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GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018 Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6, ‘Pathétique’, Op 74 MusicAeterna / Teodor Currentzis Sony Classical F 88985 40435-2 (46’ • DDD) You may be inclined to adjust your set from the very opening, and you should: the disc demands a high playback level when the neighbours are out; or, for a sleepless night, on decent headphones. Currentzis and the engineering team (who should properly be credited here: producer Damien Quintard, assisted by Arnaud Merckling and Afanasy Chupin) have crafted the kind of studio-made experience that went out of fashion two decades ago and more. There are very many things here that it would be impossible to achieve in concert. Take that opening again, the first page in a chronicle of a death foretold if ever there was one. The bassoon solo is phrased neither in three linked but expressively impotent segments, nor as the unending melody of which Karajan was often falsely, sometimes justly charged. Rather, it swells and recedes in continual motion with acute sensitivity both to the composer’s minutely detailed markings, and in response to the more glacially shifting string harmonies beneath. Then silence: not the silence of drawing breath or anticipation but black; not a dead black like the sound engineer’s jargon for the end of an LP side but black as Vantablack, fathomless. This is a symphony of silences; Currentzis has calibrated them with the unsparing precision of a Pinter or a Haneke. From him you might expect the striking of attitude and individualistic exploitation of technology that produced an uneven trilogy of Mozart/da Ponte operas and does not so much skirt as abandon itself to a crater of molten solipsism. Perhaps, in the Pathétique, Currentzis has met his match. What is new, and delightful, is the shaping of the second theme as a question and answer, played as if en pointe: a happy inspiration which brings necessary if short-lived relief and which comes to have significant ramifications for the scale of the movement’s climax. When the longwithheld Allegro vivo finally arrives it does so with primeval savagery, as a precursor to the ‘Augurs of spring’ from Stravinsky’s Rite of 20 turbulent years later (a rehearsal aperçu of Bernstein’s, I discovered after observing it in Currentzis). Violas tear into their line like jackals dining at carrion, miked to a point where you can hear the rosin-clouds fly, and there is a calculated claustrophobia to this passage that no live concert-hall ambience could emulate. Hysteria, however, is kept in abeyance by the conductor’s ear: the symphony’s harmonic skeleton gleams with a wan and often unnerving clarity. Having at the movement’s cataclysm engineered an ecstasy of grieving to rival for sustained pathos even Bernstein’s long goodbye in New York, Currentzis displays the refinement of sensibility to bestow a numbed and steadily paced dignity upon the coda. The inner movements operate at a lower voltage, more sober and Classically contained than you might expect, played in fulfilment of a notably Brahmsian function rather than as interludes vividly contrasted in their own right. Lovely work from the cellos brings no shortage of charm and grace to a properly symphonic waltz. In the accumulating counterpoint of the march is a Pathétique as precursor to Mahler’s Ninth, and the voicing is sundered into discrete forces of contention across the entire sound stage in the manner of 1970s recordings by Karajan or even a Melodiya special: the attendant thrill and prospect of entropy are near at hand, as they are in Ives’s marching bands or indeed the firstact climax of Don Giovanni. The finale opens with an exhalation from Currentzis, translated by the strings into a memorial of overlapping sighs and then punctuated by what sounds like the bass drum from the march. At this point the Berlin studio acoustic expands to cavernous dimensions to contain and then bury the symphony’s last rites. There is more playing on the lip of the volcano from col legno strings and snarling, muted horns, more outstanding bassoon solos coloured on a palette from muddy brown to that black again. It’s early days, but only the most exalted of comparisons suggest themselves: to Bernstein (DG, 5/87), Cantelli (EMI, 6/53), Karajan (take your pick) or Mravinsky (DG, considered afresh in November 2015): all hewn out of different performing traditions while sculpted in relief from them, though none save Mravinsky executed to the present, uncanny degree of controlled ferocity. There is a closer, more pertinent relation with Mikhail Pletnev’s first essay (Virgin Classics, 1/92): a hand‑picked band, moulded in the image of a young, mercurial musician mature beyond his years, working hand in glove with a studio team prepared to do things differently. I remember the storm unleashed by that recording 25 years ago. Will this also upset some applecarts? It is an unsettling experience. Peter Quantrill (1/18) Tippett Symphonies – No 1; No 2 BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins Hyperion F CDA68203 (75’ • DDD) This disc launches the first 21st-century cycle of Tippett’s symphonies in great style. During the later years of the composer’s long life, both Colin Davis (Decca, 7/90) and Richard Hickox (Chandos, 10/94, 4/95) were able to show that early doubts about the viability of Tippett’s often intricate polyphonic writing in his orchestral scores were unjustified. But his official Symphony No 1 (1944‑45) remains a challenge to conductors as well as to recording technology, a challenge which this new version surmounts with polish and panache. Easily the equal of his distinguished predecessors in this repertory, Martyn Brabbins gives maximum weight to the way Tippett turns expectation on its head in the symphony’s outer movements. Both end quietly; but while the first sustains its energetic pulsation to the last, the fourth turns its initially exuberant spirit to ashes, its elaborate fugal processes freezing and fragmenting. It remains a startling conception, rooted in the tensions and tragedies of the composer’s personal life and offering as bleak a perspective on immediately post-war civilisation. More than a decade later, Tippett’s Second (1956‑57) also deals with complex emotional states but his music has evolved to project a more sharply focused balance between harmony and polyphony, dramatising the contrast between obsessive rootedness at one extreme and freely floating arcs of melody at the other. By showing how the central movements complement and balance the outer ones, Brabbins gives the music maximum cogency. In particular, he shapes the tricky finale so persuasively that its climactic surges of melody and the vibrant cadences in which they find a degree of repose have an affirmative yet ambivalent inevitability that must surely be exactly what Tippett was aiming at. This is remarkable music-making, and recorded with all the appropriate richness of colour and clarity of textural detail. Arnold Whittall (1/18) 36 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 Click on album covers to buy from gramophone.co.uk
