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clinical but the clarity is amazing.
Nareh Arghamanyan: Rachmaninov & Liszt
Nareh Arghamanyan, piano
Analekta AN 2 8762 (51 min 49 s)
★★★★★✩ $$
PER
Nineteen-year-old
Armenian Nareh
Arghamanyan swept the
major prizes at the
Montreal International
Music Competition
(piano edition) in May
2008 and with it a highly
coveted chance to make a recording on the
Analekta label. This disc of Rachmaninoff and Liszt
sonatas is the result. It amply demonstrates all the
fine qualities with which Arghamanyan wowed
the judges last year. She has chosen two very difficult
sonatas – the Rachmaninoff No. 2 and the Liszt
B minor.These pieces not only require technical virtuosity,
but also a musical maturity and a depth of
understanding of the material that is sometimes
lacking in very young prizewinners. Arghamanyan
meets the daunting demands of these two ultra-
Romantic pieces with a combination of technical
bravura, singing tone and poetic expression. Her
ability to shape a piece in an unhurried fashion is
impressive, giving it room to breathe, bringing out
all the nuances yet never losing sight of the overall
architecture of the work. This applies to both
sonatas, but the Liszt is particularly memorable.
The recorded sound is clear and has good presence,
although I would have liked a warmer sound from
the piano. This is a most auspicious debut album,
and hopefully the first of many more recordings to
come from this artist.
JKS
Schindler’s List: Williams & Bloch
Alexandre da Costa, violon; Marc Pantillon, piano;
Orchestre Symphonique Bienne/Thomas Rösner
Atma Classique ACD2 2579 (51 min 16 s)
★★★★✩✩ $$$
Classical music purists
sometimes turn their
noses up at film music,
which is rather unjustified
when it comes to a
masterpiece like John
Willliams’ Schindler’s List
Suite, composed for
Spielberg’s film. Few who have heard it played by
the great Itzhak Perlman would fail to be moved
by the highly evocative and emotional primary
theme in the first movement. Here we have the
brilliant 30-year-old Canadian Alexandre da Costa,
whose singing tone captures the spirit of the
piece beautifully, using just the right amount of
rubato but not so excessively as to turn into
schmaltz. Thomas Rösner and the Orchestre
Symphonique Bienne provide appropriately lush
orchestral colours. Ernest Bloch’s Hebrew Suite,
with its distinctively Jewish folk themes, is a perfect
companion piece. The longest work on the
disc is Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1. Composed at
a time (1925) when “serious” composers exited the
tonal idiom en masse, Bloch’s highly romantic
musical language was out of fashion. The structure
of this piece is more formal and neoclassical
than Romantic, with parts of the last movement
Fugue sounding almost as if it could be from the
Baroque. Too bad Bloch didn’t live to see his music
back in style – 2009 marks the 50 th anniversary of
his death. This is a highly enjoyable disc and a
worthwhile purchase for admirers of da Costa and
Romantic violin music in general.
JKS
Shostakovich – Symphony No. 15; Hamlet Op. 32
Russian National Orchestra/Mikhail Pletnev
PentaTone SACD PTC 5186 331 (64 min 42 s)
★★★★✩✩ $$$$
Les albums les plus
décevants ne sont pas
nécessairement les
pires. On peut
s’attendre à tout avec
Pletnev, mais les
augures semblaient
bons avec du
Chostakovitch par l’Orchestre national russe.
Sans surprise, le résultat est excellent: grande
précision dans l’exécution, belles couleurs
orchestrales magnifiquement captées par les
ingénieurs du son, grands moments de passion
(les passages fortissimo des deux adagios
en particulier). Malgré tout, l’auditeur reste
sur sa faim, car la beauté de la présentation ne
peut sauver un plat à la limite du morne.
Aucune ironie, aucun modernisme ne
pointent à la surface, et pourtant la Quinzième
offre beaucoup de possibilités en la matière.
