What are you listening to?

[Jose Echenique]

I 'm very much looking forward to picking up that version of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, Jose. The complete set of Italian cantatas which Fabio Bonizzoni has recorded for Glossa is exceptional and unlikely to be surpassed in the near future.  I sincerely hope his working relationship with Roberta Invernizzi continues for quite some time.  Their recent album of Vivaldi opera arias was an absolute delight.

I also enjoyed your appraisal of your favourite recordings of Orlando, which is also a personal favourite of mine. I own the Hogwood and Christie versions on CD as well as a later version  directed by Christie from Zurich in 2007 and available on an Arthaus DVD.  Both CD versions are excellent and very rewarding listens but I have a slight preference for Christie for the sheer panache of his performance.  The DVD is also very good, featuring a less well known cast than Hogwood's or Christie's earlier version.  Perhaps the best known singer is bass Konstantin Wolff as Zoroastro (also cast by Rene Jacobs in this role in his production of this work last year at La Monnaie).   My pick of the singers would be Martina Jankova (as Angelica) who also recently recorded a very enjoyable CD of Bach cantatas for Supraphon under Vaclav Laks' direction and Marijana Mijanovic (who recorded an excellent version of Giulio Cesare with Marc Minkowski, not to mention the more neglected Rodelinda and  Floridante under Alan Curtis's direction).  The period instrument orchestra of the Zurich Opera House, La Scintilla, play very well for Christie.  I'm hoping, though, that Rene Jacobs will record Orlando for Harmonia Mundi shortly.  There are some very tantalising  excerpts on Youtube from last year's production at La Monnaie with Bejun Mehta in particular on splendid form.

I was listening today to Alan Curtis's superb version of Ariodonte (released in 2011 on Virgin Classics).  What a performance!  I'm a great fan of Curtis's previous Handel recordings (especially his version of Alcina, which is probably the best since Christie's) but this might just be his finest achievement.  Beautiful performances from Joyce DiDonato, Karina Gauvin and Marie-Nicole Lemieux.  I was particularly struck by DiDonato's deeply moving "Cherza infida" which must rank as a career highlight for this lady.  I remain very attached to Nicholas McGegan's and Marc Minkowski's versions on Harmonia Mundi and DG Archiv, respectively, but this was a quite superb achievement for Curtis.  Virgin Classics were very foolish to let him go to Naive.

The Glossa series of the Handel Italian cantatas is indeed treasurable, in fact I was kind of sad that it comes to an end with Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. May they continue the Scarlatti cantatas, and boy that can go on for 30 years because Alessandro Scarlatti wrote hundreds.
I also love the Alan Curtis Ariodante, how could I not with Joyce DiDonato and Karina Gauvin together!
But it´s very true that the McGegan and the Minkowski are great too, as are their respective divas: Lorraine Hunt and Anne Sofie von Otter...wow, one can understand bigamy with such fabulous ladies.

I don´t think Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco had an exclusive contract with Virgin. Rather, they seem to be free lance so that any company can hire them for whatever project they have in mind. I just heard Il Complesso Barocco last year accompanying Joyce DiDonato in her November Carnegie Hall recital. With their new Russian concert master, super virtuoso Dmitri Sinkovsky, they sounded spectacular.
In fact there are talks of a Domenico Scarlatti opera for Virgin maybe next year. Let´s keep our fingers crossed.

[Jose Echenique]

Bach: Six Cello Suites performed by Anner Bylsma....





....this is another very good performance and one that I like.

The great Anner Bylsma! Needless to say dear Fergus.

[Jared]

[fergus]

Earlier Symphonies 1 & 2 by Carl Maria von Weber....





....there is a wonderful sound world here!

[mcq]

Listening tonight to a recent purchase, Handel's Serse, with Christian Curnyn directing his Early Opera Company ensemble (available on the Chandos label).   Curnyn is sometimes criticised for an overly reticent approach to Handel, eschewing the theatrical drama of Rene Jacobs, for example, but I find this an elegant, restrained and, above all, sincere reading that beautifully communicates the emotional riches in Handel's rich score.  

The cast is exceptional.  Not many singers can express Handelian dignity like the wonderful Rosemary Joshua, who here takes on the role of Romilda and delivers an intensely moving performance.  Joshua has given us some wonderful performances in recent years, culminating in last year's breathtaking rendition of Purcell's Harmonia Sacra (under the direction of Christophe Rousset and available on the Aparte label), and she matches the fervent intensity of that recording with an anguished performance here of great power.  Although I single out Joshua, the remaining cast of singers - particularly David Daniels and Anna Stephany - are uniformly excellent.  It bears repeating that Curnyn's is a subtle, understated approach to Handel,  patient and deliberate in his pacing, but I find the result very powerful indeed.

A superb recording, very highly recommended.

[mcq]

Rounding out a wonderful evening's listening tonight with a quite superb new recording of Corelli's Concerti Grossi, as performed  by Amandine Beyer and her Gli Incogniti ensemble (available on ZigZag).  Over the years, we have been treated to many rewarding versions of these masterpieces, but my favoured recording remains Chiara Banchini with her Ensemble 415 (on Harmonia Mundi) for its unaffected sense of Italianate charm and grace married with sheer headlong verve.  Beyer's set of Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for solo violin and her version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons are among the finest versions I have heard of these pinnacles of the repertoire and I have been eagerly awaiting this recording of the Corelli works.  Recorded live in concert, this is an exhilarating and emotionally intense experience that I find utterly life-enhancing and profoundly joyous.  What next for Beyer, I wonder? Perhaps Biber's Rosary Sonatas?

