Classical

Christina Landshamer, Akademie für das alte
Musik Berlin/BERNHARD Forck
Telemann: Ino, Sinfonia Melodica, Overture in D, etc
Pentatone PTC5187072

Followers of Janowitz will recall the German soprano’s outlier recording of Ino for Archiv, which has rarely since attracted comparable vocal glamour. At rather sprightlier tempi, Landshamer shares with her forebear a shining upper register and formidably assured fioriture in the long, showpiece outer arias of this solo cantata based on the metamorphosis of Semele’s sister. No less attractive is the focus of the album as a whole on ‘late’ Telemann. At least in these spaciously engineered accounts, Telemann seems to move more fluently than ever between French, German and Italian idioms, coming up time and again with one-off strokes of melodic and orchestral genius. PQ
Sound Quality: 90%

Yomiuri Nippon SO/Skrowaczewski
Bruckner: Symphony No.8
MDG MDG 650 2307-2

Just over a year before his death in February 2017, Skrowaczewski made his last trip to Japan, where he had long since won a cult following, like other old-school maestros such as Suitner, Wand and Stein, as a purveyor of ‘authentic’ Bruckner. No less than Karajan’s valedictory VPO account, this Eighth is unpredictably animated from the outset, as though these old men were determined to discover and share fresh insights one more time. The playing in this one-off concert features a few fluffs but also a vibrantly coloured brass section, forward winds and gutsy strings. If not the most soul-searching 8th out there, the pulse is rock-steady and the coda incandescent. PQ
Sound Quality: 90%

Asmik Grigorian
R Strauss: Four Last Songs (orch and piano versions)
Alpha ALPHA1046 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)

Asmik Grigorian is renowned for her challenging portraits of damaged operatic women, and so this is more than just another dip in a warm bath of rose-scented valediction. The voice itself is wondrously centred and sustained across some daringly slow tempi, but she approaches the cycle from radically contrasting perspectives. Against expectation, the piano version with Markus Hinterhauser is often slower, more sombre and hymn-like, whereas Grigorian uses Mikko Franck’s Radio France Orchestra to explore the cycle’s erotic and impressionist overtones. ‘September’ emerges as achingly nostalgic in one, playful in the other, compelling in both. PQ
Sound Quality: 85% <

Christophe Rousset
Bach: The Art Of Fugue
Aparté AP313 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)

Omitting the final unfinished fugue (justified in the booklet), Rousset has much to offer, not least with a punchily registered and closely recorded harpsichord from the right place and time (Germany, 1750). He takes his time over the intricate peregrinations of Nos 4, 8 and 11, which mark the climactic chapters of each section of the cycle, and resists what might have been a natural temptation to Frenchify rhythms, even in the flourishes of No 6. Even the Italianate No 9 pecks away with purpose like the St Mark’s Sq. pigeons. With the canons tucked away as an appendix, this isn’t a cyclical account, but it works on its own terms as a tasting menu of contrapuntal art. PQ
Sound Quality: 80%