page 37
Recital GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018 ‘Agitata’ Brevi O spiritus angelici Caldara Passione di Gesù Cristo Signor Nostro – Sinfonia Gregori Concerto grosso, Op 2 No 2 Jommelli La Betulia liberata – Prigionier che fa ritorno Porpora In procella sine stella Stradella Et egressus est Torelli Lumi dolenti lumi Vivaldi Juditha triumphans – Agitata infido flatu Delphine Galou contr Accademia Bizantina / Ottavio Dantone hpd Alpha F ALPHA371 (63’ • DDD • T/t) This is a treasure trove of rare music, much of which must surely be receiving first recordings. Baroque opera has increasingly become an accepted part of the scene in recent years, with forgotten bigname composers such as Caldara, Jommelli and Porpora emerging into the light both in complete works and in individual singers’ recital discs, yet much of the sacred music of these same composers and others still languishes in obscurity. This release, a first recital disc for the French contralto Delphine Galou following some accomplished contributions to Vivaldi operas, addresses the issue by focusing entirely on sacred repertoire, with results both fascinating and revealing. Who, for instance, has ever heard a vocal piece by Torelli? Here we have his Lumi dolente lumi, a Passion Friday cantata that interleaves two powerful recitatives with a pair of expertly shaped and contrasted arias. Who before has encountered the fast-living (and dying) Stradella’s ardently austere setting of lines from the Lamentations (here with Galou chillingly heading each section by barely breathing its Hebrew index letter)? And who knows Giovanni Battista Brevi, whose motet O spiritus angelici enjoys the free-ranging declamatory vigour of the late 17th century? As contrast to that we also have a sizzling aria from Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha triumphans, plus two glorious examples of mid-18th-century vocal polish in a complacent aria from Jommelli’s oratorio La Betulia liberata and a wonderful display of virtuoso and assured writing for voice in Porpora’s motet In procella sine stella. Galou is a perfect singer to introduce us to this music, thanks to an agile and comfortable technique (hear the way she sails effortlessly through her full compass in a single phrase in the first aria of the Porpora), and a voice that sounds like a firm countertenor in the higher register and a contralto in warm strength of the lower reaches. The playing of the Accademia Bizantina – who add a concerto grosso by Gregori and a sinfonia by Caldara to the mix – is keen as mustard and filled with typically telling detail by director Ottavio Dantone. A lovely disc of discoveries. Lindsay Kemp (1/18) ‘Carnevale 1729’ Albinoni Filandro – Fior ch’a spuntar si vede; Il tuo core in dono accetto Giacomelli Gianguir – Mi par sentir la bella; Vanne, si, di al mio diletto Leo Catone in Utica – Ombra cara, ombra adorata; Soffre talor del vento Orlandini Adelaide – Non sempre invendicata; O, del mio caro sposo … Quanto bello agl’occhi miei; Scherza in mar la navicella; Vedrò più liete e belle Porpora Semiramide riconosciuta – Bel piacer saria d’un core; Il pastor, se torna aprile; In braccio a mille furie Vinci L’abbandono di Armida – Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde Ann Hallenberg mez Il Pomo d’Oro / Stefano Montanari vn Pentatone F b Í PTC5186 678 (130’ • DDD) Includes texts and translations Ann Hallenberg’s inquisitive forays researched in partnership with her musicologist husband Holger SchmidtHallenberg are never merely run-of-the-mill recitals – as has been proved by genuinely rare ‘Hidden Handel’ (Naïve), portraits of different ancient Roman Agrippinas (DHM, 7/15) and a live concert recording of mostly music for Farinelli (Aparté). This new double album is a judicious assortment from seven operas all performed in Venice during the eight-week carnival period between December 26, 1728, and February 27, 1729. At least some of these productions at different theatres caught the eye (and ear) of Handel, based in La Serenissima while hunting around Italy for new singers. His erstwhile diva Faustina and castrato Senesino played the principal parts in Orlandini’s Adelaide, and arias from each role might as well have been tailor-made for Hallenberg’s pinpoint virtuosity and lyricism, communicative use of language, idiomatic embellishment, intelligently sculpted phrasing (limpid, gentle or turbulent as the music demands) and astute theatrical characterisation: time seems to stand still in Adelaide’s lament ‘Quanto bello agl’occhi miei’, sung sublimely over a sophisticated rolling string accompaniment, and the voice’s dialogue with violinistdirector Stefano Montanari is shaded elegantly in Ottone’s lyrical alla francese aria ‘Vedrò più liete e belle’. Sweetly tender solo oboe and pizzicato strings are judged beautifully in ‘Mi par sentir la bella’ from Giacommeli’s Gianguir, and there is zestiness in two quick arias from Albinoni’s Filandro. From Porpora’s Semiramide riconosciuta there are several fine arias: the gracefully lilting siciliano ‘Il pastor, se torna aprile’, the cantabile intimacy of ‘Bel piacer saria d’un core’ (for Farinelli making his Venetian debut), and the furious ‘In braccio a mille furie’ (the only aria recorded before – notably by Hallenberg herself). Perhaps the eligible 1729 repertoire might have yielded some greater variety of instrumentation and dramatic moods, but such reservations evaporate at the sheer classiness of Hallenberg and Il Pomo d’Oro’s perfectly aligned dulcetness in ‘Ombra cara, ombra adorata’, sung by the grieving widow of Pompey in Leo’s Catone in Utica, and the barnstorming climax of Vinci’s sizzling ‘Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde’, used in the pasticcio L’abbandono di Armida. David Vickers (A/17) ‘Espoir’ Auber Le lac des fées – Ils s’éloignent! je reste Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini – Seul pour lutter Donizetti Dom Sébastien – Seul sur la terre. La favorite – La maîtresse du Roi. Lucia di Lammermoor – Tombe degli avi miei. Rosmonda d’Inghilterra – Dopo i lauri di vittoria Halévy Guido et Ginévra – Dans ces lieux; Tu seras donc pour moia. La reine de Chypre – De mes aïeux ombres sacrées Rossini Otello – Venise, ô ma patrie Verdi Jerusalem – L’infamie! prenez ma vie! Michael Spyres ten aJoyce El-Khoury sop Hallé Orchestra / Carlo Rizzi Opera Rara F ORR251 (78’ • DDD • T/t) gramophone.co.uk Click on album covers to buy from GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 37

