Classical

Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Thomas Kaufmann, Camerata Bern
‘Exile’ – Panufnik, Schnittke, Wyschnegradsky, Ysaÿe, etc.
Alpha ALPHA1110 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)

Concept albums from PK and her Swiss partners never make for a comfortable listen. Schnittke’s First Cello Sonata, in neo-Baroque dress, trades in Mahlerian violence but keeps heavy irony at bay – unlike the Schubert dances used for one of the interludes. PK bends and twists the ferocious solo part in Panufnik’s Concerto as though she had written it yesterday, but the most modern-sounding music here comes from 1931, a quarter-tone string quartet by Wyschnegradsky, slipping and sliding on musical black ice. The title track is a chromatic ‘symphonic poem’ for strings in the style of Verklärte Nacht – a revelation for those who knows Ysaÿe only through the solo sonatas. PQ

Sound Quality: 90%

Asya Fateyeva, Lautten Compagney
‘Rameau Meets Abba’
DHM 19802802552 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)

Rameau ballets and ‘early-music’ covers of ABBA hits: the concept is not that far out. Björn and Benny really were ‘classically trained’, as anyone can hear from the chorale harmony of ‘Lay All Your Love’ and the offbeat phrases of ‘Waterloo’, prefaced here by the sublime grace of the ‘Entrée de Polymnie’ from Les Boréades. Recorder and lute get us off to a rocking start with ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’. A harpsichord for ‘Mamma Mia’ is a cute original touch. ‘Dancing Queen’ gets a dreamy makeover led by Fateyeva’s sax. What’s really clever is the fusion of the two worlds, such as a tambourin from Les Fêtes d’Hébé weaving in and out of ‘Money, Money Money’. PQ

Sound Quality: 85%

Lithuanian Nat SO, Et al /Pitrenas
Ponchielli: I Lituani
Accentus ACC80642 (three discs)

Why has it taken Lithuanian forces to make the first high-class recording of a grand Italian opera? Perhaps the subject matter – of Lithuanians rebelling against German tyranny – has told against it. Or the name of Ponchielli as the ‘one-work composer’ of La Gioconda. He wrote I Lituani two years earlier, in 1874, and used Ghislanzoni as librettist – as Verdi did for Aida – for a nationalist epic whose ‘real’ subject is, like Aida, Italian reunification. A strong native cast is led by tenor Kristian Benedikt as the rebellious patriot Walter, with Jūratė Švedaitė Waller as his faithful wife Aldona. The Kaunas State Choir goes all in at the big set-pieces. PQ

Sound Quality: 80%

Erich Korngold, RSI Orch/Mauceri
Korngold: Symphony In F sharp minor
Supertrain STR062 (two discs)

This page doesn’t usually cover ‘historic’ releases, but it’s worth making an exception for Korngold pounding away at his own Symphony at the piano in a ‘new’ private recording from the 1950s. The angst and modernism of the piece are writ large as never before. He takes the Scherzo far faster than he can play it, but he gets the point across, expanded by Mauceri in a long essay, that this is a piece responding to the loss and horror and heroism of the time as much as Shostakovich 8. The Swiss-Italian orchestra masters the intricacies of the full score, even if Mauceri’s handling of it isn’t as extreme as the composer’s. You’ll never hear the piece the same way again. PQ

Sound Quality: 75%