but it does not sound easy or natural. On the other hand, Minkowski is not afraid to let a movement in slow tempo unfold at a leisurely pace while preserving structural coherence, as for example, Handel’s ‘What Passion Cannot Music Raise’.

The vocal soloists are excellent. Soprano Lucy Crowe exhibits an exquisite refinement of tone and impressive vocal control in Handel’s ‘The Soft Complaining Flute’ and ‘But Oh! What Art Can Teach’ as well as the aforementioned ‘What Passion Cannot Music Raise’. At the same time she performs impressive vocal acrobatics in Haydn’s ‘Quoniam tu Solus Sanctus’. I have admired contralto Nathalie Stutzmann from other recordings. Her tone is almost unbelievably majestic: a genuine contralto, not just a mezzo with some good low notes. Her trios with tenor Richard Croft and bass Luca Tittoto are amazingly cohesive in tone and blend. Even so, I think it was the right decision to give Purcell’s alto solo ‘Hark, Each Tree’ to countertenor David Bates; it is more suited to the musical idiom.

The 30-voice chorus (8-7-7-8) is highly disciplined and responsive. I find their tone a trifle thick for Purcell, whose style benefits from the lightness and transparency of the best British early-music choirs. This chorus sounds much more at home in the more broadly-conceived choral lines of Handel and Haydn. The playing of the period-instrument ensemble is outstanding.

The physical presentation is exceptionally elegant. The two discs are bound in a substantial hard-cover book of over 130 pages printed on glossy paper with stitched binding. It is lavishly illustrated with fine art reproductions, mostly from the 16th and 17th Centuries. It contains a program notes by Hilary Finch, a rather whimsical philosophical essay by Ivan Alexandre, and a more technical commentary on performance questions by Minkowski himself. These are given in French, English, and German. Full texts and translations are also given.

By William J Gatens

Anna Vinnitskaya described as a “rising star” in the BBC Music Magazine!

Last month, the BBC Music Magazine dedicated a fantastic article to Anna Vinnitskaya who was described as a “rising star”, one of the “great artists of tomorrow”. Below are some extracts from the article.

RISING STAR Great artists of tomorrow

“In recent months the release of her debut CD on Naïve has caused flurries of excitement among critics and brought her to the attention of a larger audience.”

In the article, Anna talks about the influence of the Russian repertoire on her work but nevertheless states: “My next CD will be with orchestra, and of music by a non-Russian composer!”

“Although she dismisses any suggestion of being a prodigy – ‘People said I was, but I said I was really quick at learning music – she never contemplated another career.”

Anna also mentions her busy schedule which prevents her from playing the piano as often as she’d like to: “There are days when I don’t practise at all. But most days I’ll practise and feel wonderful after it.”

If you want to read the full article, please refer to the April edition of the BBC Music Magazine.

A Spanish article dedicated to ‘Impressions on Chopin’ for our Spanish fans!

Impressions on Chopin was re-issued this year to celebrate the bicentennial of the Polish composer’s birth. The recording sees the internationally acclaimed jazz pianist Leszek Mozdzer perform his own arrangements of well known works by Chopin. Lately the album was reviewed by one of our Spanish partners, Diverdi.

Chopin sin dejar de ser Chopin

Regresa Impressions on Chopin de Leszek Mozdzer en Naïve.

