Category: Recording

Categories
Recording

Maria & Maddalena

CD cover of Maria and Maddalena Francesca Aspromonte

Francesca Aspromonte (soprano, I Barocchisti, conducted by Diego Fasolis
62:09
Pentatone 5186 867

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk
[These sponsored links are your only way to support the site and continue to enjoy these reviews FREE!]

Francesca Aspromonte’s first recital CD was a somewhat disparate collection of excerpts from operatic prologues. Here, as related to both topic and musical idiom, she here essays a more cohesive collection. It is based around the two Marys, the Virgin and Mary Magdalene as portrayed in oratorios dating from around the turn of the 18th century, itself one of the more fascinating periods of musical history.  On paper it would be hard to imagine two more contrasted figures than the two Marys, one chosen as the immaculate conceiver of God in the human form of Jesus, the other a woman torn between spiritual and carnal love. Yet there are links between them in their love for Jesus and their sharing of suffering at the Cross, in the case of the Magdalene love and suffering sufficiently ambiguous to inspire in a great novel like Katzantzakis’s The Last Temptation, a novel that enraged the Roman Catholic church.

Here, unsurprisingly for works that owe their existence to the Counter-Reformation, we meet with no such ambiguity. In the case of the Virgin there are texts that summon up the mystery of the Incarnation, as in the aria ‘Ecco qui l’incomprensibile’, provided by the spiritual and highly musical Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I for Antonio Draghi’s Il Crocefisso per Grazia (1691). This is the earliest of the oratorios represented and significantly the only aria in strophic form at a time it was rapidly being superseded by the da capo aria. Another nod back to the fading 17th century can be heard in the highly expressive recitivo cantando from the little-known Giovanni Lulier’s Oratorio à 6 per la Nascità. Probably composed not long before his death in 1700, the extended passage is the Virgin’s lullaby on the fate awaiting the infant who lies under her gaze. Most exceptional of all the music for the Virgin on the disc is the closing sequence from Alessandro Scarlatti’s La Santissima Annunziata composed in Rome in 1700 or 1703 to a text by Cardinal Ottoboni. It opens with an exquisitely lovely aria, ‘Stesa a pie’ prefaced by chromatic orchestral stabs to the heart in which the Virgin’s gaze is now directed to the broken torso of her son. A more animated central section follows in which she evokes ‘redeemed mankind’, a topic expanded upon in the following recitative. The oratorio’s final aria is an animated message in which Mary recognises she will become a symbol of refuge for future generations.

Among those much influenced by Scarlatti was the young Handel, whose Roman sojourn was capped in 1708 by the oratorio La Resurrezione, from which Aspromonte sings two of Mary Magdalene’s arias, the first, ‘Ho un non so che nel cor’ from scene 2 expressive of her hope, but also disquiet, the second Mary’s final aria, ‘Se impassibile, immortale’, a joyously buoyant celebration of the Resurrection. We meet the more vulnerable, penitent side of the Magdalene in two arias from Antonio Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo (c. 1700), an outstanding work recorded complete by René Jacobs in 1995. Of exceptional beauty is the recitative and aria from Part 2, ‘Deh, s’un tempo’ … ‘In lagrime stemprato’, in which a tearful Mary invites Jesus into her heart over a throbbing repeated note pattern in the accompaniment. The music has a dignity that at the same time cannot hide the deeper feelings lying barely beneath the surface.

It’s a repertoire that suits Aspromonte well. The voice itself is full and rounded, yet hints of vibrato are kept well under control. In the many cantabile arias here, she shapes lines with great musicality and if an occasional suggestion of lack of control in the upper register creeps in it is never a major problem. Passaggi are cleanly articulated, the mostly tasteful ornamentation less so and there is regrettably no sign of a trill. But most importantly Aspromonte sings with excellent diction and real communication skills, projecting the varied emotions of the two Marys with a vivid immediacy.

