

The period orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro performs Handel’s score with irresistible energy and elegance. HANDEL: ‘PARTENOPE’ Il Pomo d’Oro Riccardo Minasi, conductor (Erato).

His lyrical gift is sure throughout this lovely recording, especially in works (like the 1905 suite “Le bal de Béatrice d’Este” and the piquant “Divertissement pour une fête de nuit,” from 1931) that look to the past with cleareyed nostalgia. While Reynaldo Hahn’s art songs are well loved, his instrumental works are little known. HAHN: WORKS FOR ENSEMBLE Julien Vern, flute François Lemoine, clarinet Frank Sibold, bassoon Julien Desplanque, horn Nicolas Chalvin, conductor Ensemble Initium Orchestre des Pays de Savoie (Timpani). Her impeccable technique is wielded to potent, expressive effect in trademark roles like Violetta from “La Traviata” excerpts from Donizetti’s “Rosmonda d’Inghilterra” and selections by Bellini, Puccini and Leoncavallo. Damrau’s singing is more than just beautiful. In this survey of Verdi, verismo and bel canto arias, Ms. ‘FIAMMA DEL BELCANTO’ Diana Damrau, soprano Orchestra of the Teatro Regio Torino Gianandrea Noseda, conductor (Erato). Dissonance sometimes creeps into the chords, which are cushioned by a sense of wide open space that these players handle with nearly endless patience and sensitivity. Played here with masterly focus, Feldman’s final work, from 1987, is a 75-minute quartet, austere even by this composer’s daunting standards. MORTON FELDMAN: ‘PIANO, VIOLIN, VIOLA, CELLO’ Aleck Karis, piano Curtis Macomber, violin Danielle Farina, viola Christopher Finckel, cello (Bridge). 1 is especially memorable, its hushed, fragile strings alternating with a piano line played by Mr. These three musicians, who perform together often as the Tetzlaff Trio, bring polish and passion to three classic works. Bezuidenhout, gives richly expressive, crisp accounts of songs by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as a Mozart cantata and Beethoven’s pioneering song cycle “An die Ferne Geliebte.” ANTHONY TOMMASINIīRAHMS: PIANO TRIOS Christian Tetzlaff, violin Tanja Tetzlaff, cello Lars Vogt, piano (Ondine). Padmore, accompanied by the elegant fortepianist Mr. Padmore, a British tenor, just keeps growing. VIVIEN SCHWEITZERīEETHOVEN, HAYDN, MOZART: SONGS Mark Padmore, tenor Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano (Harmonia Mundi).
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Tharaud offers imaginatively ornamented renditions of each movement, his playing - full of contrasts - spirited and poetic by turn. This admirable French pianist took a nine-month sabbatical to hone his interpretation of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIMīACH: ‘GOLDBERG’ VARIATIONS Alexandre Tharaud, piano (Erato). In “Dream of the Canyon Wren,” its cooing glissandi imitate birdsong with uncanny economy a fine reading of the “Canticles of the Sky,” by the Northwestern University Cello Ensemble, directed by Hans Jorgen Jensen, rounds out this mesmerizing disc. The excellent JACK Quartet makes its glassy harmonics sing. Taking inspiration from the icy vistas and bracing breezes of his beloved Alaska, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams has written a string quartet of dazzling stillness and quiet complexity. JOHN LUTHER ADAMS: ‘THE WIND IN HIGH PLACES’ JACK Quartet Northwestern University Cello Ensemble (Cold Blue).
