May 2012

Informed by our unrivalled panel of critics, we choose the month’s must-hear recordings hoice

DEBUSSY. SZYMANOWSKI Debussy Pour le piano. Estampes. L'isle joyeuse Szymanowski Prelude and Fugue. Piano Sonata No 1, Op 8 Rafał Blechacz pf DG 477 9548GH

Recording of the Month ‘He has little inclination to bathe the passagework in an impressionistic haze as many do, choosing to emphasise the virtuosity of the writing’

FOR THE REVIEW BY JEREMY NICHOLAS, TURN TO PAGE 72

Hear every Gramophone Choice recording, including Recording of the Month, through the online Gramophone Player at gramophone.co.uk

DVOŘAK Cello Concerto. The Water Goblin. In Nature’s Realm Zuill Bailey vc Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra / Jun Märkl Telarc TEL32927 02 ‘This wonderfully spontaneous new version tends to sweep the board…there is both electricity and warmth in the air’

REVIEW ON PAGE 77

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FALLA El sombrero de tres picos. Noches en los jardines de España. Homenajes Jean-E lam Bavouzet pf BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Juanjo Mena Chandos CHAN10694 ‘Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s performance casts its own spell, sultry and scintillating as required’

REVIEW ON PAGE 79

SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Alexander Melnikov pf Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Teodor Currentzis Harmonia Mundi HMC90 2014 ‘The Second Concerto’s slow movement…to call this breathtaking would be an understatement’

REVIEW ON PAGE 83

BEETHOVEN Piano Trios Nos 1 & 7, ‘Archduke’ Peter Cropper vn Moray Welsh vc Martin Roscoe pf Sonimage SON11102 ‘Martin Roscoe leads his partners in an interpretation of rarefied transcendence that exalts the whole work’

REVIEW ON PAGE 89

MEDTNER Arabesques. Dithyrambs. Elegies, etc Hamish Milne pf Hyperion CDA67851/2 ‘No pianist has done more for Medtner’s reputation than Hamish Milne…he tells you that a still neglected and misunderstood composer demands to be heard’

REVIEW ON PAGE 98

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YSAŸE Six Solo Violin Sonatas Tai Murray vn Harmonia Mundi HMU90 7569 ‘Everything is thrown into the melting pot – Debussy, jazz, folk – resulting in a disc that makes me want to hear Murray playing all of them, so coherently has she pulled them together’

REVIEW ON PAGE 98

BRAHMS Schicksalslied. Alto Rhapsody, etc Collegium Vocale, Ghent; Champs-Elysées Orchestra / Philippe Herreweghe PHI LPH003 ‘Herreweghe allows the music to evolve with a wonderful feeling of spaciousness in which Brahms’s textures are beautifully revealed’

REVIEW ON PAGE 100

BRAHMS Ein deutsches Requiem Soloists; Monteverdi Choir; Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique / John Eliot Gardiner SDG SDG706 ‘Gardiner returns to the Requiem with a root-and-branch rethink of the work’s very sound’

REVIEW ON PAGE 101

‘TUNE THY MUSICKE TO THY HART’ Stile Antico; Fretwork Harmonia Mundi HMU80 7554 ‘Stile Antico’s sleek tuning and supple attention to words bring a carefully plotted span (over 120 years) of sacred styles into our living rooms with rare success’

REVIEW ON PAGE 108

DVD MOZART Die Zauber löte Soloists; Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan / Roland Böer; William Kentridge dir Opus Arte OA1066D; OABD7099D ‘Don’t miss this visually enchanting and thoughtprovoking treat’

REVIEW ON PAGE 112

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Reissue SCHUBERT String Quartets, etc Busch Quartet Regis RRC3012 ‘What makes this particular reading so special is a combination of tautness and warmth that allows the stringplaying to sound as intimate as the human voice in song’

REVIEW ON PAGE 119

ORCHESTRAL

Bruckner’s Ninth from Norrington in Stuttgart; Barenboim and Boulez play Liszt in Berlin; Stravinsky from Fischer in Budapest

CHAMBER

Xuefei Yang transcribes Bach for the guitar; Carolin Widmann turns to Schubert; Ulf Wallin’s Schumann violin sonatas

INSTRUMENTAL

Richard Tunnicliffe’s Bach Cello Suites; HJ Lim embarks on a Beethoven sonata cycle; David Greilsammer mixes old and new

VOCAL

The choral music of Bo Hansson; Werner Güra takes a Schubertian journey; ‘Being Beauteous’ with Anu Komsi

OPERA

A new recording for Heggie’s Dead Man Walking; Mozart on DVD and Blu-ray; Janowitz stars in Böhm’s 1976 Ariadne

BOOKS

Eight contemporary pianists in conversation with Caroline Benser; Placing Bernstein’s musical theatre works in context

REPLAY

A Living Presence ‘Collector’s Edition’ from Mercury; Toscanini and Busch on the podium; Busch the quartet-leader in Schubert

THE SPECIALIST’S GUIDE TO…

Through 10 diverse recordings, Philip Clark celebrates the composers, arrangers and performers who have dared to make their own transcriptions of Beethoven’s music

THE GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION

Richard Wigmore follows Mozart to Munich and compares the available recordings of the myriad existing versions of the composer’s first operatic masterpiece, Idomeneo

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