La celebración del 200 aniversario del nacimiento de Frédéric Chopin no está lejana. De ahí quizás la recuperación de esta grabación de 1999 de un pianista al que acompaña la fama de ser uno de los mejores improvisadores sobre Chopin, él mismo gran improvisador. También el hecho de que Leszek Mozdzer es un pianista en auge, en especial al lado del contrabajista sueco Lars Danielsson, entre el público jazzístico y crossover. Si Chopin ha sido inevitable objeto de tratamiento por maestros del jazz del país, como Adam Makowicz, o el del trío Andrzej Jagodzinski, Leszek Mozdzer, de una generación posterior, muestra armas distintas a las de sus mayores. Donde Makowicz era digitalismo exacerbado y la influencia de Art Tatum, Mozdzer exhibe su mano en inteligentes arreglos y en un exuberante estilo hypercomunicativo que parte de su más evidente influencia, Chick Corea, que le permite interpolar en sus interpretaciones citas y standards completos sin violencia alguna. Es la improvisación lo que domina sobre cualquier otro criterio, ya sea con pura dicción jazzística en un grácil Preludio op 28 n°7, come el perfecto engaste en puro lenguaje chopiniano de My Secret Love o el Segment de Parker en un preludio o un estudio del autor polaco. Es la naturalidad del lenguaje lo que hace que no haya más transiciones entre uno y otro sino simple reconocimiento. No es simple revestimiento del que domina los giros de un determinado artista sino gozoso acto de improvisación de un material que Mozdzer parece conocer al dedillo desde sus estudios iniciales. El pianista puede hacerse acompañar por un tombak, o añadir ritmos ajenos, incluso darle una estructura que se sostiene más en el Standard, pero lo que transmite es Chopin, no un Chopin en traducción o siendo objeto de ventriloquia. Brillante Mozdzer.

Ángel Gómes Aparicio

A fantastic review of Rousset’s recording of Bachs’s works to help you wait for the Froberger's Suites to be released on Monday!

While Christophe Rousset’s Froberger’s Suites are to be released on Monday 3 May, the other recordings of the French harpsichordist are still being acclaimed all over the world. The following review comes from the Canadian Toronto Star newspaper.

★★★1/2 (out of 4)

French harpsichordist, period-instrument orchestra leader and Baroque opera conductor Christophe Rousset has a master showman's instinct about when to show off and when to pull back. It's been 27 years since the Aix-en-Provence native won the international harspsichord competition in Bruges, Belgium, and left a wave of expressive, engaging and meticulously researched music along the way.

His most exciting work has been in the French Baroque -- either as a soloist or as collaborator in larger works.

His recordings of the keyboard works of J.S. Bach are not new (they date from 2003 and 2004), but French label Naïve has assembled 5-1/4 hours of Rousset's recordings into a six-CD set of the French and English Suites, as well as the Little Keyboard Book for Wilhelm Friedemann. All were recorded at the Museum of Art and History in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, which has a J.S. Bach-period harpsichord made by Johannes Ruckers in its collection.

This set is a fantastic study in effortless sound. Rousset plays the Suites with as much poise and assurance as the easiest pieces Bach wrote for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. The clarity of the playing also allows us to appreciate the composer's boundless invention.

I have to admit that, for sustained listening, I prefer hearing the Suites on the piano rather than the instrument for which they were originally written. But for anyone keen on a true period sound and feel, you can't do much better than this.

By John Terauds

You can also read the article on the Toronto Star website.

Award-winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja now featured in the Financial Times!

Following the article dedicated to Patricia Kopatchinskaja in the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine, the acclaimed violinst is now featured in the Financial Times after winning the Orchestral Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010 on Tuesday 13 April. Below is an extract from Harry Eyres’s article.

In the front line of creation

“Fortunately, some musicians were able to be there in person – one not just to collect her award but to play for us. This was the young Moldovan Patricia Kopatchinskaya, whose disc of the Beethoven violin concerto was the surprise winner of the orchestral award. Genre-bending and full of gypsy devilry, Kopatchinskaya played a solo piece by George Enescu and Jorge Sanchez Chiong’s Crin, in which her voice and violin struck sparks off each other. If anyone thought classical music was stuffy or corseted, here was the riposte.”

By Harry Eyres

You can read the full article on the FT website.

Award-winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja featured in the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine

The latest issue of BBC Music Magazine features a special article about Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The acclaimed violinist won the Orchestral Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010 on Tuesday 13 April. Below are some highlights from the article.

A daring double take on Beethoven proves a winner for the adventurous Moldovan violinist.

