Amazing review of "The Food of Love" in January's Gramophone magazine!

Paul Agnew (tenor)
Anne-Marie Lasla (bass viol)
Elizabeth Kenny (theo/gtr)
Blandine Rannou (hpd)

Naïve - Ambroisie AM185

Purcell performances from a fine ensemble that approach perfection

Paul Agnew is perhaps most readily associated with the French Baroque, but he is equally at home in English music. Here he presents a marvellous anthology of songs by purcell. They are divided into groups which are separated by short instrumental pieces by other composers, giving well deserved solo spots to Anne-Marie Lasla and Elizabeth Kenny.

The programme - and it is a programme, which can be enjoyed at a sitting - begins with one version of "If music be the food of love" and ends with another: not Shakespeare, but Colonel Henry Heveningham. As you might expect, several songs employ a favourite device of Purcell's, the ground bass. "O Solitude", exquisitely shaded though it is, comes across as rather too austere with nothing between the bass viol and the voice; but in the introduction to "Music for a while", the viol; starts and is joined in turn by theorbo and harpsichord, to excellent effect.

If the tone is predominantly sombre, there's relief in "Man is for the woman made", Agnew's cheerful delivery perfectly complemented by a strumming guitar. The Evening Hymn - another ground - ends with a string of "Hallelujahs" that Agnew sings with an appropriate inwardness; it's aptly preceeded by the lesser-known and very different Morning Hymn. A pity that the original French of "O solitude" isn't printed; and one eyebrow twitched at the booklet's suggestion taht Purcell was practically an honourary Frenchman - "The fatal hour", for instance, is indebted to those "fam'd Italian Masters" - but it's the performances that count: magnificent.

Richard Lawrence 

Accentus review in The Independent on Sunday - 13th Dec 09

Accentus: Strauss, A Capella Motets (Naïve)

***(3 stars)

Reviewed by Anna Picard

The vocal demands of Strauss’s a capella motets are such that what is needed is a choir of Arabellas, Composers, Bacchuses and Mandrykas, hence they are rarely performed.


Joined by soloists Jane Archibald, Dagmar Peckova, Eric Soklossa and Robert Gleadow, the Latvian Radio Choir and Accentus deliver an impeccably tuned Op 62 under Laurence Equilbey, but sound understandably strained in Op 34. Most successful is “Traumlicht”, scored for male voices and a rare example of Strauss in less-is-more mode.

Click here to read this review online

Excellent review for Kopatchinskaja by Andrew McGregor on BBC Music online!

Ludwig Van Beethoven: Complete Works for Violin & Orchestra

Kopatchinskaja has something genuinely individual to say about this masterpiece

There has been a surprising number of new recordings of Beethoven recently from some fine fiddle players in the spring of their careers. Yet even amongst this crop of estimable newcomers, this one is unusually interesting, and not a little provocative.

From the first dry timpani strokes, the colours of period winds, the bite of the strings and propulsive tempo, you might guess that it's Philippe Herreweghe and his Orchestre des Champs-Elysees. We're made to wait a little for the soloist's first entry, and the rising octaves are given an exploratory feel... which is a clue to Moldavian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja's approach. If you think you know her sound from previous recordings, you'd be forgiven for not recognising it; she's deliberately channelling the spirit of the concerto's first performer, Franz Clement, and contemporary descriptions of his playing: "light, silvery touch, a natural poise, and totally unforced spontaneity".

Kopatchinskaja has extended that sense of freedom by experimenting with some of the variants in Beethoven's autograph, all perfectly reasonable and unlikely to ruffle the plumage, unlike the cadenzas. She's not the first violinist to reach forthe ones Beethoven himself wrote for this concerto when he prepared a version of it for piano, but she's the only violinist to attempt to play all the notes from the piano candenzas, multi-tracking herself to startling effect. Which leaves the ‘historically informed’ credentials of the performance in a state of authentic confusion, yet at the same time amplifies the sense of adventure and genuine re-discovery.

The period orchestral sounds are vital; the flowing tempos are close to Beethoven’s metronome marks; Kopatchinskaja’s character, her soaring sound and improvisatory flair are compelling, and ultimately highly musical. How much you care for the performance in the end might depend on those ‘impossible’ cadenzas, yet there’s a spirit and freshness I haven’t heard since Thomas Zehetmair’s account of the Beethoven with Frans Bruggen.

Kopatchinskaja has something genuinely individual to say about this much-loved and recorded masterpiece, and it comes with attractively straight accounts of the two Romances, and the unadorned Fragment of what might have become a C major violin concerto.

Click here to read this review online

Great review for Sandrine Piau in the December issue of Classic FM magazine!

"Between Heaven and Earth"

 

Handel

Sacred and operatic arias

**** (4 stars)

Sandrine Piau (sop), Accademia Bizantina/ Stefano Montanari

Piau's disc Opera Seria introduced her as a Handelian of the first order, able to combine astonishing vocal agility with a gorgeously melting, clear-edged sound. Now she develops her affinity with the composer's work and looks at his use of the high soprano voice to signify celestial beauty in all its forms. There are arias of blazing angelic coloratura from La resurrezione, of quiet radiance from A Song for St Cecilia's Day, and of anguished yearning after heavenly peace from Theodora. Her English diction wobbles occasionally, but her voice is as supple and clear as ever, and the accompaniments are lusciously rich.

