Provocazione Fatale (1993) Ninì Grassia, Carlo Mucari, Saverio Vallone, Debora Calì

Set in Edinburgh against the backdrop of Oliver Cromwell’s rule, Il proscritto saw a marked return to melody by Mercadante who retained the orchestral richness of his “reform” operas but restored aspects of bel canto lyricism. With Ramón Vargas, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Irene Roberts, Elizabeth DeShong, Sally Matthews, Goderdzi Janelidze, Susana Gaspar, Carlo Rizzi (conductor) and Britten Sinfonia.

From the very first moment, the atmosphere seems to glow in Beethoven's last sonata for violoncello, with which Antoaneta Emanuilova and Endri Nini open their new GENUIN CD Momentum. Momentum stands for the potency of the ideal moment, its inherent dynamism, and its independence from temporal processes. In addition to Beethoven, the two award-winning musicians perform Brahms' Cello Sonata in D major and Schumann's Adagio and Allegro, works of great inner fervour that demand the attention of listeners and musicians alike at every moment and yet reward this effort many times over with incredible inner richness. Emanuilova and Nini play the three late works, which are by no means serene, with crackling energy.

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, murderer in 1590 of his guilty wife and her lover, later took a wife from the d’Este family, rulers of Ferrara, whose musical interests coincided with his own. He wrote a quantity of sacred and secular vocal music and a relatively small number of instrumental pieces. In style his music is unusual in its sudden changes of tonality, its harmony and its intensity of feeling, qualities that have found particular favour among some modern theorists.

Those who still think of Wagner’s Tristan as quintessentially erotic music should definitely reconsider: in the list drawn by The Most Erotic Classical Music of All Time, an album with a provocative cover featuring a woman’s derriere and suspenders, in good company with an obvious Bolero and a punctual isottesque finale and a less-obvious Moonlight Sonata or a Good Friday Spell (all by the German from Leipzig), one finds the Centone di Sonate for violin and guitar by Niccolò Paganini (Genoa 1782 – Nice 1840) and precisely with the opening movement of the Sonata in A minor placed in the opening of the present collection.

Duran Duran came back out of nowhere in early 1993 with a new album and a huge hit, "Ordinary World." The group sounds more relaxed and mature than it did during their glory days, but not all that much has changed; instead of personifying the days of early-'80s synthesized dance-pop, the music is smooth dance pop for the '90s. Taken on its own terms, Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) works every bit as well as Duran Duran, Rio, or Seven and the Ragged Tiger. "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone" are wonderful pop singles that sit between some passable album tracks and the occasional embarrassment, namely the wretched cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale." In other words, Duran Duran are back and as good as they ever were.

Renata Scotto shows an amazing flexibility and control. Her Caro nome is one to be heard many times. She reaches a high D and decrescendo's to an incredible ppp. I felt the aria drug a little in tempo, but the gorgeous sound more than made up for it. As Rigoletto, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has the vocal power demanded by the score. Too often he sounded as if he was delivering a recital of Leider. A smooth velvet sound was his mark throughout. In his duets with Gilda, this payed off handsomely. Even in his dealings with the courtiers after Gilda's abduction he showed us a rarely seen Dietrich blustery side.

The CD, unpublished and live, features the clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich in Mozart's Concerto for clarinet and orchestra K 622 in A major, in the reconstruction by Lonquich himself for the original basset clarinet. He is accompanied by the Canova Chamber Orchestra conducted by Enrico Saverio Pagano who also perform the first version of the famous Symphony n. 40 K 550 in G minor by the Austrian composer.