Gramophone October 2017

* Featuring many tracks for the first time on CD. There were many worlds in George Malcolm's (1917–1997) universe – organist, harpsichordist, pianist, composer, choral director and conductor – and this one demonstrates his unique skill as a solo performer who, throughout his career, more than any other individual defined the harpsichord's identity in England.

Scottish pianist Malcolm Martineau is recognized as one of the leading accompanists of his generation. The second volume of this series charting the complete songs of French composer Gabriel Fauré brings together some of the UK’s finest singers; nine carefully chosen soloists who each lend their own personal imprint to the material, highlighting Martineau’s sensitivity.

The first ever recording of Rachmaninov’s complete preludes (1941–42). Released on CD for the first time. Throughout a career spanning over 60 years, Dame Moura Lympany was closely associated with the music of Rachmaninov. It began as an unlikely meeting of minds and fingers: what was this slight and beautiful young Englishwoman doing with music that needed the composer’s own huge hands to span its ninths and tenths, written by a man immortalized in Stravinsky’s quip, ‘a six-and-a-half-foot scowl’?

Having opened his survey of Brahms's music for solo piano with the third piano sonata, Jonathan Plowright has saved the composer's Opus 1, Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major, for the closing disc in the series. Brahms brought the sonata with him when he went to Düsseldorf in October 1853 in order to meet Robert and Clara Schumann – an encounter which has gone down in music history. It was possibly the C major sonata, with its opening reminiscent of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, which caused Schumann to liken Brahms to ‘a young eagle’ and a ‘true apostle’.

As the mysterious opening bars of the Kyrie gradually emerge into the light, we know that this recording of Mozart’s glorious Great Mass in C minor is a special one: the tempi perfect, the unfolding drama of the choral writing so carefully judged, and, above it all, the crystalline beauty of soloist Carolyn Sampson’s soprano, floating like a ministering angel. Masaaki Suzuki’s meticulous attention to detail, so rewarding in his remarkable Bach recordings, shines throughout this disc, the playing alert, the choir responsive, the soloists thrilling. And there is the bonus of an exhilarating Exsultate, Jubilate with Sampson on top form.

As the mysterious opening bars of the Kyrie gradually emerge into the light, we know that this recording of Mozart’s glorious Great Mass in C minor is a special one: the tempi perfect, the unfolding drama of the choral writing so carefully judged, and, above it all, the crystalline beauty of soloist Carolyn Sampson’s soprano, floating like a ministering angel. Masaaki Suzuki’s meticulous attention to detail, so rewarding in his remarkable Bach recordings, shines throughout this disc, the playing alert, the choir responsive, the soloists thrilling. And there is the bonus of an exhilarating Exsultate, Jubilate with Sampson on top form.

Chloë Hanslip and Danny Driver are approaching the culmination of a complete Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle where each concert is both broadcast live by the BBC on Radio 3, and recorded by Andrew Keener and Phil Rowlands for Rubicon. Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas represent the supreme challenge for a violin and piano duo, and the drama, visceral excitement and many intimate moments of these masterpieces is superbly captured in these live performances.