When, for her groundbreaking recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Patricia Kopatchinskaja wanted to include the cadenza from the composer’s piano version of the work, the only way to accommodate all the notes on her instrument was to indulge in a little overdubbing in the studio.
(…)
Controversial, possibly. But any offended purists were outnumbered by those who were taken with her approach, including BBC Music Magazine reviewer Erik Levi.
‘Kopatchinskaja manages to bring it off quite brilliantly,’ he wrote in December, adding that the recording ‘must be one of the most stimulating that has ever been committed to disc.’
(…)
This wasn’t tinkering for tinkering’s sake. Kopatchinskaja’s radical take on Beethoven stems from the composer’s own thoughts.
(…)
‘It led to something new – it was almost like a premiere. No longer this monumental piece that you normally hear in the concert hall, but something almost experimental. The violin is no longer the soloist, but becomes like a ghost hovering above the orchestra.’ [says Kopatchinskaja]

You can read the full article in the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine (May 2010).

The Guardian ★★★★

Assembled movement-by-movement to different commissions between 1992 and 2009, Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos is, he says, his attempt to produce a “complex form comprising seven autonomous episodes regenerating themselves from within”. The separately titled pieces have complex harmonic and melodic links, sometimes exploring the same material from different perspectives, sometimes continuing or even reversing musical processes begun in an earlier piece. The first, Go, is an exercise in melodic flexibility, the preoccupations of the third, Apex, are mostly harmonic, while the fifth, Exeo, seems to assemble itself from a whole collection of sharply contrasted ideas. Over the last decade or so, the wildness and fractured textures of Dusapin’s early pieces have been replaced by music of far greater continuity and traditional expressiveness. Though some of these seven pieces uncoil climaxes of savagery, there is a delicacy and refinement to much of the orchestral writing that sometimes recalls Dutilleux or other French composers of an earlier 20th-century generation.

By Andrew Clements

You can also read the article on The Guardian website.

The awaited 5-star review of Accentus’s recording of Strauss’s works by The Sunday Telegraph

The Sunday Telegraph ★★★★★

Strauss’s virtuosity in scoring for the orchestra was equalled in his works for unaccompanied choirs, of which the Deutsche Motette, his 1913 setting of a poem by Rückert in 20 real parts (16 for the choir, four for the soloists), is the greatest example. The colours, contrasts and contrapuntal wizardry are magnificently presented by the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Laurence Equilbey. Less complex but just as spellbinding are the better-known Der Abend (Schiler) and Hymne (Rückert).

By Michael Kennedy

Accentus, Laurence Equilbey and Sandrine Piau reviewed by Allmusic.com

The two large-scale choral works reissued on this two-disc Naïve release -- Haydn's Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross and Dvorák's Stabat Mater -- might appear on first glance to be an odd pairing, but their subject matter is closely related, the first dealing with Jesus' passion and the second with its effect on his mother. They are also works for which their composers created multiple versions, and they are presented here in their less familiar form. Haydn's first version of Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross was for orchestra, but he later created an arrangement for string quartet, which remains the most frequently performed, authorized an arrangement for keyboard, and finally, made this choral setting with vocal soloists. Dvorák originally wrote his Stabat Mater for soloists, chorus, and piano, and it's that recently discovered version that's heard here, rather than the popular version the composer later made with orchestral accompaniment, which includes three additional movements and other musical alterations.

Laurence Equilbey leads the French chamber choir Accentus and Akademie für alte Musik, Berlin in a lean, clean account of the Haydn, which gives the orchestra a central, rather than a merely accompanying role, as is appropriate for a work that was orchestrally conceived. The soloists are exceptionally fine, particularly a luminous Sandrine Piau. This version of the Stabat Mater lacks the grandeur of the orchestral version, but there is much to be said for the intimacy and delicacy that are gained. The piece makes a very different kind of impact when heard as a chamber piece, and any fans of the standard version should be interested in hearing the composer's first thoughts on the texts. Accentus is smaller than the full choirs that often perform the Dvorák, and the clarity and purity of their sound highlights the very personal nature of the texts. The soloists are not international stars, but they sing beautifully, with intense but unmannered expressivity. Naïve's sound on both discs is excellent: clear, present, and spacious.

By Stephen Eddins

You can also read the review on the Allmusic website.

