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RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR Gramophone Awards 2017 Recording of the Year & Concerto Mozart Violin Concertos Nos 1-5. Adagio, K261. Rondos – K269; K373 Isabelle Faust vn Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini Harmonia Mundi M b HMC90 2230/31 Producer Martin Sauer Engineers Tobias Lehmann, Wolfgang Schiefermann Sponsored by Adifferent beauty here, a new way of hearing these deliciously Italianate masterpieces that doesn’t so much replace what we know and love as offer, in musical terms, a conceptual supplement. To deal with the accompaniments first, Giovanni Antonini’s period-instrument Il Giardino Armonico sport an unusually wide range of dynamics. Take the Fifth Concerto, its decisive opening chord followed by a shimmering Allegro aperto, kept tense and quiet aside from some dramatic interjections. The expected lack of vibrato and the tweaking of certain note values in tutti passages also arrest attention, such as the opening’s second idea: this is swift, buoyant, trimly tailored playing, up and running from the off and with not so much as an ounce of excess weight to hold it back. Isabelle Faust’s first entry is spun silver, gently conspicuous by its chasteness and yet very much of a piece with her musical surroundings. These forces score highest in the exotic ‘Turkish’ episode of the Fifth’s finale, Faust as deft as a dancing devil, Antonini and his band charging the atmosphere with pungent textures and fiery rhythms. It’s good that they preceded the Concerto with the Adagio, K261, composed because Antonio Brunetti – Mozart’s replacement as concertmaster in Salzburg (and a ‘thoroughly ill-bred fellow’ according to Mozart himself) – found the Adagio of the main work too ‘artificial’. Slow movements are given an unusual slant, occasionally in a way that maybe craves adjustment from the listener, especially the listener ‘of a certain age’. The Third Concerto’s Adagio opens to muted first violins which in this instance sound more like period woodwinds, a mellow blend of tones that paves the way for Faust’s gleaming first solo entry. Another case in point is the Andante from the Fourth Concerto where, after the cadenza (here, as elsewhere, the innovative work of the period keyboard player Andreas Staier), Mozart writes a heart-stopping little coda: in essence, four repeated notes, then an upwards scale that climbs down, dips further and, as traditionally heard, rises back to the initial note on a heartfelt slide. Faust’s way is not so much to drift upwards on ethereal wings as to take a notational elevator, then embellish the line. It’s an interesting idea but as of the present I still have the likes of Ehnes, Mutter, Szeryng, Heifetz, Grumiaux, Martzy (especially beautiful) and others tugging at my heartstrings, imploring me to stay with their warmer, more direct approach. Still, Faust’s alternative is certainly food for thought. Mention of Staier’s cadenzas prompts me to quote his theories appertaining to the concertos’ ‘proximity of tone to Italian opera’ (his own words), and the idea of opera recitative, which means that some of the cadenzas are unusually complex and/or long. The Third Concerto’s first movement provides a striking place to sample. Listen to disc 1, track 8, from 6'49", a top-gear, Locatelli-style unaccompanied showpiece, at least initially, then wittily hesitant, and which come 7'59" summons the orchestra back for dual action. Modern scholarship suggests that the First Concerto predates the other four and listening to it again after a short break I can recognise its stylistic similarity to music from the late Baroque period. Of special note is the flowing, elegantly voiced Adagio, Faust’s entry here among the most beautiful moments in the entire set. The Second Concerto’s first movement is demonstrably operatic in style, true concerto buffa, the first movement full of fun, the Andante a dead ringer for a Mozart or even a Rossini aria, granted a shapely reading by Faust and her skilled accomplices, delicate and tonally varied. So a remarkably refreshing collection, the sort that challenges previously held convictions, and a good thing that it does too. The recorded balance is excellent, keeping the soloist in focus while granting the orchestra plenty of presence. Rob Cowan 30 GRAMOPHONE RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR 2017 Click on a CD cover to buy/stream from gramophone.co.uk