Difficile de trouver une version d’aussi bonne
qualité sonore… malheureusement. RB
Telemann: 3 Orchestral Suites
Carin van Heerden, recorder, oboe & dir.; L’Orfeo
Barockorchester
Cpo 777 218-2 (68 min 50 s)
★★★★★✩ $$$$
Dans l’immense production
instrumentale
de Georg Philipp
Telemann, il est aisé
de choisir des œuvres
non seulement plaisantes
à jouer et
entendre, mais dont
l’écriture mettra en valeur la totalité du spectre
musical d’un artiste et de son instrument. Ces
lumineuses suites (ou «ouvertures», selon la
compréhension baroque du terme) sont
pleines d’une vie tourbillonnante et
scintillante. Elles exhalent un sentiment de
bonheur et de ravissement. Elles débordent de
couleurs et excitent l’oreille par la richesse des
reliefs et des textures. L’Orfeo est un ensemble
accompli, maître de son discours, et les divers
solistes sont irréprochables. Un délice du
début à la fin.
FC
DVD
GF Handel: Tamerlano
Plácido Domingo (Bajazet), Monica Bacelli
(Tamerlano), Ingela Bohlin (Asteria), Sara Mingardo
(Andronico), Jennifer Holloway (Iren), Luigi De
Donato (Leone); Orchestra of the Teatro Real
(Madrid Symphony Orchestra)/Paul McCreesh
Stage Director: Graham Vick
Video Director: Ferenc van Damme
Opus Arte OA 1006 D (3DVD: 241 min)
★★★★★✩ $$$$
Here is Plácido Domingo
at the age of 70 giving
the performance of a lifetime.
The voice may no
longer be the immaculate
instrument of the
past but Domingo has
lost nothing of his ability
to project a character on
stage. This appearance,
in Handel’s most dramatic
tenor role, amply confirms his standing as the
commanding singer-actor of the era. Tamerlano is
a work of annihilating gloom. Bajazet is the
Ottoman sultan taken captive by the Oriental
tyrant Tamerlano. In the first scene, he is
anguished and seeking death (which will take him
most of three acts to find). The plot is thickened by
a diabolical love quadrangle, the mutually destructive
devotion of a father and daughter and
attempted regicide. Domingo’s performance is
remarkable, yet it is Monica Bacelli, in the title role,
who really steals the show. She delivers inspired
singing (with an impressive lower register so
important in a ‘trousers’ role) in a strikingly kinetic
manner. This lady can move to awesome effect.
The remainder of the cast is excellent.The sets and
costumes designed by Richard Hudson are gorgeous.
Paul McCreesh directs a fine account of the
orchestral score (on modern instruments), which
supplements the momentum created by Graham
Vick. An informative interview with McCreesh is
included as a special feature on disc 1.
The general entertainment value of baroque
opera in general and Handel in particular on DVD
has escalated sharply in the past few years.
Tamerlano as produced by Jonathan Miller and
conducted by Trevor Pinnock in 2001 (Arthaus DVD)
looks static and seems a lot longer than four hours
when compared to this exciting Madrid production.The
trend for the small screen was set in 2005
with David McVicar’s Glyndebourne production of
Giulio Cesare (Opus Arte) and continued with a
sophisticated Zurich staging of Handel’s Orlando
(Arthaus) last year. William Christie conducted
both and returned to Zurich with Cecilia Bartoli for
Semele, which is being released by Decca. The key
point to remember is that Handel illustrated everlasting
characters and timeless relationships with
his music. The new wave of baroque opera films
has taken the works out of dusty archives for presentation
in your home theatre.
WSH
Mozart: Clarinet Quintet in A major K.
581/Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F
major Op. 135
Sabine Meyer, clarinet; Hagen Quartett (Lukas
Hagen, Rainer Schmidt, violin; Veronika Hagen,
viola; Clemens Hagen, violoncello)
Medici Arts 2072318 (72 min)
★★★★★✩ $$$$
The late Herbert von Karajan had a genius for recognizing
musical talent at an early age and nurtur-
Juillet - août 2009 July - August 27