Anna Lambke

This new Traviata belongs near the top of the fine recorded versions of the opera despite a serious vocal problem in the middle. The great news is in the casting of the two lovers: Rolando Villazon's Alfredo is just about perfect. He sings with handsome, shaded tone, great attention to the text–his anger feels as real as his grief and passion–and absolute freedom throughout the range.

There is not much to fault in this quintessentially Russian opera with the lavish staging and fantastic costumes surely a feat to the eye. You cannot find much fault on the musical side of things either as many have expressed their opinion that this remains the finest version of the opera by a mile. The charismatic and almost demonic Gergiev conducts with his systematic, unabated passion for music which is most certainly in his blood and his players definitely do him proud. The cast is also top notch on all counts with Netrebko and Gorchakova particularly impressive.

Orchid Classics presents one of two releases showcasing winners of the Carl Nielsen Competition 2019. Hailed as ‘One to Watch’ by Gramophone magazine, Slovenian clarinettist Blaž Šparovec was praised by jury member Michael Collins as “the deserving winner … he showed immense qualities from the start and is able to communicate with the audience his joy of music-making. His technical skill and warm sound will make him stand out as a true individual.” With the Odense Symphony Orchestra, Blaž Šparovec performs four masterpieces: Debussy’s breathtaking Première rhapsodie, written as a competition piece for the Paris Conservatoire; Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, often described as the greatest of the 20th century; Lutosławski’s folk-like Dance Preludes; and Copland’s demanding, jazzy Clarinet Concerto, performed in its original state – unaltered by simplifications made by its dedicatee, Benny Goodman.

The Ghost Ship (2CD): The beauty and brilliance of the piano - a double CD of virtuoso and Romantic music by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Liszt, Skryabin, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns and many more.

The music of Michal Spisak was much more recognizable and available to a wide audience during the composers lifetime than nowadays. This album contains three compositions of this artist: the Piano Sui t e (a piece with a transparent texture in which Spisak clearly refers to the Baroque tradition), Sonata for violin and piano (for a change, very rich, diverse texture, full of violin dyad passages, varied in terms of harmony and sound colour) and Concerto for two pianos (very spectacular work, extremely diverse, as far as the sound is concerned; highly demanding for the pianists). The aforementioned pieces are a cross-section of the compositional techniques typical of Michl Spisaks musical language; they also introduce a whole range of neoclassical features confirming the composers stylistic affiliation.