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RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR Early Music Dowland Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares Phantasm with Elizabeth Kenny lute Linn F CKD527 Producer & Engineer Philip Hobbs Followers of Phantasm will be shedding tears of joy at the news that Dowland’s Lachrimae has won this year’s Early Music Award. The critical reception since its release has been universally glowing, and, it should be said, some of the most perceptive insights came from our own Lindsay Kemp, writing in July 2016. Phantasm is no stranger to the Gramophone Awards, having been a frequent finalist in both the Early Music and Baroque Instrumental categories as well as a previous winner of both awards for its recordings of Gibbons (2004) and Purcell (1997). Among Phantasm’s defining strengths are the clarity, vision and determination of its leader, Laurence Dreyfus. Blessed with a formidable intellect, acute musical sensibilities, insatiable curiosity and a measure of self-belief, he chose to challenge an already crowded field of professional viol consorts specialising in the Elizabethan and Jacobean repertoires by putting together a crack ensemble of players after his own heart who could play as one and with whom he could develop freshly informed performances of the highest calibre. Over the years, Dreyfus’s gifts for teaching and research made him welcome in some of the finest British and American academic institutions where the marriage of musical performance and scholarship is encouraged. In that environment, musicians like Dreyfus are encouraged to delve deeper, to test and refine their interpretations before committing them to disc, a luxury most professional performers can ill afford. This approach is precisely what marks out Phantasm’s Dowland recording from many of those issued from the mid-1980s onwards. Phantasm inevitably stands on the shoulders of its predessors, relying on Lynda Sayce and David Pinto’s 2004 Fretwork edition of the music and Peter Holman’s indispensable 1999 handbook, Dowland: Lachrimae (1604). Another veteran of a previous Lachrimae recording, the lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, makes a thoughtfully judged contribution to this disc. Lindsay Kemp’s assessment is worthy of reprise: ‘Phantasm’s performances are totally convincing and absorbing. Drawing richly on their depth, intensity and homogeneity of tone, their acuity to the music’s ever-active emotional flux leaves them unafraid to use forceful gestures of articulation and dynamics to make a point.’ Julie Anne Sadie Baroque Instrumental ‘The Italian Job’ Albinoni. Caldara. Corelli. Tartini. Torelli. Vivaldi Concertos and sinfonias La Serenissima / Adrian Chandler vn Avie F AV2371 Producer & Engineer Simon Fox-Gál La Serenissima have a glorious and all-too-rare ability to make one’s pulse race afresh with every new project, and ‘The Italian Job’ – a programme of sinfonias and concertos from four musical cities – contains all their typical hallmarks: crisply precise articulation, bang-on intonation, elegant blending and zinging sonority, but all this perfection is by no means straight-laced. Instead there’s a fearless, funfilled naturalness to the whole, and always the impression of an ensemble who believe in every single note they strike or stroke. Looking at the programme itself, it’s a feast of contrasting textures and colours. Compare the reedy bite and bounce of Vivaldi’s Bassoon Concerto in C with the lighter, all-strings elegance of Tartini’s Violin Concerto in E, for instance. Or indeed the disc’s climactic work, Torelli’s Sinfonia in C, because while with recordings I’m usually only focused on the finished gramophone.co.uk Click on a CD cover to buy/stream from package, with this sinfonia’s monster-sized solo line-up of four trumpets, timpani, and two each of oboes, bassoons, violins and cellos, I can’t help but dream of what an extraordinary listening experience the recording sessions must have been. It’s certainly come across wonderfully on disc. Back in my initial review in April I commented that it felt almost unhelpful to draw readers’ attentions to ‘highlights’ when the whole was so wonderful, but then couldn’t resist pointing out that aforementioned Tartini violin concerto. Now, months on, this is still the work I’m most regularly pressing the repeat button on: think gently flowing metronomic ticking, graceful ensemble playing, and exquisitely voiced and ornamented solo violin lines from Chandler himself which dance and glide along with the finetoned warmth, sweetness and delicacy of spun brown sugar. Bravo La Serenissima! Charlotte Gardner GRAMOPHONE RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR 2017 31

