Harding Brigitte

This release on the Onyx Classics label has no right to be as good as it is. Pianist Maria-João Pires, 70 years old when the album appeared in 2014, has never been known as a Beethoven specialist. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding is a competent group, surely, but hardly on Europe's or even Scandinavia's A-list. The Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, and Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, hardly lack for varied and incisive interpretations. Yet there it is: this one delivers ideas that nobody else has offered before. In a nutshell, Pires makes the piano the quiet partner to a rather martial orchestra in these works.

Following the critical success of Ray Chen's solo album, Virtuoso, for which he received the prestigious 2011 German Echo Klassik Award, his new album, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos, is the young violinist's first concerto recording on the Sony Classical label. This release combines the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concertos, both of which have played a significant role in Ray's career so far. His superb performance of these works led to his triumph at two major violin competitions in 2008 he won the Yehudi Menuhin Competition performing the Mendelssohn Concerto, followed by the first prize in the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels a year later with the Tchaikovsky Concerto.

The Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2021, conducted by Daniel Harding with Igor Levit as soloist, was recorded again this year by Sony Classical. The Summer Night Concert, which took place on June 18, 2021, is an outdoor concert held annually since 2008, following the "Concert for Europe" held from 2004 to 2007. The baroque park of Schönbrunn Palace provides an enchanting backdrop for the concert. Among the illustrious conductors who have conducted the Vienna Philharmonic's Summer Night Concert in recent years are Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov and Gustavo Dudamel.

The extraordinary hold Fassbaender exerts over audiences, in the concert hall and on record, surely derives from her singular strength of personality reflected in her dark, vibrant mezzo with its emotional overtones evident in every bar she sings. Even when an excess of vibrato intervenes, which happens seldom in this recital, it seems part of the very individual and immediately recognizable Fassbaender manner.

Troubadours songs; laude to the Virgin and estampies from trecento mingle with Sephardic lullabies and folksongs collected in Italy. They tell the stories of simple men and women of the Mediterranean world. Languages and music have survived to the din of the wars, religious conquests, political dominations between North and South… This record is an intimate compilation which raises from the old village song telling the cycle of life, the redemption sought with the Virgin, the curtly love of the Countess of Die, Tarentella or the famous separdic lullaby Nani, Nani for the beloved son…« Ever since antiquity, the shores of the Mediterranean have assembled men and women who share a cultural heritage with multiple resonances. (religious and cultural : christians, jews, arabs, languages : castillan, occitan, florentin, napolitain, sarde…).

Catherine Gayer makes a spirited, fresh sounding Adonis and Brigitte Fassbaender as Venus is superb throughout; Venus's ''Augelletti, si cantate'' has an almost irresistible allure and her radiant duet with Adonis at the conclusion of the work is something to treasure. The instrumental accompaniment is excellent of its kind and of its vintage, with a notable contribution from Hans-Martin Linde on the sopranino recorder. This is, in a word, enlightened music-making which brings a ravishing score to life affectionately and convincingly. Excellent recorded sound and a considerable adornment to Archiv Galleria's otherwise arbitrary and mainly disappointing selection of reissues.

Un peu moins de dix ans après sa disparition, le souvenir de Brigitte Engerer est toujours bien vivant dans la mémoire de ses admirateurs. Native de Tunis, elle commence sa carrière en s'enfermant dans la salle de bains de l'appartement familial pour jouer sur un piano jouet. Très vite repérée pour son talent précoce, elle intègre la classe de Lucette Descaves au conservatoire de Paris avant d'être distinguée par le concours Long-Thibaud. Son esprit iconoclaste et aventureux l'enverra en Urss pour étudier aux côtés de Stanislas Neuhaus en 1970. …

Ant teams up with Turkish-British singer & lyricist Brigitte Beraha for ‘Ensconced’ - the lush new album. There are guest appearance from Kit Downes, Petros Klampanis, Ernesto Simpson, Matt Calvert, Max Luthert, Duncan Eagles, Jamie Murray and Adam Kovacs.