The experienced Diego Fasolis and his I Barocchisti provide well played support; the lovely cello obbligato in the first of the Caldara arias is especially noteworthy. Just occasionally Fasolis’ old habit of clipping notes comes to the surface but here it is not a serious problem. An outstanding and lengthy booklet essay sets the seal on an issue that is of real value, not only for the quality of the repertoire, some of it rare, but the manner in which it is performed.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Parla, canta, respira

CD cover of Parla, canta, respira

Barbara Strozzi | Eri De Luca
Lise Viricel, Peter de Laurentiis, Le Stelle
74:24
Seuletoile SE 02

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk as a digital download
[These sponsored links keep this website free for your enjoyment]

This Seuletoile CD combines music by Barbara Strozzi with poetry by contemporary Italian novelist and poet Eri De Luca. The accounts of Strozzi’s songs by Lise Viricel and the instrumentalists of Le Stelle under her direction are exquisite – unhurried, thoughtful, beautifully expressive and musically delicious. The instruments used include harp, lirone, gamba, organ, violin, cornet, sackbuts and bassoon, which create a wonderfully varied palette of timbres, and occasionally for further variety they give us instrumental renditions of Strozzi’s music. I think it important that the vocalist directs the instrumental ensemble, as Strozzi herself would surely have done, as this leads to a stunning level of integration. I found the subtle contribution of the wind instruments most persuasive – too often they are limited to bombastic music of this period, but the wind players of Le Stelle demonstrate that they can be as expressive and tasteful as viols when accompanying the voice. Peter de Laurentiis’ accounts of De Luca’s poetry, evidently praising the attributes of beautiful women, complement the music perfectly, Italian being such a musical language that he could be reading out the Neapolitan phone book. I say this, as the CD notes and texts appear only in French and Italian, of neither of which can I claim any degree of mastery. Ultimately the main strength of this delightful CD is the voice of Lise Viricel and the wonderfully responsive accompaniment of the musicians of Le Stelle.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Baruffe Amorose del Settecento

CD cover of Baruffe Amorose del Settecento

Eighteenth-century love squabbles
A. Scarlatti: Palandran e Zamberlucco
Anon: Selvaggia e Dameta
Cappella Musicale di San Giocaomo Maggiore in Bologna, Roberto Cascio
63:30
Tactus TC 660005

Click HERE to buy this recording on amazon.co.uk
[These sponsored links help the site remain alive and FREE!]

These two intermezzi, one by Alessandro Scarlatti and one anonymous, consist of comic musical interludes to be inserted into more substantial and serious dramatic works. In Scarlatti’s Palandrana e Zamberlucco a comic dialogue between an old widow and a young blade is set with operatic flair, while the anonymous Selvaggia e Dameta features an old shepherd and his young companion who engage in quarrels and deception. The first of these is accompanied by a chamber ensemble of strings and oboe, while the second, more overtly comical in character and scored for three unspecified instruments and continuo, is performed by three recorders. Heard in the cavernous acoustic of the Palazzo Zabeccari in Bologna, where it was almost certainly performed in the 18th century, I found this lightweight music rather outlived its welcome in spite of the energetic performances. Nothing dates as quickly as comedy, particularly comedy in a foreign language, and perhaps the visual element of an actual performance was needed to bring these pieces fully to life. Or perhaps, by definition, intermezzi written as light relief from more serious matters are always going to sound a little trivial on their own. I was intrigued to hear in the second intermezzo a line from Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda – well, from Torquato Tasso – and wondered how much more of the humour was lost to me in an Italian text, of which no translation was provided.   

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Bach Nostalghia

Bach Nostalghia Francesco Piemontesi

Francesco Piemontesi piano
52:14
Pentatone PTC 5186 846

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk
[These sponsored links help the site remain alive and FREE!]

On this CD Francesco Piemontesi plays mainly transcriptions of Bach by the 19th-/20th-century composer and piano virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni, as well as one transcription each by pianist Wilhelm Kempff and organist Egon Petri, an homage by Busoni to Bach and even some straight Bach, albeit on the piano. A thoughtful programme note tries to put this music in the context of its time, when the concept of authentic performance had not yet been conceived of, and performers from Mendelssohn to Liszt felt free to adapt, arrange and otherwise muck about with earlier music under the guise of bringing it to a wider audience. We would recall Mendelssohn’s ‘performance edition’ of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with its clarinets and its string quartet renditions of continuo recitative accompaniments. Nowadays it is deeply out of fashion to meddle too much with earlier musical sources, the idea of playing Baroque music on a modern piano being perhaps a dying vestige of a previous attitude. It can hardly be surprising that as a child of the HIP movement, I find Bach on the piano, let alone transcribed for the piano, a bit of a musical cul-de-sac. Interesting to find a CD where these transcriptions themselves are treated as a historical phenomenon, and where they are performed with a HIP perspective. Busoni’s own Toccata is an interesting example of Bach through the looking glass, and we would perhaps recall Bach’s own transcriptions of earlier music – how would Vivaldi have felt hearing his violin concertos arranged for clutches of harpsichords?

