BBC Music Magazine Choices,
BBC Music Magazine - February 2023 Choices
Pick of the crop in this month's issue is Echo from soprano Ruby Hughes and pianist-composer Huw Watkins, released on BIS last November - taking its title from a new song-cycle by Watkins (which sets poems by Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin, W.B. Yeats and David Harsent), the programme explores the themes of melancholy, mortality and loss, and also includes music by JS Bach, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Errollyn Wallen, Deborah Pritchard and Henry Purcell via Tippett and Adès.
Category Choices include a tribute to William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes on the quatercentenary of their deaths from Fretwork and The King's Singers on Signum, John Williams's soundtrack for Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiography The Fabelmans on Sony, the Takács Quartet's recording of works by Ravel, Dutilleux and Stephen Hough on Hyperion, and Leeds International Piano Competition-winner Eric Lu's accounts of Schubert's Piano Sonata Nos. 14 & 20 on Warner Classics - more on that one from us later this week...
Recording of the Month
'Watkins’s cycle shares Britten’s ability to meld text and musical gesture with an acuity seemingly effortless, almost plucked ready-formed out of the air...An exquisite release touched with poignant pleasures and depth-plumbing reflections that echo, re-echo, linger and endure.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Orchestral Choice
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Souvenir de Florence, Andante Cantabile
United Strings of Europe, Julian Azkoul
'So many inspired melodies, ravishingly harmonised, on a single disc...The inwardness of the ‘Elegie’ and the crescendos from pp to ff are superbly done..Azkoul’s penchant for rare transcriptions of choral pieces is nicely represented in the encore, a student setting originally of Nikolay Ogaryov’s ‘At Bedtime’.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Concerto Choice
Lost in Venice
Vadym Makarenko (violin), Bruno Hurtado Gosalvez (cello), Natalie Carducci (violin), Infermi d'Amore
'Infermi d’Amore capture the drama of these theatrical scores with a remarkable range of dynamics, timbres and rhetorical gestures. With an ensemble of only ten players, their sound is transparent yet surprisingly rich, and it ’s beautifully captured in this high-definition, surround-sound recording.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Opera Choice
Vive Verdi! French Rarities and Discoveries
Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Orchestra Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Chorus of Teatro Regio Di Parma, Roberto Abbado
'It is exciting to hear Ludovic Tézier singing Macbeth in French...Here’s a baritone with an instinct for the declamatory and expressive style that Verdi demanded for the role, who nevertheless manages to find an elegiac dignity at the end of the aria...and the woodwind playing of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini is a real joy.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Choral & Song Choice
'From Weelkes we have the immensely subtle Hark all ye lovely saints, set to springy, vertiginous changes of metre beautifully negotiated by the singers, and his In nomine a 4, performed in a delightfully skittish manner by Fretwork...this new release is one of the finest recordings of this repertoire and can be warmly recommended.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber Choice
'This recording really is a joy from start to finish...the Takács Quartet are alive to every inflection in Ravel’s meticulously marked score, so that we live the journeys of each movement with them...Above all, Stephen Hough’s is an unmistakably individual and convincing voice.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Instrumental Choice
'The opening movement of Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata, D959, is exquisitely shaped in this latest offering by Eric Lu, the impressive US pianist who won the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition...A virtuosic final movement [of the A minor Sonata] confirms Lu’s place among today’s Schubertians.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Stage & Screen Choice
'There’s every chance this will be the last film score John Williams writes for director Steven Spielberg...If that is to be taken as read, then The Fabelmans is a slight, yet emotional, ending to what has been an almost-50year partnership...Williams puts the piano at the heart of his score and even shoehorns solo items by Bach, Clementi, Haydn and Kuhlau into the mix.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