[fergus]

Rounding out a wonderful evening's listening tonight with a quite superb new recording of Corelli's Concerti Grossi, as performed  by Amandine Beyer and her Gli Incogniti ensemble (available on ZigZag).  Over the years, we have been treated to many rewarding versions of these masterpieces, but my favoured recording remains Chiara Banchini with her Ensemble 415 (on Harmonia Mundi) for its unaffected sense of Italianate charm and grace married with sheer headlong verve.  Beyer's set of Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for solo violin and her version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons are among the finest versions I have heard of these pinnacles of the repertoire and I have been eagerly awaiting this recording of the Corelli works.  Recorded live in concert, this is an exhilarating and emotionally intense experience that I find utterly life-enhancing and profoundly joyous.  What next for Beyer, I wonder? Perhaps Biber's Rosary Sonatas?

Very interesting Paul; I have the Chiara Banchini set of Corelli's Concerti Grossi, and I am a fan of Amandine Beyer and also have the Bach and Vivaldi that you mention so I must look up her Corelli Concerti Grossi.

[fergus]

Dvorak: Cello concerto with Piatigorsky/Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra....

[Jose Echenique]

Listening tonight to a recent purchase, Handel's Serse, with Christian Curnyn directing his Early Opera Company ensemble (available on the Chandos label).   Curnyn is sometimes criticised for an overly reticent approach to Handel, eschewing the theatrical drama of Rene Jacobs, for example, but I find this an elegant, restrained and, above all, sincere reading that beautifully communicates the emotional riches in Handel's rich score.  

The cast is exceptional.  Not many singers can express Handelian dignity like the wonderful Rosemary Joshua, who here takes on the role of Romilda and delivers an intensely moving performance.  Joshua has given us some wonderful performances in recent years, culminating in last year's breathtaking rendition of Purcell's Harmonia Sacra (under the direction of Christophe Rousset and available on the Aparte label), and she matches the fervent intensity of that recording with an anguished performance here of great power.  Although I single out Joshua, the remaining cast of singers - particularly David Daniels and Anna Stephany - are uniformly excellent.  It bears repeating that Curnyn's is a subtle, understated approach to Handel,  patient and deliberate in his pacing, but I find the result very powerful indeed.

A superb recording, very highly recommended.

I loved Curnyn´s recording of Partenope, that was a most pleasant surprise for a group new to records, but then I was slightly disappointed with their Semele, especially because that masterpiece urgently needed a first class period recording. They came back on track with Flavio, very well done and with the excellent Tim Mead in the title role. I must say I was VERY surprised that they brought back David Daniels to the studio since his last recordings (made by the way a number of years ago) had been very disappointing, for ex. Les Nuits d´Eté, which he had no business singing. I was also surprised because with the tumultuous new generation of countertenors (Mead, Towers, Zazzo, Mehta, let alone Jaroussky or Fagioli) Davis Daniels is no longer as hot as he was 10 years ago. But if you recommend the Serse I might give it a try. The William Christie recording with Anne Sofie von Otter is so good that I´m quite happy with it, but I suffer from acute Handel-mania so it will be on my Amazon cart before long.
By the way, Rosemary Joshua has just recorded Belshazzar with Les Arts Florissants in their new label, THAT is definitely also in my cart.

[Jose Echenique]

These days, if you want to get things done, you´d better do them yourself. Like the LSO, the Chicago Symphony is not only recording orchestral repertoire but operas too, and very expensive operas at that.
The LSO has also recorded Verdi´s Otello, but that´s a hugely disappointing recording because of the unacceptable inadequacies of Simon O´Neill in the title role. Either you have the voice to sing this hugely demanding role, or you don´t, and O´ Neill is at least 3 sizes too small for a role that was sung by Francesco Tamagno, Giovanni Martinelli, Mario del Monaco, Jon Vickers and last but not least, Plácido Domingo. Aleksandris Antonenko certainly has the voice, it´s huge, and already has many Otellos behind him (he can be seen on dvd in a Salzburg Festival production also conducted by Muti), so his performance is both assured and thrilling, if anything is missing is that Italianate quality that Domingo brought to the role.
Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova has a gorgeous voice and is very good as Desdemona, this is a soprano that gets better and better as years go by. Unfortunately Carlo Guelfi, so promising 10 years ago, no longer has a voice in it´s prime. Pavarotti once said that it was not tenors that were difficult to find, but Verdi baritones, and he was right, up to the 90´s we had Renato Bruson, Giorgio Zancanaro and Vladimir Chernov, now Hvorostovsky, Guelfi and some others just don´t fill the shoes.
But not surprisingly the most rewarding thing in this recording is Muti´s conducting and the superb playing of the Chicago Symphony. Muti let us hear so many details, so many things that usually pass unnoticed, that one marvels again and again at this glorious opera.
And it is very well recorded too. Amazon advertised this as SACD but it´s regular CD. That´s the only disappointment.