Handel - Recorder Sonatas - Thorby/Egarr

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific disc

This is a terrific disc. Handel's Recorder Sonatas are lovely works, full of joy, depth and genuine tenderness and these two superb musicians do them full justice.

Handel's chamber music doesn't get anything like the attention given to his orchestral and choral works. This understandable in a way - the larger scale music is fabulous, after all - but real gems like these sonatas deserve more of a hearing in my view. They show all the aspects of Handel's genius: they are tuneful, harmonically brilliant and above all a genuine pleasure to listen to.

In the hands of Pamela Thorby and Richard Egarr they really shine. Egarr is now well established as one of the world's foremost baroque musicians through his solo recordings, his partnership with Andrew Manze and more recently his direction of The Academy of Ancient Music (with whom he has made some magnificent Handel recordings.) Pamela Thorby, while less well known, is a virtuoso of equal standing, in my view with a fine catalogue of recordings including some belters with The Palladian Ensemble. Together they make something really special of these Handel sonatas with a fine understanding between them, a perfect balance between instruments and a lovely sound from Egarr's harpsichord and organ and Thorby's recorders. They make some of the virtuosic passages sound as natural as breathing and the quieter movements are simply lovely. It's exemplary chamber music playing.

I have versions of these pieces played both on recorder (by Michala Petri and Keith Jarrett) and flute (by Lisa Beznosiuk) which I have loved for years. This, however, is the best I know and is very warmly recommended indeed.

(I would also strongly recommend Pamela Thorby's disc The Garden of Early Delights with the harpist Andrew Lawrence-King. It's another beauty.)

Elgar & Walton - Cello Concertos - Isserlis/PO/Järvi

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A wonderful recording

Even 50 years on, it takes a brave cellist to tackle the Elgar Cello Concerto in the shadow of the recording by Jacqueline du Pre and John Barbirolli, which remains a thing of wonder.  Possibly the highest praise I can give to Steven Isserlis and Parvo Järvi is that I think they have at least matched it here; this is a wonderful recording.

There are four works presented here: the Elgar Cello Concerto, the Walton Cello Concerto, "Invocation," a single movement piece by Gustav Holst, and "The Fall Of The Leaf," a piece for solo cello by Imogen Holst in five short movements.  Both the pieces by the Holsts were new to me, and I am very glad to have them here.  They are not major works but both are fine, contemplative pieces and are both very lovely in their different ways.  I confess that I struggle with Walton's Cello Concerto;  it's a piece which has never really engaged me and even in this excellent performance it doesn't do much for me, so I'll have to leave any critique to others.  However, in the Elgar and the Holst pieces, both Isserlis and the orchestra under Järvi are excellent.

Steven Isserlis is, of course, one of the world's greatest cellists.  His technique is superb (as it needs to be here) and he uses it to play with both passion and subtlety, bringing real meaning to the music.  The elegiac feel of the Elgar Concerto is very moving without ever becoming sentimental or miserable, and there is a palpable sense of engagement both from Isserlis and the orchestra.  The sheer beauty of the sound he brings from his cello is wonderful (and beautifully recorded by Hyperion), and he is matched throughout by the orchestra who are perfectly balanced and bring just the right degree of emotion to the work.  I may even prefer this to the du Pré version – something I never thought I'd say.

This really is something special, I think, and very well illuminated by Isserlis's notes which are thoughtful, informative and very readable.  Isserlis's Bach Cello Suites were a landmark in his career and in the interpretation of those fabulous works, and I think this is in the same league.  It's a recording which I expected to be very good and which has still surprised me with how good it really is.  Very, very warmly recommended.

Nelson Freire plays Bach

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not a great Bach disc

It pains me to say this of such a great pianist, but I'm afraid I don't think that Nelson Freire's Bach is all that good.  It has its moments and Freire's technique is, of course, superb, but I don't think his first foray into this repertoire is successful overall.

Nelson Freire is rightly hugely respected for his interpretations of 19^th- and 20^th-Century repertoire, but Bach is a different thing altogether and I don't think he's really made the transition.  He doesn't overdo the Romantic Gestures (thank heavens!) but some real essentials of Bach performance often seem to me to be missing.  Fluency and distinctness of individual contrapuntal lines too often becomes lost, especially in fugal passages, as does the essential pulse which beats through Bach's music at different rates but always as an integral part of the music.  Its blurring loses something fundamental to these pieces, and I find the whole thing rather undistinguished.

There are some quite magnificent performances of Bach on the piano by people like Angela Hewitt,  Murray Perahia and recently (and rather to my surprise) Rudolf Buchbinder.  I would recommend any of these before this disc; I'd recommend sticking to Freire's superb interpretations of later repertoire and give this one a miss.

