Ardour Teebs

The first album to bring together all of Fanny Mendelssohn’s four piano sonatas, written over the course of almost 20 years, and including the ‘Easter Sonata’ rediscovered in 2010.

John Lee Hooker himself did not know his exact date of birth. If he hadn't died at around the age of 80, this ageless musician would still be easily pulling the next generation to his gigs. Hooker remains a phenomenon, a mysterious figure of black rhythm and blues, a charismatic king who reigns supreme in rock 'n' roll's Hall of Fame. ~ AcousticSounds

What if Vivaldi’s famous Quattro Stagioni, performed in Paris in 1728, had been preceded by those of Guido, the star violinist of the Parisian orchestras of Louis XIV’s maturity ? Here, at last, are these two works reunited: to the well-known virtuosity of Vivaldi’s work, of extraordinary impact, Guido’s Seasons oppose a mixture of Italian features and a thousand facets worthy of the French Court, with an infectious ardour! A mysterious Neapolitan who arrived in Paris around 1702 as Music Master to Philippe d’Orléans, Guido was close to the financier Crozat, who in 1716 commissioned Watteau to produce four paintings on the theme of the Seasons: he set them to music around 1717 with his Scherzi armonici sopra le Quattro Stagioni dell’anno.

Here is a splendid revival by Paul McCreesh and an excellent cast, as seen at the Barbican in 2003, of one of Gluck’s lesser-known dramatic works. Where the composer’s previous ‘reform’ operas, Orfeo and Alceste, had been dramas of life and death, Paride ed Elena deals with a gallant subject: Paris’s wooing of Helen, here betrothed rather than married to Menelaus. Cupid pulls the strings, while Athene appears as a malign dea ex machina to utter warnings of future carnage – which the lovers blithely disregard. McCreesh and his superb orchestra relish Gluck’s portrayal of contrasting worlds and generate plenty of tension when the emotional temperature finally begins to rise.Though Paride ed Elena is even more static than Alceste, variety comes from Gluck’s portrayal of the two contrasting national characters, Sparta and Troy.

Violinist Franziska Pietsch and pianist Maki Hayashida offer deeply personal readings of Bela Bartok's magnificent Sonatas for violin and piano, and his irresistible 'Romanian Folk Dances'.

There is no point in getting snooty about Adriana Lecouvreur, it may be implausible melodrama, but has held the stage for just over one hundred years providing meaty fodder for monstres sacrés of all voice types. Classed as a verismo (realist) opera, which is a dubious appellation for an experience that includes dodgy rococo wigs and death by violets; it is an operatic equivalent of the sort of well made play that migrated from the boards, via opera to celluloid in Hollywood’s golden age. Histrionics aside, it is a fluent, lyrical score that contains numerous plums. It is above all, a diva vehicle… JULIAN GRANT

Mullova and Anderszewski have thought through every detail of their interpretations - these are performances of exceptionally wide expressive range, from passionate ardor to the dark and turgid to the touchingly melancholic. Mullova and Anderszewski give a wonderful impression of having thought through every detail of their interpretations. Throughout the three sonatas I was impressed, not just by the way they do everything Brahms asks for, but by their evident personal involvement in the music.