WT

Kopatchinskaja interview in December issue of BBC Music Magazine

Rising star: Great Artists of Tomorrow

Patricia Kopatchinskaja - Violinist

The brilliant young Moldovan is on a mission to champion the new and unpredictable. And that includes Beethoven...

Patricia Kopatchinskaja is probably tired of showing people where her homeland is on a map. So, for the record, Moldova lies between Romania and the Ukraine. Best known for its wine, it is also, says the 32-year-old violinist, an intensely musical country. 'The folk music of Moldova is beautiful,' she tells us. 'You can compare it with Hungarian, Romanian or even Scottish folk. My mother used to say that the country is so poor that God looked down at the globe and decided he had to send us something as consolation - and that was music.'

The daughter of folk musicians herself, Kopatchinskaja originally wanted to be a composer but, she reflects, 'composing is like selling umbrellas in the Sahara. I had to earn money, and playing the violin was the way to do that.'

Composing's loss was the violin's gain. And how. With her deep, rich sound - one reviewer observed that she produces an almost viola-like warmth of tone - Kopatchinskaja has won many fans, not least when, with regular recital partners pianists Fazil Say and Mihaela Ursuleasa, she blazes away in folk-infused works by, say, Enescu, Ravel and Bartók.

But there is more to her than East European fireworks, as her new disc of Beethoven's Violin Concerto reveals. For this, she went back to basics, examining the composer's original score, in which Beethoven used four different staves for the soloist's part so that he could toy with alternative approaches. 'I was amazed by how many variants that Beethoven wrote down - often two or three,' she explains, 'I asked myself "Why not try one or two of these other possibilities that he thought about?". I wanted to try this with conductor Philippe Herreweghe, who agreed it was very interesting. Step by step, it became very new, almost like a world premiere. It had a new face, a new story'.

A player who likes to champion 'unpredictable' contemporary composers, there is little danger of Kopatchinskaja ever drifting into predictability herself. Her next disc after Beethoven? Enescu sonatas and Ravel's Tzigane... plus Moldovan folk music, played with her own parents! If that doesn't put her country's music on the map, nothing will.

Interview by Jeremy Pound

Fantastic CD review from Norman Lebrecht on La Scena!

Accentus

Richard Strauss: German Motet

(Naïve)

***** (5 stars)

Totally out of a blue sleeve, sung by the Latvian radio choir with the French conductor Laurence Equilbey, comes a luminous collection of Strauss vocal works, unfamiliar to my ears and unrelated to anything he was writing at the time. The German motet, premiered December 1913 in Berlin and scored in 20 parts - 16 choirs and four soloists - is second in complexity only to Tallis's Spem in Aulium.

There are passing soprano affinities to the recent Rosenkavalier but nothing by way of baroque affectation or patriotic bombast, just an unleashing of choral virtuosity for the sheer delight of it. Strauss makes much play on the word Licht (light) in a text taken from Friedrich Rückert, whose poems yielded Gustav Mahler's two great cycles. He is less concerned than Mahler with consonantal clarity, preferring a wash of sound through which the solo voices rise and fall like dolphins in an evening sea. Gorgeous.

Strauss returns to Rückert in 1935 when, sidelined by the Nazis, he writes Dream Light for male choruses in a manner morosely reminiscent of Schubert and Brahms, reaching back for roots he once shared with the now-banned Mahler. Two other songs on this revelatory disc date from 1897 when both composers were poised at the edge of their prime. As for the record sleeve, Naïve make the most beautiful covers to be found anywhere in these straitened times. 

Click here to watch a YouTube video about this recording:

 

Naïve to be named as "Label of the Year" at the 2010 Midem Classical Awards!

We are delighted to announce that Naïve will be honoured as "Label of the Year" at the 2010 edition of the Midem Classical Awards! The awards are to take place in January in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes and other winners include Italian soprano Mirella Freni and Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt.

As the press release published by the MCA say: "by electing Naïve as "Label of the year", the Jury has acknowledged the energy deployed by the label in the music industry and its capacity to explore a large and rare catalogue including a range of first choice artists".

Click here to read the full press release on the midem website:

http://www.midem.com/RM/RM_Midem/PDF/midem2010_press_release_MCA_Special_Awards.pdf

Quatuor Diotima's Onslow recording to be awarded 'Diapason d'or'!

The Quatuor Diotima will be awarded "Diapason d'or" + "CD of the month" in the January issue of the magazine!

This is Quatuor Diotima's first recording for Naïve and is dedicated to a forgotten romantic French composer: George Onslow. Quatuor Diotima has recently been developing a significant concert activity worldwide and has toured China, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the UK!

Founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon conservatoires, the quartet takes its name from Luigi Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima, thus affirming its commitment to the music of our time. Ever since its formation, the quartet has made international appearances which have taken it to most of the major European festivals and concert series, notably the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Wigmore Hall in London.

Click here to listen to excerpts from this release on the Naïve Classics website:  

http://www.naive.fr/#/artist/quatuor-diotima