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Recital

GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018

‘Agitata’ Brevi O spiritus angelici Caldara Passione di Gesù Cristo Signor Nostro – Sinfonia Gregori Concerto grosso, Op 2 No 2 Jommelli La Betulia liberata – Prigionier che fa ritorno Porpora In procella sine stella Stradella Et egressus est Torelli Lumi dolenti lumi Vivaldi Juditha triumphans – Agitata infido flatu Delphine Galou contr Accademia Bizantina / Ottavio Dantone hpd Alpha F ALPHA371 (63’ • DDD • T/t)

This is a treasure trove of rare music, much of which must surely be receiving first recordings. Baroque opera has increasingly become an accepted part of the scene in recent years, with forgotten bigname composers such as Caldara, Jommelli and Porpora emerging into the light both in complete works and in individual singers’ recital discs, yet much of the sacred music of these same composers and others still languishes in obscurity. This release, a first recital disc for the French contralto Delphine Galou following some accomplished contributions to Vivaldi operas, addresses the issue by focusing entirely on sacred repertoire, with results both fascinating and revealing. Who, for instance, has ever heard a vocal piece by Torelli? Here we have his Lumi dolente lumi, a Passion Friday cantata that interleaves two powerful recitatives with a pair of expertly shaped and contrasted arias. Who before has encountered the fast-living (and dying) Stradella’s ardently austere setting of lines from the Lamentations (here with Galou chillingly heading each section by barely breathing its Hebrew index letter)? And who knows Giovanni Battista Brevi, whose motet O spiritus angelici enjoys the free-ranging declamatory vigour of the late 17th century? As contrast to that we also have a sizzling aria from Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha triumphans, plus two glorious examples of mid-18th-century vocal polish in a complacent aria from Jommelli’s oratorio La Betulia liberata and a wonderful display of virtuoso and assured writing for voice in Porpora’s motet In procella sine stella.

