Following his attractive performance of six of Vivaldi's cello sonatas, Christophe Coin has recorded six of the composer's 24 or so concertos for the instrument. Five of these, Michael Talbot tells us in an interesting accompanying note, probably belong to the 1720s while the sixth, the Concerto in G minor (RV416), is evidently a much earlier work. Coin has chosen, if I may use the expression somewhat out of its usual context, six of the best and plays them with virtuosity and an affecting awareness of their lyrical content. That quality, furthermore, is not confined to slow movements but occurs frequently in solo passages of faster ones, too. It would be difficult to single out any one work among the six for particular praise. My own favourite has long been the happily spirited Concerto in G major (RV413) with which Coin ends his programme. Strongly recommended. (Gramophone Magazine)
Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) releases the penultimate volume of an acclaimed project to record Mozart’s complete works for keyboard and orchestra. This volume includes Mozart’s Concerto No. 7 for Three Pianos and Orchestra, performed here uniquely on three different types of keyboard instruments: by Robert Levin (tangent piano), Ya-Fei Chuang (fortepiano) and Laurence Cummings (harpsichord). It follows the release of the same concerto in Mozart’s own arrangement for two keyboards (Vol. 11) and is joined on this album by two other Piano Concertos composed in Salzburg in the early months of 1776.
Led by Christopher Hogwood, the Academy of Ancient Music has made many renowned recordings of Handel's music-particularly the oratorios. The beloved Messiah heads up this 8-CD set, followed by Esther; La Resurezzione , and, making its return to the international catalog after an absence of several years, the 1985 recording of Athalia -with none other than Joan Sutherland in the title role! Recorded in London, 1979-85.
In the repertoire on this new disc… Cleobury, King's College, and the AAM prove currently unbeatable. King's College Chapel provides a glorious acoustic, splendidly recorded, bathing the music in resonance but retaining every detail.
Purcell’s fourth and last full-scale semi-opera, The Indian Queen, is often passed over in favour of its longer and more rounded predecessors, especially King Arthur and The Fairy Queen. The reasons are plentiful: Thomas Betterton, with whom Purcell collaborated, never finished his reworking of an early Restoration tragedy and even if he had torn himself away from his business interests in 1695, Purcell would not have been alive to set the remaining music for Act 5. As it happened, Henry’s brother Daniel set the masque from the final act after Betterton had hired an anonymous writer to finish his adaptation. No one can deny that neither verse nor music achieved the heights imagined in the original collaboration; given the quality of the masques in Purcell’s large ‘dramatick’ operas (including Dioclesian, of course), there is an undoubted sense of anticlimax.
Chandos Chaconne's J.C. Bach: Overture "Adriano in Siria" features the Academy of Ancient Music under Simon Standage in four symphonies (one is an overture; for Bach there was no difference between the structure and function of these two forms) and the Sinfonia Concertante in C major, T. 289/4. The last-named work is the best music here; a loving realization featuring soloists Rachel Brown (flute), Frank de Bruine (oboe), and conductor Standage (violin) combining in pleasing harmony while managing to shine individually. This is exactly what Bach had in mind when he wrote the music, and this performance is to be preferred over the only other recording of the work on Capriccio.
In a year of Handel celebration and many new recordings, this is a welcome addition to the discography. Stephen Layton, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a stellar group of soloists—in fact, the best in solo Handel singing that this country has to offer—present a disc of three of the Chandos anthems which is sure to achieve the same critical and public acclaim as the recent Dettingen Te Deum from Trinity.