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RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR

Early Music

Dowland Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares Phantasm with Elizabeth Kenny lute Linn F CKD527 Producer & Engineer Philip Hobbs

Followers of Phantasm will be shedding tears of joy at the news that Dowland’s Lachrimae has won this year’s Early Music Award. The critical reception since its release has been universally glowing, and, it should be said, some of the most perceptive insights came from our own Lindsay Kemp, writing in July 2016. Phantasm is no stranger to the Gramophone Awards, having been a frequent finalist in both the Early Music and Baroque Instrumental categories as well as a previous winner of both awards for its recordings of Gibbons (2004) and Purcell (1997).

Among Phantasm’s defining strengths are the clarity, vision and determination of its leader, Laurence Dreyfus. Blessed with a formidable intellect, acute musical sensibilities, insatiable curiosity and a measure of self-belief, he chose to challenge an already crowded field of professional viol consorts specialising in the Elizabethan and Jacobean repertoires by putting together a crack ensemble of players after his own heart who could play as one and with whom he could develop freshly informed performances of the highest calibre.

Over the years, Dreyfus’s gifts for teaching and research made him welcome in some of the finest British and American academic institutions where the marriage of musical performance and scholarship is encouraged. In that environment, musicians like Dreyfus are encouraged to delve deeper, to test and refine their interpretations before committing them to disc, a luxury most professional performers can ill afford. This approach is precisely what marks out Phantasm’s Dowland recording from many of those issued from the mid-1980s onwards. Phantasm inevitably stands on the shoulders of its predessors, relying on Lynda Sayce and David Pinto’s 2004 Fretwork edition of the music and Peter Holman’s indispensable 1999 handbook, Dowland: Lachrimae (1604). Another veteran of a previous Lachrimae recording, the lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, makes a thoughtfully judged contribution to this disc.

Lindsay Kemp’s assessment is worthy of reprise: ‘Phantasm’s performances are totally convincing and absorbing. Drawing richly on their depth, intensity and homogeneity of tone, their acuity to the music’s ever-active emotional flux leaves them unafraid to use forceful gestures of articulation and dynamics to make a point.’ Julie Anne Sadie

Baroque Instrumental

‘The Italian Job’ Albinoni. Caldara. Corelli. Tartini. Torelli. Vivaldi Concertos and sinfonias La Serenissima / Adrian Chandler vn Avie F AV2371 Producer & Engineer Simon Fox-Gál

La Serenissima have a glorious and all-too-rare ability to make one’s pulse race afresh with every new project, and ‘The Italian Job’ – a programme of sinfonias and concertos from four musical cities – contains all their typical hallmarks: crisply precise articulation, bang-on intonation, elegant blending and zinging sonority, but all this perfection is by no means straight-laced. Instead there’s a fearless, funfilled naturalness to the whole, and always the impression of an ensemble who believe in every single note they strike or stroke.

Looking at the programme itself, it’s a feast of contrasting textures and colours. Compare the reedy bite and bounce of Vivaldi’s Bassoon Concerto in C with the lighter, all-strings elegance of Tartini’s Violin Concerto in E, for instance. Or indeed the disc’s climactic work, Torelli’s Sinfonia in C, because while with recordings I’m usually only focused on the finished gramophone.co.uk

Click on a CD cover to buy/stream from package, with this sinfonia’s monster-sized solo line-up of four trumpets, timpani, and two each of oboes, bassoons, violins and cellos, I can’t help but dream of what an extraordinary listening experience the recording sessions must have been. It’s certainly come across wonderfully on disc.

Back in my initial review in April I commented that it felt almost unhelpful to draw readers’ attentions to ‘highlights’ when the whole was so wonderful, but then couldn’t resist pointing out that aforementioned Tartini violin concerto. Now, months on, this is still the work I’m most regularly pressing the repeat button on: think gently flowing metronomic ticking, graceful ensemble playing, and exquisitely voiced and ornamented solo violin lines from Chandler himself which dance and glide along with the finetoned warmth, sweetness and delicacy of spun brown sugar. Bravo La Serenissima! Charlotte Gardner

GRAMOPHONE RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR 2017 31

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