Fantastic review of Alessandrini’s work on his recording of Marenzio’s Madrigali

Stephen Eddins wrote an excellent review of Alessandrini’s recording of Marenzio’s Madrigali on the Allmusic website. Rinaldo Alessandrini also recorded works from Vivaldi (Gloria, Armida) and Handel’s Arie per basso with Lorenzo Regazzo. Below is an extract from the review.

“Marenzio wrote over 400 madrigals, and this collection, a reissue of two Opus 111 releases, includes a healthy sampling of almost 50, written during the composer's most fruitful period, between 1580 and his death in 1599. Four-, five-, and six-part madrigals are represented, some a cappella and some accompanied, and there are several instrumental arrangements of the works made by composers of Marenzio's generation. Using texts by a variety of poets, they are remarkable for the emotional depth and inventiveness of the text setting, the sure handling of harmonies that are sometimes vertiginously chromatic, and their broad expressive range. The majority are melancholy meditations on lost love, but Marenzio finds infinite ways to express anguished intensity. Rinaldo Alessandrini leads the singers and a small instrumental ensemble of Concerto Italiano in impassioned performances. The singers have distinctive, lovely voices, and each sings with warmth and transparent expressiveness, but at the same time, their blend is gorgeously rich and smooth, an ideal combination for these madrigals. Naïve's sound is immaculate and wonderfully present. The collection makes a terrific introduction to Marenzio's work and should be of strong interest to fans of Renaissance vocal music and superlative ensemble singing.”

By Stephen Eddins

If you wish to read the article fully, please visit the Allmusic website.

Another great review of Regazzo’s recording of Handel’s Arie per basso in Opera News, ten months after its release!

Handel's bass singers never achieved the superstar status of some of the castratos and prima donnas who shared the stage with them, and we have no stories of tantrums and demands for rewrites. Yet Handel created roles of great definition and scope for basses, and Lorenzo Regazzo brings glamorous vocalism to a thoughtful selection of opera arias, along with the early cantata Dalla Guerra Amorosa.

The leaps and thrusting energy of the magician Zoroastro's "Sorge infausta una procella" (from Orlando) shows off Regazzo's thrilling sound, though he sometimes loses color negotiating the runs. Leone's "Amor da guerra e pace" from Tamerlano, is a conventional aria for a secondary character, but its vigor and urgent rhythms suit Regazzo's musical temperament well.

For a scene from Handel's early opera Agrippina, Regazzo darkens his voice to a voluptuous smokiness for the seductive, sinewy lines of the emperor Claudio for the aria, "Pur ritorno a rimirarvi". The ensuing recitative confrontation between Claudio and his two-timing mistress Poppea (the attractive soprano Gemma Bertagnolli) crackles with excitement.

Regazzo's voice is a bit too classy, his approach too serious, for Elvino's comic "Del mio caro bacco amabile" from Serse, but he is right at home in the chromatic, expressive "Pensa a chi geme", from Alcina, and he brings lilting vocalism and a touch of rubato to the siciliano.

For Cosroe's creepy aria "Gelido in ogni vena", from Siroe, Regazzo waits until the return of the opening section to bring theatrical expression and definition to the text ("the shade of my dead son fills me with terror"); had he started at that level of commitment and explored more deeply, the performance would be even more gripping.

The solo cantata, Dalla Guerra Amorosa, a gentle attempt to define and flee love's pains, is nicely paced, with an appropriately ironic touch. "Non v'alletti" shows what Regazzo can do with a lighter, more internalized approach (enhanced by cellist Matteo Scarpelli's sprightly playing). Apollo's recitative and aria "Come rosa in su la spina", from Apollo e Dafne, adds an extra commentary and provides a fitting finish to the recital.

Rinaldo Alessandrini and the excellent period orchestra Concerto Italiano provide attentive and theatrical support and offer the overtures to Siroe and Alcina.

You can also read the article in Opera News magazine.

The Vivaldi Edition: Excellent review of Bernardini’s Concerti per oboe by the American Record Guide

The Vivaldi Edition - Concerti per oboe

As part of the Vivaldi Edition, David Schwartz reviewed Bernardini’s Concerti per oboe and was very impressed by it. Below is the full article extracted from the American Record Guide.