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Sculpting the fabric

CD cover of La vaghezza Sculpting the fabric on Ambronay

Works by Cavalli, Merula, Vitali, Fontana, S. Rossi…
La Vaghezza
52:50
Ambronay AMY313

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk
[These sponsored links help the site remain alive and FREE!]

This sparkling CD of instrumental music from 17th-century Italy features the youthful ensemble La Vaghezza, whose virtuosity and innate musicality shine through in this innovative programme. The title comes from Nigel North, who wrote of early music needing to be sculpted anew by performers using ornamentation and elaboration to create something new each time. While the idea of sculpting fabric seems a little perverse, the performers on two violins, theorbo, cello and harpsichord/organ certainly use wonderfully imaginative ornamentation and vivid playing techniques to bring this music to spectacularly life. La Vaghezza is new upon the scene, and enjoys the support of the EEEmerging scheme for young artists, a scheme which must have proved invaluable during the last two troubled years for the performing arts. This ensemble, brimming with youthful energy and talent, is just the sort of group to inject dynamism into the performing circuit, and these accounts of the earliest Italian virtuoso music for violins are thrilling and constantly intriguing.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

I Diporti della villa in ogni stagione 1601

CD cover I diporti della villa Venezia 1601

Gruppo vocali Àrsi & Tèsi, Tony Corradini
65:06
Tactus TC 590005

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk as a digital download
[These sponsored links help the site remain alive and FREE!]

The madrigal collection ‘The pastimes of the Villa in each season’ published in Venice in 1601 consists of settings by eminent composers of the day, some better remembered than others – Giovanni Croce, Lelio Bertani, Ippolito Baccusi and Filippo de Monte – of verses by the aristocrat Francesco Bozza. Each composer takes a complete season, treated in five parts and interestingly each referred to in the dedication as a single song. The parallels with the almost exactly contemporary ‘Triumphs of Oriana’ are interesting and point at an urge towards the encyclopaedic at the time. The balance of the music on the CD is made up with sundry other madrigals which mention the seasons by the familiar Nanino, Marenzio, de Lasso and Schütz, and the rather more obscure and interesting Rinaldo del Mel and Mogens Pederson. The quality of the madrigals in the collection as well as the added material is high, and they are beautifully sung by the vocal ensemble. This could well have been just an aristocratic vanity project, but the fact that the composers clearly liaised, not to say competed, with one another ensured a consistently high compositional standard. The structure of the publication and its title makes it very clear that it was viewed as a single large four-part work, and was intended to be performed in its entirety, as it is here. The astute choice of complementary material makes this CD thoroughly engaging and entertaining, while the expressive and technically flawless performances ensure that the attention never wanders.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Rameau: Achante et Céphise

CD cover Rameau Achante et Céphise Kossenko

Sabine Devieilhe Céphie, Cyrelle Dubois Achante, David Witczak Le Génie Oroès, Judith can Wandroij Zirphile, Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, Les Ambassadeurs, La Grande Écurie, Alexis Kossenko
130:25 (2 CDs in a card box)
Erato 1 90296 69394 6

Click HERE to buy this album on amazon
[Doing so supports the artists, the record company and keeps this site available – if no-one buys, no money is made and the site will disappear…]

Even fervent Ramellians can be forgiven for not having previously encountered Achante et Cephise, a pastorale héroïque composed and performed at the Paris Opéra in 1751 to celebrate the birth of Louis-Joseph Xavier, the son of Louis XV and named by the king as his heir apparent. For all the festivities and expectations, sadly the child would live only until the age of eight. After 14 performances the opera suffered the fate common to occasional works, being put aside with its preserved edition as was not uncommon lacking the middle parts. There it remained virtually undisturbed until the late 1990s, when a scholarly edition was published. Even then the work has had to wait a further quarter of a century for a complete performance and this recording.

