Kopatchinskaja's latest release is nominated in the Orchestral category in the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010. Vote now!

 Exciting times here at naïve classics! Not only were we recently honoured as "Label of the Year" at midem this week (Please click here to view our blog entry about this: http://bit.ly/dsu7bq), but Patricia Kopatchinskaja's latest release, Beethoven's complete works for Violin and Orchestra with Orchestre des Champs-Élysées under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe, has been nominated within the Orchestral category at the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards. 


Votes for these Awards are cast by the public, so please click on the following link to cast your vote and help Patricia to win an Award: http://www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/awards2010

To make your vote count, you must vote in all six categories and then register your vote at the end simply by adding your name and e-mail address.

Please watch the exclusive video below giving an outline of the three releases nominated in this category:

 


To read more about this release and to hear excerpts please head to naïve's website: http://www.naive.fr/#/artist/patricia-kopatchinskaja

See BBC Online's fantastic review for this release in which Andrew McGregor stated that "Kopatchinskaja has something genuinely individual to say about this much-loved and recorded masterpiece", please click here: http://bit.ly/7Q5IHp


We wish Patricia all the best of luck and congratulate her for her nomination!

Great Vinnitskaya review in International Piano Magazine!

Anna Vinnitskaya

Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata no.2. in B flat minor op.36
Gubaidulina Chaconne
Medtner Sonata 'Reminiscenza' in A minor op.38 no.1
Prokofiev Piano Sonata no.7 in B flat major op.38

Naïve Ambroisie

Winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2007 (only the second woman to win first prize in the history of the competition, after Ekaterina Novitskaya in 1968), Anna Vinnitskaya has drawn together a satisfying programme for her debut CD, spanning 50 years of Russian music, from Rachmaninoff to Gubaidulina. Aged 26, her youth ought to preclude both her bold confidence in Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Sonata (revised version) and her ability to open up its first movement in myriad shades of darkness. A peacefully seductive slow movement leads to a finale that seems a touch too controlled, lacking the abandon of Freddy Kempf (BIS). Steely and thunderous in Gubaidulina's striking Chaconne, Vinnitskaya contrasts the work's architectural rigour with finely conceived sonorous effects. The wistful charm of Medtner's Sonata offers a calm oasis before Prokofiev's Sonata no.7. There is nothing here to tax Vinnitskaya's solid technique, nor does she err from the mature, unaffected musical instinct of her Rachmaninoff. Add rich and immediate yet spacious sound quality, and this becomes a disc that is self-recommending.

Edward Bhesania

Sandrine Piau disc awarded 4 stars in Opera Now!

Sandrine Piau: Between Heaven and Earth

★★★★

Well, I don't know if a soprano should be bothering her head with metaphysics, but if it gives Sandrine Piau the excuse to sing Handel's 'Sweet bird', 'Tu del ciel', 'As steals the morn' and 'Convey Me to Some Peaceful Shore', inter alia, go for it, sister. This is, of course, a beautiful disc - because of what's on it, and the words of Milton, Dryden, Morrell and others - but also how it is presented. She doesn't have the biggest voice - 'Let the Bright Seraphim' is a little weak - but it is focused, ethereal and wonderfully expressive, and she puts more meaning into her English than many natives. The small Academia Bizantina accompanies her, directed with understated sophistication - except for a wilful Queen of Sheba - by Stefano Montanari, with a nice line in twangling harp and lute and a slightly over-engineered brilliance to the violins. A lovely, rapt contemplation.

RT

Accentus - Strauss project award!

We are delighted to announce that CLASSICA, one of the main French and European music magazines, will highlight Accentus' Strauss project with a "Choc de Classica" award in the February issue of the magazine!

 

 

Quatuor Diotima's Onslow disc chosen as 'Disc of the Month' in Diapason!

Quatuors fantastiques

George Onslow fut, comme son cadet Berlioz, frappé par la révélation du Beethoven tardif.
C'est ce romantisme français naissant que les Diotima, chevaliers de la modernité nous révèlent, exaltant.

LE DISQUE DU MOIS

GEORGE ONSLOW
Quatuors op. 54, 55 et 56
Quatuor Diotima
Naïve

Technique: 8.5/10

C'est une belle surprise que nous réservent les Diotima, hier grands prêtres célébrant les mysteres de Nono et Lachenmann (Assai, leur premier disque, salué d'un Diapason découverte), partisans d'un Janacek virtuose aux lignes affûtées (Alpha, Diapason d'or), tout récemment serviteurs zélés des fantasmagories mathématiques de Posadas (Kairos, Diapason d'or le mois dernier): les voici romantiques. Mais toujours à l'écart des chemins rebattus, avec cette figure essentielle d'Onslow, qui sort peu à peu du purgatoire oú il était tenu depuis sa mort.

