Philippe Katerinetotal à L'ouest

It is easy to understand why Chausson’s Concert is not as regular a feature of concert programmes as, say, Franck’s Violin Sonata. After all, a work for piano, violin and string quartet must surely have an instrumental imbalance. How can Chausson occupy all three violin parts for nearly forty minutes? In short, he does not. Nor does he try. Much of the Concert is essentially a sonata for violin and piano with an accompanying, though essential, string quartet. Chausson’s refusal to involve the quartet at every juncture merely to justify the players’ fees results in a signally well-balanced late Romantic work. When the quartet does feature on an equal footing, the effect is all the more telling. The fingerprints of Franck can be detected readily throughout the Concert, but in this and the Piano Quartet, Chausson’s individuality overcomes his teacher’s influence. Indeed, there are premonitions of Debussy, Ravel and even Shostakovich. Tangibly the product of live performances, these accounts traverse the gamut of emotions, bristling with energy, lyricism and conviction, and ensuring that this disc will never gather much dust.

Unsurprisingly, it is in the music of the Baroque era – the heyday of the castrato – that French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has captured the attention of music-lovers lovers around the world. The ethereal, but sensuous beauty of his voice, his virtuosity and his sense of style have brought him critical praise, a number of major awards – including, in 2008, Germany’s prestigious Echo-Klassik prize for Male Singer of the Year.

After the success of his recordings of Symphonies nos. 1, 3 and 4, released on the Phi label in 2016, Philippe Herreweghe offers us the next instalment of Schubert’s orchestral output with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic: the Symphony no.2 D. 125 and Symphony no.5 D. 485 – both in B flat major. Like those on the previous disc, these works from his youth – written when the Viennese composer was not yet twenty years old – mark the promising beginnings of an already highly accomplished composer.

With Cupid’s assistance, the sculptor Pygmalion brings his beloved creation to life. This recording treats us to two versions of the celebrated story. Jean-Philippe Rameau’s familiar one-act opera Pigmalion, in which the deus ex machina fulfils Pygmalion’s desires, is followed by Georg Benda’s little-known gem of the same name: a gripping monodrama for spoken voice and orchestra in which we can imagine the sculptor undergoing an inner conflict between desire and reality. Rising star Korneel Bernolet conducts his Apotheosis Orchestra and a group of young vocal partners: the Canadian haute-contre Philippe Gagné sings the passionate Pigmalion in Rameau’s opéra-ballet, alongside Lieselot De Wilde as his wife Céphise and Caroline Weynants as the divine Amour.

Following the trend of singers releasing recitals based on the repertoire of great performers of previous centuries – Cecilia Bartoli's tribute to Maria Malibran and Juan Diego Flórez's to Giovanni Battista Rubini, for instance – countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has devoted a CD to the repertoire of eighteenth century castrato Giovanni Carestini, who was a rival of Farinelli's. According to contemporary accounts, Farinelli was the more virtuosic of the two, with a hair-raisingly dazzling coloratura, and Carestini was noted for the beauty and purity of his tone, and his profound musical and dramatic characterizations. The demands of the arias collected here make it clear that Carestini must also have had a fully developed technique, because they require remarkable agility and an awe-inspiring range that essentially encompasses both soprano and contralto registers, as well as great interpretive sensitivity.