Contralto

John Eliot Gardiner has returned to the form reminiscent of his earliest days with the Monteverdi Choir, when performances were bright and fresh and taut and, well, really good. Of course, he’s working with some really fine music, his soloists are all top-notch, and he’s recording in a familiar place (London’s St. John’s Smith Square) with several of the industry’s most seasoned recording wizards at the controls (especially the two Mikes, balance engineers Mike Hatch and Mike Clements). The music, four of Bach’s Whitsun (or Pentecost) cantatas, shows the composer at his most creative in terms of text setting and structural formulations.

Anglo-German contralto Claudia Huckle, tenor Nicky Spence and pianist Justin Brown present Mahler's autograph piano version of Das Lied von der Erde in this stunning new recording. The recording was a lockdown project, which provided Huckle with a focus for over a year during the pandemic.

Conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini's historical-instrument recordings of Vivaldi and other Italian Baroque composers, originally recorded around the turn of the millennium for the Opus 111 label, are being reissued on Naïve, complete with the fashion-forward graphics for which that label is known. Any and all remain completely distinctive, but this all-Vivaldi disc makes perhaps the ideal place to start.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) - The Madrigals - Raymond Leppard (1998) {8CD Box Set Philips 462 243-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.56 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.20 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 286 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998 Philips Classics | 462 243-2
Classical / Renaissance / Baroque / Vocal Music / Secular and Sacred

Genius can be defined in a number of ways. One such definition is to be the right person in the right place at the right time; another is to have the capacity to move your audience to tears. Monteverdi meets both these criteria with flying colours. His professed ambition was to "move the passions of the soul," thereby drawing tears from his audience, and he achieved this with greater efficacy than any of his contemporaries. The use of the word "madrigal" on the title pages of his eight collections (and a posthumous Ninth Book from 1651) is therefore deceptive, concealing radical stylistic changes which brilliantly reflect the turbulent, exciting times in which he lived.

A Naïve boxed set that gathers the finest sacred works composed by Antonio Vivaldi and performed by some of the most recognized artists in this wonderful repertoire, including Sandrine Piau, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Philippe Jaroussky, Sara Mingardo, and Rinaldo Alessandrini.

This is a St Matthew Passion which should please many readers. Bruggen’s interpretation is eloquent, thoughtful in matters of style and expressive content, and it benefits from a textural clarity which few competitors can rival. All aspects of Bach’s miraculous score are taken into account.

A luxurious and authoritative 64CD orchestral and concerto set, celebrating one of the world’s great orchestras and their 64-year relationship with Decca Classics. Few labels can claim to be so associated with a city as inextricably as Decca is with Vienna. No history of classical recordings would be complete without a chapter documenting how both Decca and the WP worked to perfect the art of recording in the city’s great concert halls, most notably in the famous Sofiensaal.

Baroque music is not the usual province of soprano Anna Netrebko, or contralto Marianna Pizzolato, or conductor Antonio Pappano, or the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma, so the listener might approach this tribute to the 300th anniversary of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi with some skepticism, but the performers do a terrific job. The orchestra uses modern instruments, so this is never going to be mistaken for a recording by Baroque specialists, but everyone involved approaches the challenge with such sensitivity and such evident excitement that listeners who don't demand absolute adherence to cutting-edge developments in early music practice are likely to be swept up.