CONTENTS
Reviews
JS BACH Solo Cello Suites Colin Carr vc Wigmore Hall Live WHLIVE0060 ‘Carr is so fleet of foot, even in the slowest movements, that it is not long before it becomes clear that this performance is a masterclass in restraint and musical altruism.’
REVIEW ON PAGE 80
SCHOENBERG Piano Works Florent Boffard pf Mirare MIR191 ‘Boffard caresses details and creates an ambiguity of foreground and background that turns these miniatures into vast canvases of enlightened experience.’
REVIEW ON PAGE 82
PĘKIEL Masses. Motets The Sixteen / Eamonn Dougan Coro COR16110 ‘This craftsman’s masterful music is presented here with an assured charisma by the mighty Sixteen. Eamonn Dougan draws typically golden performances.’
REVIEW ON PAGE 88
HANDEL Serse Soloists; Early Opera Company / Christian Curnyn Chandos CHAN0797 ‘For anyone wanting to acquire this jewel among Handel’s later operas, this beautifully recorded new version is the one to go for.’
REVIEW ON PAGE 93
DVD/Blu-ray BRUCKNER Symphony No 7 Staatskapelle Dresden / Christian Thielemann Opus Arte OA1115D; OABD7127D ‘The audience seems reluctant to break the music’s spell but, when eventually they do, Thielemann is called back again and again.’
REVIEW ON PAGE 59
gramophone.co.uk
Reissue/Archive WAGNER Lohengrin Vienna State Opera / Karl Böhm Orfeo C862 133D ‘This May 1965 Lohengrin is new and it is, not to mince words, a real scorcher – Böhm and the cast going all out for what Orfeo terms “high drama”.’
REVIEW ON PAGE 95
Reviewed this month: Piano concertos – 31; Violin concertos – 7; Accordion concertos - 3
ORCHESTRAL
Les Siècles play period Debussy; Elgar’s Second Symphony from Oramo in Stockholm; Gergiev’s Szymanowski live from the Barbican
CHAMBER
The chamber music of Paul Ben-Haim; Alexei Ogrintchouk and friends record Mozart; Ibragimova and Tiberghien play Schubert
INSTRUMENTAL
Angela Hewitt’s Fauré; Andrea Bacchetti uncovers a Scarlatti manuscript; Romanian pianist Alexandra Silocea’s ‘Sound Waves’
VOCAL
Marin Alsop conducts Brahms’s Requiem; the Brabant Ensemble explore Cipriano de Rore; Stile Antico sing Tudor church music
OPERA
Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro; Renée Fleming sings Ariadne; baritone Verdi from Plácido Domingo; Marek Janowski embarks on The Ring
BOOKS
A ‘reputation history’ of the American original Charles Ives; Leonard Slatkin on what it means to be a maestro today
REPLAY
Bruno Walter’s Columbia recordings; the Amadeus Quartet’s Beethoven; Wagner singers on record; a Leon Fleisher collection
THE SPECIALIST’S GUIDE
This month’s specialist, Pwyll ap Siôn, picks 10 of his favourite recordings of minimalist and post-minimalist operas
THE GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION
Richard Lawrence sifts through the many memorable recordings of Strauss’s bloodthirsty Hofmannsthal collaboration, Elektra
GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2013 5
