Classical

Majeski, O’Neill, Dalayman, LSO/Rattle
Janacek: Kátya Kabanová
LSO Live LSO0889 (two discs; downloads to 192kHz/24-bit resolution)

Opera in concert is rarely so immediate, and LSO Live recordings have long overcome the acoustic limitations of the Barbican. In the title role, Amanda Majeski is an ideal Janáček heroine, vulnerable and resilient, astonishingly radiant in her top register: she is Katya the way Callas was Tosca and Hotter was Wotan. Katarina Dalayman sings the cruel Kabanicha as a woman trapped by circumstance no less than Katya; everyone is cast to wring the last drop of feeling from the piece. Rattle’s direction brings revelatory focus to the Czech-verismo idiom, more expansively paced than Mackerras [Decca], building towards a tragic climax worthy of Grimes and Wozzeck. The booklet has an essay, synopsis, libretto and translation. PQ

Leonskaja, Lucerne SO/Sanderling
Schumann, Grieg: Piano Concertos
Warner Classics 5054197837838 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit res)

Leonskaja has seemingly never recorded these concertos, yet these new studio accounts radiate decades of familiarity with their inner workings. She distinguishes Grieg from his model by giving his more fragile lyricism the space to ripple across the barline, and the recording balances her true pp dynamics with some intriguing ideas in the accompaniment. Her playing ‘speaks’ more than ever with the weighted directness of Fischer-Dieskau, always telling a story but alert to its context. Her Schumann embraces Beethoven in the near past and Brahms in the even closer future, giving the piece an unfashionable but compelling heroic profile. PQ

Magnificat/Philip Cave
Lassus: ‘The Alchemist’, Volume 1
Linn CKD660 (two discs; downloads to 96kHz/24-bit res)

Lassus and his contemporaries produced Magnificats the way Haydn and Mozart wrote symphonies and sonatas, as a functional demonstration of their versatile genius as practical creative musicians. Each of the 14 settings here is based on a different madrigal, whether by Lassus or an Italian contemporary. Prefacing the Magnificats with the madrigals elucidates this relationship while varying the textures. The annotations go a long way to linking them and bringing them to life: so do these elegant and unforced performances, one or two voices per part, maybe sounding nothing like the male choirs of Lassus’s time but none the worse for that. PQ

BBC Concert Orch/Rebecca Miller
Howell: Lamia, Koong Shee, The Rock, etc
Signum SIGCD763

The music of Dorothy Howell (1898-1982) won serious attention in the 1930s and ’40s. Does it reward curiosity now? Yes, if extravagant claims for its originality are resisted. The entry points of familiarity lie abroad, in Sibelius, Respighi and French-period Delius; her approach to form is piecemeal and illustrative, sensitively tailored to her subject. The Rock is a sketch of Gibraltar; Lamia describes an Ovidian metamorphosis after a Keats poem; the Koong Shee ballet is a piece of willow-pattern Chinoiserie. Three brief Divertimenti also have their striking moments. A larger ensemble and closer recording would help, but Miller directs well-sprung accounts. PQ