Archiv Produktion

Trevor Pinnock meets with mixed success in this account of the Messiah with the English Concert & Choir and soloists Arleen Auger, Anne Sofie von Otter, Michael Chance, Howard Crook, and John Tomlinson, recorded and released in 1988. Its strengths are the strengths of the early-music movement in general. The size and distribution of the instrumental and vocal forces are optimal, which means that textures are clear and balances apt. Rhythms are nicely pointed, though often, in Pinnock's case, not quite well enough sprung. Tempos are well chosen; for example, "All we like sheep"–which turns out to be one of the set's best numbers–is a real bourré, and Pinnock animates it in just the right way. But the performance often seems workmanlike and unemotional, weighed down in too many instances by the humdrum work of the chorus.

1998 is een bijzonder jaar voor Reinhard Goebel en zijn Musica Antiqua Koln. Dit jaar gedenken zij niet alleen dat Reinhard Goebel de groep 25 jaar geleden oprichtte, maar ook dat zij 20 jaar geleden hun samenwerking begonnen met Archiv Produktion. Hun nieuwste cd "Sonata pro tabula" bevat tafelmuziek om bij te watertanden. Samen met het Flanders Recorder Quartet speelt Musica Antiqua Koln werken van Valentini, Schmelzer en Pezel, steeds afgewisseld met een aantal "A due" voor twee trompetten van Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber.

Anne Sofie von Otter / Melvyn Tan - Beethoven/Meyerbeer/Spohr: Lieder, Mélodies
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 245 MB | MP3 CBR 320: 175 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Archiv Produktion # 469 074-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2001 | Genre: Classical

Perhaps through all the down-scaling going on at major record companies, song-recitalists will prove to be the most fortunate, what with their relatively inexpensive production costs and abundant quantity of both well-loved and still-untapped repertoire. Whatever the case, there’s been no shortage of fine solo-song recordings during the past couple of years–and here’s another one that also happens to contain repertoire almost never heard in concert or on disc. And it’s not because the music has little merit. Anyone who enjoys early-to-mid-19th century song will enjoy this…

The versatile Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, whose international profile has been rising in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, seems to tackle all genres with alacrity, but Baroque period-instrument performance is his main calling card. He's a great choice, then, for the re-launch of Deutsche Grammophon’s Archiv Produktion imprint, with this disc of orchestral music associated with Farinelli’s long tenure at the Spanish court -much of it dug out of archives and recorded for the first time…

At times quite sprightly, at other times ponderous not least in its treatment of dotting and though played with the professional efficiency one expects of the ECO, this recording fell short of medal-ranking when it was first issued. During the intervening 16 years even middle-of-the-road performances of the Music for the Royal Fireworks have become more attentive to scholarship and there are now several excellent recordings of the kind available (not to mention others on period instruments) on CD.

Italian violinist Guiliano Carmignola has a crisp, sharp style that can do wonderful things in High Baroque repertory. In Classical-period music he is again distinctive, but your mileage may vary. This release harks back to the middle days of historically informed playing, when Baroque groups first began to explore the Classical era (and music beyond). There are no graceful, gentle lines here, no warm, muted colors of mythological figures frolicking in summer sunshine.

John Eliot Gardiner has returned to the form reminiscent of his earliest days with the Monteverdi Choir, when performances were bright and fresh and taut and, well, really good. Of course, he’s working with some really fine music, his soloists are all top-notch, and he’s recording in a familiar place (London’s St. John’s Smith Square) with several of the industry’s most seasoned recording wizards at the controls (especially the two Mikes, balance engineers Mike Hatch and Mike Clements). The music, four of Bach’s Whitsun (or Pentecost) cantatas, shows the composer at his most creative in terms of text setting and structural formulations.

With stiff competition from Norrington on EMI and Östman on L’Oiseau-Lyre, Gardiner’s Magic Flute enters the period instrument stakes somewhat belatedly. It offers no major musicological revelations – no reinstated numbers or serious reorderings that often come with period Mozart these days. Its only textual novelties are the trumpets and drums at the start of Act I, where in accordance with Mozart’s original manuscript Tamino is pursued by a lion rather than a snake, and a selection of numbers, presented as an appendix, sung to the alternative texts given in the first printed score.

This release marks the world-premiere recording and rediscovery of Antonio Caldara’s La Concordia de’ pianeti, a musical serenade of operatic magnitude composed for the court of Austrian Emperor Karl VI, featuring the creme de la creme of the day’s singers, including the legendary castrato Carestini (Franco Fagioli’s part).