A Lover's Concerto

Vadim Repin’s DG debut with the Wiener Philharmoniker under Riccardo Muti gave the musical world and his many fans exactly what was expected of this first-class violinist: an incomparably refined, technically brilliant and at the same time highly emotional interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concertos Nos. 19 & 23
Ronald Brautigam / Die Kölner Akademie / Michael Alexander Willens
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 2,30 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 806 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: BIS # BIS-1964 SACD | Country/Year: Sweden 2013, 2012
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School, Piano

"…In the hands of Willems and Brautigam, this masterpiece is given a first class performance, particularly in its buoyant Finale, a sonata-rondo in which the piano and orchestra really are cavorting joyfully together. The two concertos on this disc's menu may well offer the best performances of the series so far, yielding first class solo and orchestral playing as well as the best recording of any period Mozart concerto series at this time." ~sa-cd.net

Not just because this disk is the only 1 in the series without a review on this site, but also because it concerns a re-issue in SACD format, I thought it might be useful to share my views with the Super Audio community. To start with the end: My verdict is a wholehearted positive 1 in both artistic & technical sense.

Naxos has done music lovers yet another good turn by releasing these recordings (1932-36), vividly remasterd from 78s. Menuhin was in his later teens when he made them. The concertos in A minor and E are conducted by his teacher Enescu, who is the other soloist in the D minor Double concerto, which Monteux conducts. The performances are compelling, and the slow movements of the solo concertos are imprinted with that beauty of tone and phrase that makes the young Menuhin a permanent wonder. But the Double Concerto is the treasure. The soloists are indistinguishably linked yet each a consummate individual. Playing more heart-easing than in the distraught largo could not be imagined.

Monteverdi's Sixth Book of Madrigals (1614) is significant for including both traditional polyphonic and stile nuove concerted madrigals. In his booklet-notes, Rinaldo Alessandrini points out that this is also a 'book of partings': many of the madrigals seem to have been written much earlier than the published date, at a time when Monteverdi suffered the loss of his wife Claudia and his live-in pupil, the singer Caterina Martinelli.