Presto Editor's Choices,
Presto Editor's Choices - August 2023
Weird but distinctly wonderful, this programme exploring the connections between the emerging early music and cabaret scenes in early twentieth-century Paris finds d'Oustrac not so much chewing as devouring the scenery and evidently having enormous fun into the bargain. There are visceral accounts of troubadour ballads and Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna, but the real gems are the cabaret-songs: particularly Raymond Legrand's near-the-knuckle 'Les nuits d'une demoiselle' and Mlle Thérésa's madcap 'Les canards tyroliens', where quacks and yodels sit cheek-by-jowl with quotations from Peter and the Wolf and the Queen of the Night's aria.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Liszt: A Faust Symphony & Mephisto Waltz No. 3
Airam Hernandez (tenor), Staatskapelle Wiemar, Kirill Karabits
Liszt's orchestral portraits of Faust, Marguerite and Mephistopheles positively leap off the page in this vital, richly characterised account of the Goethe-inspired symphony: the Weimar brass glow and growl in the opening movement depicting Faust's torment, principal oboe and viola are on eloquent form when portraying Marguerite's innocence, and the devilish scherzo is given with dazzling clarity. Boris Lyatoshinsky's 1955 symphonic poem Grazhyna (which Karabits has previously recorded in Bournemouth) looks like a non sequitur on paper, but the kinship with Liszt's soundworld is striking.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Maltworms and Milkmaids: Warlock and the Orchestra
Nadine Benjamin (soprano), Ben McAteer (baritone), BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, David Hill
It's a treat to hear popular songs such as 'Yarmouth Fair' and 'Captain Stratton's Fancy' in full orchestral clothing: McAteer is suitably hale and hearty in the rumbustious drinking-songs and Benjamin radiant in the more reflective numbers, whilst the BBC Singers bring real eloquence to the selection of carols. And the purely orchestral works (almost all with a pronounced French accent) are beautifully done, especially the Debussy-ish An Old Song and the Serenade composed for Delius's sixtieth birthday, which sounds as if it could easily have sprung from the pen of its dedicatee.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Zygmunt Noskowski: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 2 'Elegijna'
Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Antoni Wit
A former Music Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, Noskowski was also one of the most prominent Polish composers of the late nineteenth century, but recordings of his music are few and far between. His compatriot Wit does him proud here, revelling in the Polish dance-rhythms which pepper the scherzos of these two symphonies from the 1870s and pacing the sweeping outer movements of the 'Elegijna' (echoes of Schumann and shades of early Tchaikovsky here) to perfection.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mayer switches between oboe, oboe d'amore and cor anglais for this portrait of four members of the Bach dynasty, and his virtuosity on all three is breathtaking: the finale of JS's Keyboard Concerto No. 4 positively bubbles with energy and Mayer's own cadenzas (complete with a few little intertextual references) often seem to defy gravity. Old favourites (not least a stylishly ornamented 'Air on the G string' and a breakneck 'Badinerie') come up as fresh as daisies, but there are rarities too: not least Johann Christoph Friedrich's Mozartian keyboard concerto, which translates readily to the oboe and springs plenty of harmonic surprises along the way.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart: The Piano Quartets
Francesca Dego (violin), Timothy Ridout (viola), Laura van der Heijden (cello), Federico Colli (piano)
All four musicians here are star soloists in their own rights, but there's no sense of jostling egos in these warmly collegiate performances - just the sense of ideas being exchanged in the moment, and everyone being willing to step aside a little when a colleague is offered a moment to shine. Dynamic markings are often taken to the extreme, and ornamentation is liberal but never unstylish: Colli's exuberance and lavish rubato might polarise some listeners, but personally I loved it.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This is a neat idea: Bonthrone and Mead's wide-ranging programme is themed around three influential salonnières (Pauline Viardot, Élisabeth Greffulhe and sewing-machine heiress Winnaretta Singer), taking in songs by Chaminade, the Boulanger sisters and Cole Porter along the way. It runs to just 48 minutes, but quickly establishes Bonthrone as a major talent: the Scottish tenor is warmly communicative in all four languages, bringing tipsy élan to Rossini's L'orgia and completely at ease with the vertiginous lines of Saint-Saëns's La libellule (which take him to a high E!).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Campra, Rameau, Mondonville
Marie Perbost, Emmanuelle Ifrah (sopranos), Samuel Boden (tenor), Zachary Wilder (tenor), Victor Sicard (baritone); Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm
André Campra's Requiem of 1695 (commissioned in memory of the Archbishop of Paris) is the main event here, and receives a luminous, finely etched performance: the choir are buoyant and nimble in the 'Et semini eus', and the Sanctus has a courtly grace which would hardly sound out of place in a Lully ballet. But the two 'grands motets' are much more than makeweights: Rameau's In Convertendo sees a star turn from the agile baritone Victor Sicard, whilst Mondonville's In exitu Israel features some astonishingly vivid word-painting, especially in the 'Mare vidit' (where cascading strings and winds and repeated syllables from the choir depict the surging waves to powerful effect).
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