“This program is the 42nd in an ambitious series to record all of the works of Vivaldi. The series began in 2000 and will continue until 2015, and a significant portion of the works that will be recorded have not been heard since the 1700s. But the concertos here have not gone unplayed or unheard.

These are very good performances of six concertos. Bernardini is a very good oboist with a pleasing tone, and the accompanying ensemble, Zefiro, plays with elan. The recording quality also is excellent. Performances on period instruments have gotten tremendously better in the last few years. Where the tone of the instruments could be scratchy and unrefined, they seem here to be quite refined and enjoyable. Though there are many recordings of Vivaldi oboe concertos, this is certainly among the better ones.”

David Greilsammer praised by The New York Times once again

David Greilsammer's latest recording received another fantastic review by The New York Times on Sunday, April 4th.

"In recent years the 32-year-old Israeli pianist David Greilsammer has emerged as an exceptionally sensitive and adventurous artist. This new recording presents him as pianist and conductor in arresting performances of Mozart’s Piano Concertos No. 22 in E flat and No. 24 in C minor, with the Suedama Ensemble (Amadeus spelled backward), a lively chamber orchestra that Mr. Greilsammer founded in New York in 2005. Mr. Greilsammer’s playing is a model of refinement. Yet just below the elegant surface lurks a bold and inquisitive musician alert to every ingenious nuance and quirk of these elusive scores. He plays his own inventive cadenzas."

You can also read the article on The New York Times website.

The Quatuor Mosaïques and their recording of Schubert’s ‘The Death and the Maiden’ receive ffff by the French magazine Telerama

Next month this stunning version of Schubert’s famous ‘The Death and the Maiden’ string quartet performed on period instruments will be released in the UK. This will be a great opportunity to discover one of the leading string quartets of our time, the Quatuor Mosaïques.


Already in France this pillar of the chamber music repertoire received a fantastic review by the influential French cultural magazine Telerama. The recording was rewarded with a ‘ffff’, equivalent to a four-star ranking.

This recording features the String Quartet No.14 in D Minor otherwise known as ‘The Death and the Maiden’ but also the D173 in G minor quartet which is an earlier quartet of the master of the genre, Franz Schubert.

Ten months after its release, Regazzo’s recording of Handel’s Arie per basso still receives fantastic reviews… what a pleasure!

It is absolutely enjoyable to produce recordings which still receive fantastic reviews almost one year after their release. This is the case of Lorenzo Regazzo’s recording of Handel’s Arie per basso whose review from Opera has been published in their edition of April. You can find the highlights from the review below.

“Lorenzo Regazzo’s simultaneously achieves an informative historical survey (over nearly three decades, from Agrippina, 1709, to Serse, 1738) and adds up to a rewarding musical experience.”

“Himself a Venetian, Regazzo is a singer I’ve admired in Vivaldi, Mozart and Rossini both in the theatre and on disc, for his polished, precise musicianship, elegantly varied verbal delivery, expert differentiation of dramatic styles, and more than decent command of fast flourish, roulade and run.”

“A sample of Agrippina dialogue for Claudio and Poppea displays to advantage his ability to make recitative unfailingly interesting”

“Regazzo’s cultivated artistry is an unfailing cause of admiration, especially since an exactly matching quality characterizes the accompaniments – and also the handful of purely instrumental items – of Alessandrini’s splendid Concerto Italiano.”

Max Loppert

If you wish to read the full article, please refer to the April issue of Opera.

Marc Minkowski and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican reviewed by the Arts Desk

In line with the fantastic five star review of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s concert at the Barbican in The Guardian this month, Marc Minkowski and his orchestra’s performance received another great review in the Arts Desk. Below are some highlights from the article.

“It always repays to push a world-class orchestra beyond their comfort zone. The BBC Symphony’s sound emerged from the refashioning hands of period specialist Marc Minkowski like a naked body from a cold shower: convulsively invigorated and invigorating all those that knocked into it. It was a joy to hear: the best, most intriguing period-playing I’ve heard for quite a while.”

“Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater isn’t quite so doctrinally clean of counterpoint; there is at least one very fine fugal unravelling at “Fac, ut ardeat”, though most of the countrapuntal or harmonic searching is developed for colouristic effect above all, something Minkowski relished bringing out. And when you have an orchestra as good as the BBCSO this isn’t as hard as it seems.”

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

If you wish to read the article fully, please visit the Arts Desk website.

Accentus’s recording of Strauss’s works for choir reviewed in the International Record Review last month

The latest recording of Accentus conducted by Laurence Equilbey in collaboration with the Latvian Radio Choir has received another great review in the International Record Review recently. Below are some highlights from the review.

“Choral music is a relatively little-recorded part of the output of Richard Strauss, so this disc of a cappella works from Naïve, with a Franco-Latvian alliance of choirs conducted by Laurence Equilbey, is especially welcome.”

“The soprano soloist Jane Archibald has some particularly exposed high notes which are well taken, supported by some superbly secure choral singing.”

“It’s a quite magical opening, with Phoebus descends from his chariot, and Equilbey ensures her forces are particularly responsive to Strauss’s dynamic markings.”

Mark Pullinger

If you wish to read the full article please refer to the February issue of the International Record Review.

Nice review of Emanuel Krivine’s recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in The Independent on Sunday

Recorded in Grenoble, Vichy and Paris, Emanuel Krivine’s Beethoven dazzles with closely mic-ed details. La Chambre Philharmonique’s bassoons are the unlikely stars, jostled out of the way by heaven-sent strings in the Adagio, and an almost comically hyperactive contrabassoon in the finale. Les Eléments deliver a lithe, moving account of Goethe’s Ode, with a suave introduction from bass soloist Konstantin Wolff. Too much technical trickery to be properly ”live”, perhaps. But what a refreshing, bold reading.
Anna Picard

Sandrine Piau’s voice praised in the International Record Review last month!

Marc Rochester wrote a fantastic review about Sandrine Piau’s recording of Handel Between Heaven and Earth in the February 2010 issue of the International Record Review.

Below are some highlights of the review:

”Sandrine Piau’s breathtaking vocal virtuosity”

”sumptuous music-making crowned by a voice which can be angelic but here seems to possess much more in the way of earthly substance and sheer lasciviousness. If this voice is about to be ‘embosomed in the grave’, there will be plenty who will be only too happy to follow.”

”Piau certainly possesses both a voice of the sublimest beauty and a powerful musical intelligence.”

”One thing is certain with this disc: it will keep you on your toes. While so much high-octane energy can rapidly prove tiring to the ear, an excess of virtuosity is successfully held in check by the intense musicality and sheer beauty of Piau’s matchless voice.”

By Marc Rochester

If you wish to read the full article please refer to the February 2010 issue of the International Record Review.

Eduardo López Banzo and Al Ayre Español’s second Handel opera reviewed in Opera magazine last month.

For their second Handel opera for Naïve, Eduardo López Banzo and Al Ayre Español have chosen Rodrigo and have received a great review from Opera magazine in their issue of February 2010.

Below are the highlights of the review:

“It has been a decade since Alan Curtis’s pioneering recording of Handel’s first opera for Italy, so time is ripe for another, especially one that competes as effectively as this.”

”Maria Riccarda Wesseling’s lyric mezzo-soprano sounds quite at home in the music of Rodrigo”

”From the start, Sharon Rostorf-Zamir responds to Florinda more heated personality with vivid delivery of both recitative and arias.”

”Kobie van Rensburg sings with vitality and bravura skill”

”The countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic brings an attractively mellow sound to Rodrigo’s general Fernando, who is an unusual development for opera seria is killed on stage.”

”Anne-Catherine Gillet sings Evanco’s dramatically charged music with conviction and panache.”

”López Banzo varies the make-up of the continuo group without overstepping stylistic boundaries, and his accompaniments of the lyrical numbers are colourful and incisive.”

By GEORGE LOOMIS

If you wish to read the full article please refer to the February 2010 issue of Opera magazine.