One reason for this astonishing neglect may be the complexity of a work that calls for large orchestral forces including clarinets, used here with independent parts in a French opera for the first time. There is also an elaborate transformation scene that takes it from intense realms of dramatic near-tragedy to the brilliant celebratory scene with which it concludes. That in itself is unusual; such scenes are traditionally the substance of a prologue, but Achante has no prologue and – in keeping with its genre – only three acts rather than the five familiar from tragédie lyrique. To compensate it has a highly original programmatic overture which itself announces the rejoicing at the birth, with sections marked ‘Voeux de la Nation – Tocsin – Feu d’Artifice – Fanfare’. Rameau’s collaborator Jean-François Marmontel provided him with a book that also goes beyond the bounds of what might be expected in a pastorale designed to celebrate a noble birth. True, the story concerns a shepherdess and shepherd, Céphise and Achante whose happiness is thwarted by the jealousy of a spirit, Oroès. But the story develops to a thrilling dramatic climax in which hero and heroine on the orders of Oroès are abducted by north winds. That intense drama carries over from the end of act 2 straight into act 3, thus predicating the even more dramatic events which a dozen years later would engulf Alphise and Abaris as act 3 of Les Boréades spills over into act 4. The fate awaiting the lovers in Achante, in chains awaiting execution in a bleak landscape, belongs more to tragédie lyrique than pastorale. Interspersed between the drama, the dances of the divertissements are also more varied than is often the case, perhaps the most striking being a hunting scene in which the dances are accompanied almost entirely by wind and brass including the brazen braying of no fewer than four horns.

The performance owes much to the admirable Centre de musique baroque de Versailles (would that there were such an organisation in Britain) and includes much to praise. Indeed the least appealing aspect of the recording is the sound. It was made in the church of Notre-Dame-du-Libon in Paris, which here displays an over-generous reverberation period with its resultant inappropriate ecclesiastical ambiance. Give or take the odd stolidly-phrased dance, Alexis Kossenko’s direction is admirable, being especially effective in more dramatic music, and he draws some fine playing from his large band. Particularly good is some of wind playing, notably in the hunt scene mentioned above. All four of his main soloists are excellent, with Sabine Devieilhe a touchingly vulnerable Céphise and Cyrille Dubois an ardent Achante who despatches the demanding bravura aria in the final scene with commendable assurance. Baritone David Witczak projects the role of the evil Oroès to strong effect, as does Judith van Wanrou that of the good fairy Zirphile, some forced tone in the upper register notwithstanding. As is now customary given the current strength of early music in France, the numerous smaller vocal parts are without exception admirably taken. This resurrection of an unaccountably forgotten work demands to be heard by all who value French Baroque opera.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

See, see, the word is incarnate

CD cover See, see, the word is incarnate

Choral and instrumental music by Gibbons, Tomkins and Weelkes
The Chapel of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Newe Vialles, Orpheus Britannicus Vocal Consort, Andrew Arthur
70:51
resonus RES10295

Click HERE to buy this album on amazon
[Doing so supports the artists, the record company and keeps this site available – if no-one buys, no money is made and the site will disappear…]

Despite a long and distinguished history, Trinity Hall, founded as early as 1350, is one of the lesser-known colleges that make up the University of Cambridge. It must be tired of reviewers and others attributing this to the subsequent foundation in 1546 of the bigger and wealthier Trinity College, allegedly given so similar a name deliberately by its founder Henry VIII to spite Trinity Hall’s then Master, Stephen Gardiner, who had opposed the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. I was well aware of Trinity Hall but am mortified to confess that I knew nothing of its chapel, nor of its chapel choir and its several discs released before the one currently under review here. On the basis of this recording, the state of its music is certainly of a piece with the college’s eminent stature. The mixed Chapel Choir has 23 members (7S 6A 5T 5B) and verses are sung by members of Orpheus Britannicus, the Ensemble in Residence which consists of seven singers who are well kent in early music circles. Accompaniments are provided by the organ scholar James Grimwood or the five-strong consort Newe Vialles (named after the new group of six viol players brought from Italy to England by Henry VIII), while the several organ solos are played by the college’s Director of Music, Andrew Arthur, who also conducts.