Sa production de trios, quatuors et quintettes offre l'ensemble á la fois le plus abondant et le plus novateur de musique de chambre française dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Les Diotima se sont emparés des Opus 54 à 56, où se reflète la découverte par Onslow du dernier Beethoven, en 1828: le Français revient au quatuor avec une ambition et un appétit renouveles, piqué dans son orgueil par l'example (selon son mot) des Opus 131 et 135 de son aîné. Il densifie son style, trouve une expressivité nouvelle, entre de plain-pied dans le romantisme sans chercher toutefois à rompre ses attaches avec les formes classiques. Ces trois partitions méconnues brillent au sommet de la musique de chambre français, en un temps où Berlioz travaille à ses Scènes de Faust.

On sait gré aux Diotima de nous révéler la portée d'une musique parfois tenue pour un ersatz du postclassicisme viennois (ce qu'elle n'est vraiment pas). Leur approche rigoureuse, leur éloquence fluide sont doublées d'un sens de la dramaturgie ici précieux: l'Adagio cantabile de l'Opus 55 est à cet égard exemplaire, tout de tendresse, cordes à fleur d'archet, qui s'intensifient jusqu'au chant fervent soutenu d'intenses trémolos. Irrésistible, aussi, le finale de l'Opus 56, inlassable cavalcade où les quatre musiciens concentrent leur énergie avec une parfaite précision. La réussite instrumentale est totale: contrastes vifs, riche palette, dialogue transparent.

Les Opus 54 et 55 sont inédits au disque; l'ancienne gravure de l'Opus 56 par le Quatuor Coull avaue, au jeu des comparaisons, sa grandeur un peu feinte, en quête d'un sublime convenu. Sous les archets des Diotima, le lyrisme d'Onslow rappelle Schubert, son élan rythmique, Schumann. Et le discours sonne bien français par sa mesure et son harmonie claire. Trois visages d'une musique décidément singulière et puissante, réconciliés par le talent d'un jeune ensemble qu'il faudra désormais suivre dans tous les répertoires.

Nicolas Southon

Five star review for David Greilsammer in The Daily Telegraph!

Classical CD of the Week

Mozart: Piano Concertos in C minor K491 and E flat major K482

David Greilsammer (piano), Suedama Ensemble

***** (5 stars)

 Alongside the imaginative links and contrasts that he forges in some of his exploratory recital programmes, the young Israeli pianist David Greilsammer has also proved to be a classical musician of exceptional probity and freshness. A 2006 disc of 3 early Mozart concertos (Naïve V5149) is here complemented by a new recording of two late ones, the E flat major K482 and the C minor K491. It is a complete delight.

Greilsammer's blend of taste and invention is brought to bear on the cadenzas, which are his own and which he fashions in an 18th-century manner while allowing his own fancy to explore, embellish and mull over the musical material.

Greilsammer is joined here, as on his earlier disc, by the Suedama Ensemble, the chamber orchestra he formed in New York in 2005 and which spells Amadeus backwards.

But there is no need for any foreboding about gimmickry, because this is a polished group that brings individuality of personality to the voicing of instrumental lines and yet coalesces with unanimity of expressive purpose.

Vitality and the wise observance of classical perspective interact. Colours are distinct but intermingle and throw fascinating glints of light on the texture. There is no sense of the piano being "accompanied", but instead there is close collaboration in which all forces have their say in underlining the dramatic weight, the lyrical eloquence and the spiritedness of these two great concertos.

In league with his fellow musicians, whom he directs from the keyboard, Greilsammer brings dynamism, grace, rhythmic zest, thoughtful warmth and a feeling of spontaneity to the music, qualities that are irresistable and stylistically apt in equal measure.