Galou is a perfect singer to introduce us to this music, thanks to an agile and comfortable technique (hear the way she sails effortlessly through her full compass in a single phrase in the first aria of the Porpora), and a voice that sounds like a firm countertenor in the higher register and a contralto in warm strength of the lower reaches. The playing of the Accademia Bizantina – who add a concerto grosso by Gregori and a sinfonia by Caldara to the mix – is keen as mustard and filled with typically telling detail by director Ottavio Dantone. A lovely disc of discoveries. Lindsay Kemp (1/18)

‘Carnevale 1729’ Albinoni Filandro – Fior ch’a spuntar si vede; Il tuo core in dono accetto Giacomelli Gianguir – Mi par sentir la bella; Vanne, si, di al mio diletto Leo Catone in Utica – Ombra cara, ombra adorata; Soffre talor del vento Orlandini Adelaide – Non sempre invendicata; O, del mio caro sposo … Quanto bello agl’occhi miei; Scherza in mar la navicella; Vedrò più liete e belle Porpora Semiramide riconosciuta – Bel piacer saria d’un core; Il pastor, se torna aprile; In braccio a mille furie Vinci L’abbandono di Armida – Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde Ann Hallenberg mez Il Pomo d’Oro / Stefano Montanari vn Pentatone F b Í PTC5186 678 (130’ • DDD) Includes texts and translations

Ann Hallenberg’s inquisitive forays researched in partnership with her musicologist husband Holger SchmidtHallenberg are never merely run-of-the-mill recitals – as has been proved by genuinely rare ‘Hidden Handel’ (Naïve), portraits of different ancient Roman Agrippinas (DHM, 7/15) and a live concert recording of mostly music for Farinelli (Aparté). This new double album is a judicious assortment from seven operas all performed in Venice during the eight-week carnival period between December 26, 1728, and February 27, 1729.

At least some of these productions at different theatres caught the eye (and ear) of Handel, based in La Serenissima while hunting around Italy for new singers. His erstwhile diva Faustina and castrato Senesino played the principal parts in

Orlandini’s Adelaide, and arias from each role might as well have been tailor-made for Hallenberg’s pinpoint virtuosity and lyricism, communicative use of language, idiomatic embellishment, intelligently sculpted phrasing (limpid, gentle or turbulent as the music demands) and astute theatrical characterisation: time seems to stand still in Adelaide’s lament ‘Quanto bello agl’occhi miei’, sung sublimely over a sophisticated rolling string accompaniment, and the voice’s dialogue with violinistdirector Stefano Montanari is shaded elegantly in Ottone’s lyrical alla francese aria ‘Vedrò più liete e belle’.

Sweetly tender solo oboe and pizzicato strings are judged beautifully in ‘Mi par sentir la bella’ from Giacommeli’s Gianguir, and there is zestiness in two quick arias from Albinoni’s Filandro. From Porpora’s Semiramide riconosciuta there are several fine arias: the gracefully lilting siciliano ‘Il pastor, se torna aprile’, the cantabile intimacy of ‘Bel piacer saria d’un core’ (for Farinelli making his Venetian debut), and the furious ‘In braccio a mille furie’ (the only aria recorded before – notably by Hallenberg herself). Perhaps the eligible 1729 repertoire might have yielded some greater variety of instrumentation and dramatic moods, but such reservations evaporate at the sheer classiness of Hallenberg and Il Pomo d’Oro’s perfectly aligned dulcetness in ‘Ombra cara, ombra adorata’, sung by the grieving widow of Pompey in Leo’s Catone in Utica, and the barnstorming climax of Vinci’s sizzling ‘Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde’, used in the pasticcio L’abbandono di Armida. David Vickers (A/17)

‘Espoir’ Auber Le lac des fées – Ils s’éloignent! je reste Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini – Seul pour lutter Donizetti Dom Sébastien – Seul sur la terre. La favorite – La maîtresse du Roi. Lucia di Lammermoor – Tombe degli avi miei. Rosmonda d’Inghilterra – Dopo i lauri di vittoria Halévy Guido et Ginévra – Dans ces lieux; Tu seras donc pour moia. La reine de Chypre – De mes aïeux ombres sacrées Rossini Otello – Venise, ô ma patrie Verdi Jerusalem – L’infamie! prenez ma vie! Michael Spyres ten aJoyce El-Khoury sop Hallé Orchestra / Carlo Rizzi Opera Rara F ORR251 (78’ • DDD • T/t)

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