Contemplations Glassberg Erato

The harpist Lily Laskine (1893-1988) was a popular and influential figure whose name was particularly closely identified with the Erato label, although she also recorded for EMI. The first woman to play in the orchestra of the Paris Opéra, she made her first recording for Erato – Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp with Jean-Pierre Rampal – in 1958, when she was already 65. She made her last Erato recording 23 years later. Her stereo remake of the Mozart concerto (again partnering with Rampal), recorded in 1963, remains an all-time classical bestseller in France.

The harpist Lily Laskine (1893-1988) was a popular and influential figure whose name was particularly closely identified with the Erato label, although she also recorded for EMI. The first woman to play in the orchestra of the Paris Opéra, she made her first recording for Erato – Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp with Jean-Pierre Rampal – in 1958, when she was already 65. She made her last Erato recording 23 years later. Her stereo remake of the Mozart concerto (again partnering with Rampal), recorded in 1963, remains an all-time classical bestseller in France.

It is over four years since the Viennese pianist, Till Fellner, winner of the 1993 Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey, signed a contract with Erato, but since then only three major issues have appeared, all highly praised, Beethoven’s Second and Third Concertos (9/95), a solo Schubert disc (4/98) and an unusual coupling of Schumann’s Kreisleriana and the Sonata of the short-lived Julius Reubke (10/96). This Mozart coupling imaginatively brings together what Misha Donat’s excellent note describes as “two concertos in military style”. The only disc listed on the Gramophone Database with this same coupling is from Rudolf Serkin’s late and rather heavy-handed Mozart series with Abbado and the LSO. The crisp, fresh, sparkling playing of Fellner provides a total contrast, and the most relevant comparisons are with Schiff and Perahia (now only available as a 12-disc set).

Star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky continues his exploration of operatic settings of the Orpheus myth with the most famous of the many operas inspired by the story of the Greek poet who searches for his dead wife in the Underworld: Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. It contains one of the world's best-loved operatic arias, Orfeo's restrained, but moving lament, 'Che farò senza Euridice'.

Here we have the first complete recording of Gluck's charming one-act serenata teatrale for chamber orchestra and four treble voices, composed for the marriage of Hapsburg Archduke Joseph in January 1765. The Archduke's first wife had died. This time he was to marry the Bavarian princess, Maria Josepha. For this performance of the new Gluck work, four of the Archduke's daughters from his first marriage who were all accomplished musicians, sang roles in the new work. The new bridegroom's younger brother Leopold, conducted. That the four Archduchesses could successfully negotiate the florid soprano roles Gluck fashioned for them, is most impressive.