Rachel+podger

The Baroque dream team of Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the astonishing music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C Minor, B Minor, D Major and G Minor. The two early sonatas here from the 1730s resemble the older style of his father. Listening to these works, you can imagine J.S. Bach glancing over Emanuel's shoulders while he wrote them as a teenager at home in Leipzig. The later sonatas, written 30 to 50 years later, reveal an emancipated composer whose developed musical language embodies the 'Empfindsamer Stil', the directly emotional and rhetorical style characteristic of northern-german music of the time.

A long time ago, back in the 1970s, period instrument performances mostly sounded sweet and low down. Part of the reason for this was the catgut strings and the lower tuning, and part of the reason was that players seemed to prefer a mellower and rounder tone. But time passed and period instrument performances became more and more strident until they became nearly painful to listen to by the late '80s. Violinist Rachel Podger has recaptured the mellow sounds of yesterday by producing a warm and almost human sound with her 1739 Persarinius instrument.

Two rarely recorded Haydn violin concertos frame Rachel Podger’s performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat on this disc. Both concertos have only string accompaniment, here provided by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and a discreet harpsichord (the player’s name unaccountably omitted from the list of the orchestra personnel in the accompanying booklet). Rachel Podger has chosen to play both concertos on her own Pesarinius violin (1739) that she feels is most suited to the style of these works and few would disagree with her choice. Her agile and spirited playing in the outer movements is complemented by her pure cantilena in the slow movements. As is to be expected, both works are full of baroque idioms and, while neither presents Haydn at his most inventive, they make an enjoyable pairing.

Rachel Podger, “the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin” (The Times), and Grammy award-winning pianist Christopher Glynn recorded Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano nos. 1, 5 and 10. Following the critically acclaimed Mozart/Jones Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021), this Beethoven album marks Podger and Glynn’s second release together.

Rachel Podger - Antonio Vivaldi - L'Estro Armonico (2015) [2CD] {Channel Classics}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 529 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 249 Mb
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© 2015 Channel Classics | CCS SA 36515
Classical / Concerto / Violin

L'estro armonico, the title of Vivaldi's first published collection of concertos, is commonly translated into English as "harmonic fancy." However, the word oestrus actually means "heat, stimulus, vehement impulse or frenzy" - a better allusion to the startling passion and energy of these twelve concertos, which are widely considered to be among the most influential Baroque orchestral music ever written. Following on their successful and widely acclaimed releases of Vivaldi's La Cetra and La Stravaganza, this release by Rachel Podger and her ensemble Brecon Baroque captures all of the vitality and freshness of Vivaldi's invention: its rhythmic energy, melodic and harmonic intensity, textural sensuousness, technical brilliance and dramatic flair.

When back in 2003 Rachel Podger’s recording of Vivaldi’s 12 violin concertos Op.4 ‘La Stravaganza’ Vivaldi: La Stravaganza – Podger/Arte Dei Suonatori was released it was universally acclaimed & quickly went on to garner numerous awards from many sections of the music press including Gramophone, Stereophile & The Absolute Sound as well as winning a Diapason d’Or. It is also interesting to note that even on SA-CD.net more than 100 people have recommended that recording. In the intervening years Rachel Podger has widened her recorded repertoire to make further highly regarded recordings of works by Bach, Haydn & Mozart, but she has now made a triumphant return to Vivaldi with this wonderful set of the composer’s 12 Violin Concertos Op.9 known as ‘La Cetra’ .