Bach - Complete Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord - Podger/Pinnock

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstanding bach

These are wonderful discs. Bach's sonatas for violin and cembalo are delightful, rewarding works, but can be hard to get into, in my experience. Previously I have had recordings by Elizabeth Wallfisch and Richard Tunnicliffe and by Fabio Biondi and Rinaldo Alessandrini - both world class duos, and fine performances in their way. However, I always had a sense with both of somehow working ones way rather ploddingly through the sonatas (most certainly not what I'd expect from Biondi!) and they had a slightly turgid, uninvolving feel to them.

Podger and Pinnock dispel this instantly. Rachel Podger's wonderful lightness of touch doesn't trivialise the music in any way but, as with her solo Bach, brings a sparkle and verve which light up the whole disc. And Trevor Pinnock plays with the enthusiasm and energy of a young tyro while bringing the depth of his decades of experience to bear. The combination is irresistible. Any Bach enthusiast will want these sonatas in their collection, and this is the finest recording I've come across by some distance. It is also very reasonably priced. In my view, you can't go wrong with these discs - very warmly recommended indeed.

Scarlatti - Sonatas - Hewitt

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstanding Scarlatti

This is yet another outstanding disc of Baroque keyboard music from Angela Hewitt.  There are many fine Scarlatti recordings, but this stands with the very best of them, I think.

Hewitt has chosen sixteen of the 555 sonatas and has arranged them into an interesting and varied programme.  I think it is telling that she begins with a minor-key sonata (Kk9, in D minor) which is contemplative and very beautiful.  This sets the tone of the disc, in that Hewitt, as always, has thought deeply about every bar of each of these pieces and there is a thoughtful feel to the disc which really brings out the depth and individuality in each sonata.  There's still plenty of playful zip when appropriate and it's anything but solemn and turgid (Kk29 in D really zings along, for example) but the sense that it all really means something is always there.  It's fascinating to compare Hewitt's style with Alexandre Tharaud, whose Scarlatti on the piano I also love.  His interpretations seem to me to have a lighter, more playful air somehow; they are equally enjoyable but shed a different light on Scarlatti's music.

Hewitt's playing throughout is superb.  She is technically brilliant, of course, (which anyone tacking these pieces needs to be) but she also has a deep sense of Baroque music which is probably partly instinctive, but also comes of  years deep study and love of the music of the period.  She has the understanding to use rubato and ornamentation to really make sense of the music without overlaying it with grand Romantic gestures (as Pletnev does, for example).  I think she is unsurpassed in the Baroque repertoire, even by greats like Perahia and Schiff, and for me her recordings of Couperin, Rameau and, of course, Bach are in a class of their own on the piano.  This belongs in that magnificent class.

Quite simply, this is superb.  It's great music, magnificently played and beautifully recorded, with very thoughtful, scholarly and interesting notes.  Recommended in the warmest terms.

Danielle de Niese - The Beauty of the Baroque

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A very enjoyable disc

This is a very well-performed and enjoyable programme of some of the Baroque's best-known and loveliest vocal works of Handel, Bach, Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Purcell and Dowland.

Danielle de Niese is a very fine singer with impeccable technique and intonation and she gives excellent performances throughout. Her style is quite Romantic in feel, with quite a bit of vibrato and an emphasis on expressive singing which makes an interesting contrast with great recordings of the recent past by Emma Kirkby, for example. I particularly like the opening of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater which she sings in duet with the great Andreas Scholl and where her overt emotional intensity works especially well. I hope they might record the whole work together at some point - on this evidence it would be something really special.

The English Concert, as one would expect, are terrific. They are completely at home in this repertoire and their playing is supple and responsive. They are excellent as an ensemble and there is some wonderful solo work - the trumpet playing in Let the Bright Seraphim and the oboe in Sich üben im lieben are quite outstanding, I thought.

Danielle de Niese is famously beautiful and Decca make full use of this, so that the cover is ambiguous about whether "The Beauty of the Baroque" is intended to refer to the music or to Ms de Niese herself. I suspect that this, combined with an air of "The Baroque's Greatest Hits" about the disc, may make some crusty old veterans of classical music like me a little dubious about whether the disc itself has real musical merit, but it genuinely does. I think it's a disc that will give real pleasure to an awful lot of people. Recommended.

Scarlatti - Complete Keyboard Sonatas - Ross

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent set

This set is a bit of an investment, but one that is well worth making. It contains 34 CDs of truly wonderful music, superbly played. Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas form a remarkable and very rewarding body of work and they are immensely varied - passionate, serene, humorous... every mood or emotion you could think of is here somewhere. I never tire of them, and always find something fresh and new when I listen to them.

You do need to like the harpsichord if you're going to buy this set. I certainly do, and especially when it is played as well as this. These recordings by Ross are regarded as landmarks by many, and I wouldn't argue with that. His playing is technically brilliant, and he brings out all the variety in these amazing pieces. What also shines through is his sheer love for the music - every single sonata is played as though it really means something and he makes this monumental compendium a pleasure from start to finish.

I cannot recommend this set too highly. I have owned and loved the original Erato discs for years and still play them regularly and with immense pleasure. It is a set to last a lifetime and if you have any interest in baroque music or the keyboard in general, I urge you to give it a try.