Geoffrey Norris

Ibérica disc reviewed in Classic FM magazine

Music by de Falla, Cassadó & Granados

*** (3 stars)
Anne Gastinel (cello), Pablo Márquez (guitar)

 

French cellist Anne Gastinel, who made her mark performing Schubert and Schumann, wants to penetrate the 'soul of Spanish music' in this recital disc with guitarist Pablo Márquez. She makes a decent job of it, too: performing music by de Falla, Granados and the lesser-known Gaspar Cassadó, her cello breathes with the exuberant melodic inflections and clattering rhythms that characterise Spanish folk music. Nothing wrong with the playing then, but the music itself is cut disappointingly thin. Show-stopping extracts from de Falla's El Amor Brujo aside, Granados and Cassadó feel like variations on the same old idiomatic hooks. PC

See below for a fascinating Podcast that Naïve artist David Greilsammer recorded when he was in London last month!

Not content with bringing out a new CD - Mozart of course - Pianist David Greilsammer is now also music director of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra. So - what is he planning to do with it?

David Greilsammer Podcast

Outstanding review in BBC Music Magazine for Marc Minkowski's latest Naïve recording!

Purcell: hail! bright cecilia
Handel: a song for st cecilia's day
Haydn: cäcilienmesse

Lucy Crow (soprano)
Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto)
Anders J. Dahlin (tenor)
Richard Croft (tenor)
Luca Tittoto (bass)
David Bates (countertenor)
Neil Baker (baritone)
Members of Choeur des Musiciens du louvre / Marc Minkowski

Performance (Handel) ***** (5 stars)
(The Rest) **** (4 stars)
Recording **** (4 stars)

Marc Minkowski's latest album stumbles on the happy idea to sing Cecilia's praises through the mouthpiece of three of 2009's most august anniversarians. Logistics precluded inclusion of the mammoth last version of Haydn's Cäcilienmesse, so with Jesuitical aplomb Minkowski opts for the earliest state of the work - a Kyrie and Gloria - then undermines the cunning scholarly rectitude by adding two movements of the later Credo by way of 'encore'. Perhaps the justification lies in the listening since it facilitates a wonderfully intense 'Crucifixus' and an 'Et resurrexit' which ends disc 2 on a blistering high.

Captivating as it is to have a continental perspective on that most continental of English composers, the Purcell Ode - for all Minkowski's idiomatic theatricality and consummate synthesis of its French and Italian elements - registers less powerfully than the Handel. In part it's because Anders Dahlin's tenor never quite integrates the music's rhetorical diversity, and the choir, recessed in the sound picture, sounds a tad woolly. Lucy Crowe, however, is a natural Purcellian, and gilds the discs' triumph: Handel's A Song for St Cecilia's Day, a thrilling encounter with Dryden unmediated. Galvanised by Minkowski's exquisite detailing, the Musiciens du Louvre is on white-hot form throughout, but in the Handel, Nils Wieboldt's plangent cello sets the scene for 'What Passion' with such ear-tugging sensitivity a lesser singer than Crowe might have been utterly sidelined. Hail to Purcell and Haydn, but here Handel is the brightest Cecilia of all.

Paul Riley

Fantastic review for "Vivaldi" recording featuring Sara Mingardo and Rinaldo Alessandrini!

VIVALDI
Ostro picta RV 642
Gloria RV 589
Gloria RV 588

Sara Mingardo (contralto)
Concerto Italiano/ Rinaldo Alessandrini (direttore)

Performance **** (4 stars)
Recording **** (4 stars)


Director Rinaldo Alessandrini has brought together Vivaldi's two settings of the Gloria (RV 588 and 589). Both are in D major and each is scored similarly. This is Alessandrini's second recording of the celebrated Gloria (RV 589); indeed so familiar has it become that it is difficult to stand back and view it objectively. What strikes my ears are the consistently high level of musical invention and its effective formal concision, bringing to mind Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243). Both versions of this evergreen vocal masterpiece are stylish and deeply felt. Common to both is the affecting singing of contralto Sara Mingardo; her 'Domine Deus Agnus Dei' is poignantly declaimed. In the soprano 'Domine Deus Rex coelestis' Alessandrini prefers a solo violin to a solo oboe in both versions: Vivaldi offers either/or, but while I feel that an oboe is the stronger contender, the partnership of Deborah York and violinist Francesca Vicari in the earlier issue (1997) is one of rare beauty.

The 'other' Gloria by-and-large comes over well, though the choral singing compares unfavourably with the Choir of the King's Consort (Hyperion). Attractive features of the new disc lie in the coupling of the two works and the inclusion of an introductory motet to each. That belonging to the less familiar Gloria is integral to the setting and is scored for alto solo, while Ostro picta, for soprano, may have been intended to preface the well-known Gloria as it does here.

Nicholas Anderson
BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009