The contents of this recording (similar in scope to I Heard a Voice by The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and Fretwork, Warner Classics 3944302, 2007) can be viewed from two perspectives. For those who do not routinely sing or hear late Tudor and Jacobean music, it consists of some of the finest music from before the time of Purcell. For those who routinely hear or perform the repertory of Tudor and Jacobean music, the list of contents would seem to consist of disappointingly familiar fare – even the instrumental items by Weelkes, the least populated area of his output, have had their fair sprinkling of recordings. That said, most commercial recordings require the mystical “USP”, the unique selling point that differentiates them from others in the field. Not too many discs can be expected to sell simply on the strength of the performers: probably a CD of Stile Antico gargling would sell by the bucketload, but choirs such as Trinity Hall need that elusive USP. Fortunately it is present on this disc, and it is the tempi at which most of these works are sung: slowly. This might seem unpromising, but works such as Gibbons’ Short Service were not composed to be sung at the dismissively hurried lick which too many conductors take during cathedral or collegiate Choral Evensongs and on commercial recordings: the writing is full of subtleties which are lost at speed. That said, just plain slow performances can be sluggish, but it is entirely possible to sing a piece slowly yet with care and momentum so as to bring out its harmonic, melodic and technical beauties, and this is precisely what Trinity Hall achieve both in the settings for evensong, and in the full and verse anthems. For instance, the ultra-famous This is the record of John normally comes in at just over four minutes, while here it takes a luxurious 5’06; similarly See, see the word is incarnate usually runs for around seven minutes while here it is given 8’14. And nowhere throughout the disc is there a dull moment, half because of the quality of the music and half because of the leisured intensity of the performances.

The booklet is good, being both informative and well illustrated. Unfortunately the author trots out the tired old fiction that viols might have been employed “in the Chapel Royal and other private chapels”. There is not a shred of surviving evidence that any such performances ever took place during the lifetimes of the composers represented here. Where liturgical verse anthems with accompaniments for the organ survive with authentic alternative accompaniments for viols, it is clear from the provenances of the respective sources that the latter were intended for domestic performance; it is, therefore, perhaps all the more authentic for these versions to be sung with female participation.

And finally, what of the performances here? They are consistently good. There is a richness about the tone of the choir which suggests a Baroque sensibility rather than the more austere Anglican approach which is often adopted for the music of these composers. Thanks to the slower tempi, individual parts are easily audible while the voices blend beautifully. This is a most impressive recording. For potential purchasers unfamiliar with the repertory but keen to give it a hearing (or just keen to support Trinity Hall), it is a delightful introduction. For those familiar with this music, and who possess recordings of all these pieces, it is well worth buying this disc for the singularly ripe yet penetrating performances.

Richard Turbet

Categories
Recording

Giovanni Gabrieli: Gloria a Venezia!

CD cover Giovanni Gabrieli Gloria a Venezia

La Guilde des Mercenaires, Adrien Mabire
53:47
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS041

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk
[These sponsored links help the site remain alive and FREE!]

Grand scale pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and contemporaries are often given a rather ponderous grandeur in performance. This disc offers a different  balance, instead maintaining a sense of energy and forward momentum. The overlapping choirs pass the baton without breaking pace, adding a fervent muscularity to this popular repertoire. Whilst this provides a welcome new light on many familiar pieces, applied relentlessly it can occasionally feel rather breathless, and misses opportunities for the music to put down the occasional foot and make a point. An example might be Angelus ad pastores ait, in which the exchange between the narrative voice represented by one choir passing over to the reported speech of the Angel in the other, without feeling the opening and closing speech marks. The pieces regularly change scale to give contrast. Thus we move from the opening Magnificat by Merulo with its full panoply of voices, cornetts and sackbuts, to Gabrieli’s canzon terza a 4, performed on solo cornett with organ. The contrast between the Merulo, with colla parte instruments, unusually including the top voice with a slightly tiring effect, and the following canzon, was a touch severe particularly as this piece for four instruments is constructed as sets of dialogues and calls out for distinct “voices”. Two other four-part canzoni leaven the programme further on: one with four instruments, and one more with cornett and organ. Ordering the realisations differently would have been easier on my ear (but, admittedly, this is just personal taste). The organ used has a splendid sonority – a noticeable step towards the historic cathedral organs from the smaller organs often used in modern performance – and is very fluently played. The organ ricercar, which makes a later appearance, has a real presence and immediacy. The singers are excellent and carry conviction, blending very well with each other and with the well-shaped instrumental playing. A fine addition to the CD collections of admirers of La Serenissima.

Stephen Cassidy

Categories
Recording

Mozart: Mitridate, Re di Ponto

CD cover Minkoski Mozart Mitridate, Re di Ponto

Michael Spyres Mitridate, Julie Fuchs Aspasia, Sabine Devieihle Ismene, Elsa Dreisig Sifare, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian Franace, Cyrille Dubois Marzio, Adriana Bignani Lesca Arbate, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
151:11 (3 CDs in a card box)
Erato 1 90296 61757 7

Click HERE to buy this album on amazon
[Doing so supports the artists, the record company and keeps this site available – if no-one buys, no money is made and the site will disappear…]

Mitridate represents an important milestone in Mozart’s composing career, his first attempt at composing a full-length serious opera. It owes its existence to a commission received when father Leopold and the 14 year-old Wolfgang stayed in Milan in the early months of 1770 during the course of their first Italian tour. The subject of the libretto the boy was asked to set was a historical figure, King Mithridates , the despotic ruler of Pontus, a Hellenic country on the Black Sea today part of Turkey. Mithridates was a fierce opponent of the Romans, but – like most plots based on history – considerable licence was taken by the libretto of V A Cigna-Santi, who based his book on a play by Racine. It concerns the return of Mitridate to Pontus following defeat by Pompey. Suspicious of the loyalty of his own sons, Farnace and Sifare, not least their intention towards his young bride-to-be Aspasia, Mitridate inspires a rumour he is dead to test them. Sifare has indeed fallen in love with Aspasia, in so doing rejecting the gentle princess Ismene. Farnace on the other hand is revealed as the traitor who has fallen under the spell of Roman influence in the person of the Roman tribune Marzio. The opening is thus nicely poised for a conflict of loyalties and emotional turmoil of the kind on which opera seria thrived, indeed depended.   

The opera was first given by a star-studded cast at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on 26 December 1770, being well received and achieving a run of 22 performances, no mean achievement for a new opera in a major house at the time. Both the lavish staging and Mozart’s music were praised, the latter by the Gazzetta di Milano for his studies of ‘the beauties of [human] nature and representing them ‘adorned with the rarest music graces’. The opera is in the usual three acts, dominated by the customary da capo arias and just a single duet (between Aspasia and Sifare) to end act 2. Less conventional is the number of accompanied recitatives (6) that perhaps better than the arias show the young composer’s astonishing and seemingly innate ability to lay open human emotions, often of a profundity and complexity he should not have been able to understand at such a tender age.

As befits a glamorous cast, many of the aria are virtuoso pieces that, as was customary in the 18th century, were tailor-made by Mozart for the singers, with whom he worked closely to ‘fit the costume to the figure’, as he figuratively put it. Such demands frequently give problems to casting such operas today in particular tenor roles such as Mitridate. In this new Minkowski recording Michael Spyres, justly much admired for his singing of later music, in particular the heroes of Berlioz, proves to be no exception. While he is admirably authoritative and at times sensitive, the tessitura in an aria such as the heroic ‘Vado incontro’ (act 3) tests him to the limit, as can be readily heard in some of the less than pleasant sounds he makes above the stave. There is also too much continuous vibrato in the voice and some of his cadences are vulgarly ornamented. Since the latter (and one might almost say the same of the former) is a common problem throughout the set, one can only assume they were what Marc Minkowski wanted. Otherwise there are some satisfying performances, in particular those of Julie Fuch’s Aspasia and Elsa Dreisig’s Sifare, who are particularly sensitive in the lovers’ exchanges in act 2. Sabine Devieilhe brings a lovely, tender quality to the role of Ismene, a prototype for Ilia in Idomeneo. The generally stylish countertenor Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian is an excellent Farnace, his performance reaching a fitting climax and attaining true nobility in act 3’s ‘Già dagli occhi’, a fine extended aria in which he renounces and repents his treachery. 

Minkowski’s direction is uneven, as so often with conductors today playing allegros too fast and slower tempos too slowly. This is particularly marked in act 1, with its preponderance of quick arias, almost without exception driven by the conductor in a manner that not infrequently sounds aggressive. Thereafter the approach allows for rather more nuance and sensitivity, and there is much to enjoy. Howeve, overall I think this performance too uneven to compete with the fine and certainly more idiomatic performance directed by Ian Page (Signum). Moreover Page’s version is obligatory for all serious Mozartians for its inclusion of a fourth CD devoted to variants of a number of the arias that show how much work Mozart put into satisfying both himself and his cast.

Brian Robins