Vivaldi’s Il Giustino from Ottavio Dantone and Accademia Bizantina (with Gramophone Award-winning mezzo Delphine Galou in the title-role), a hugely impressive conducting debut from viola-player Mathieu Herzog, a Handel rarity from this year’s Göttingen Festival, and a complete Beethoven concertos cycle from Mitsuko Uchida, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Vivaldi: Il Giustino
Delphine Galou, Emöke Barath, Silke Gäng (Anastasio), Ana Maria Labin; Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone
After returning from a brief sabbatical last winter with Dorilla in Tempe, Naïve’s mammoth Vivaldi Edition continues with this epic drama per musica, composed in 1724 for the Roman carnival; a fine cast of Vivaldi specialists is headed by recent Gramophone Award-winner Delphine Galou in the title-role, whilst the opera’s best-known aria ‘Vedrò con mio diletto’ is taken by German contralto Silke Gäng as Anastasio.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Mozart: The Last Three Symphonies
Ensemble Appassionato, Mathieu Herzog
The debut recording by dynamic French chamber ensemble and their founder Herzog, the former viola-player of the Quatuor Ébène who left the quartet in 2014 to concentrate on conducting; the Ébène’s loss is our gain, as these vital and vibrant performances struck the Presto team as the most exhilarating recordings of these works since the late Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Beethoven: Piano Concertos
Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle
Uchida has been a regular guest of the Berliner Philharmoniker since 1984, and these performances (recorded live at the Philharmonie in February 2010) were described by one journalist as generating ‘a collective sense of happiness’ for performers and audience alike; the complete concertos are presented on 3 CDs, a Blu-ray audio and a Blu-ray video which includes an interview with Uchida.
Available Formats: 3 CDs + Blu-ray Audio + Blu-ray Video, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Corelli: Concerti Grossi
Gottfried von der Goltz (violin and director), Freiburger Barockorchester
As the cover suggests, the German-Norwegian violinist presents the complete Concerti Grossi Op. 6 and the Sinfonia Santa Beatrice d’Este in glorious technicolour, with the continuo section expanded to include lute, harp and organ as well as harpsichord, and the string parts supplemented by oboe, bassoon, trumpet and trombone.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Come Una Volta
Julien Martineau (mandolin), Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
The French mandolin virtuoso performs Vivaldi’s Concerto for lute and two violins RV93, Concerto for mandolin RV425 and Trio Sonata RV82, plus music by the eighteenth-century Italian composer Domenico Caudioso, and the first-ever recording of a recently rediscovered concerto by ‘the Paganini of the mandolin’ Raffaele Calace (1863-1934).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Handel: Arminio
Christopher Lowrey, Anna Devin, Sophie Junker, Helena Rasker, Paul Hopwood, Owen Willetts & Cody Quattlebaum; Festspielorchester Göttingen, Laurence Cummings
Recorded live at this year’s Handel Festival in Göttingen, this account of Handel’s late opera for Covent Garden attracted praise for the ‘delicate and precise’ (The Opera Critic) playing of Cummings’s orchestra and the ‘emphatic phrasing and intelligence’ (BachTrack) of countertenor Christopher Lowrey in the title-role.
Available Formats: FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
This third instalment of Toccata’s survey of the music of American-Austrian composer (and posthumous son-in-law of Gustav Mahler) spans almost half a century, ranging from the fugues for piano four-hands written under the tutelage of Franz Schreker and early songs to the three trios from the 1940s and 50s and The Holy Ghost’s Ark for mezzo and ensemble, written shortly after the composer turned his back on twelve-tone music.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Rostropovich: L'archet Indomptable (DVD)
(The Indomitable Bow)
Written and directed by the legendary French film-maker Bruno Monsaingeon, this documentary includes rare archive footage and interviews with Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and ‘Slava’’s daughters Olga and Elena, telling the story of the great cellist’s ‘life in exile’ following his support of the Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the 1970s. Includes previously unreleased performances of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Beethoven’s Archduke, and the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2.
Available Format: DVD Video
Rostropovich: L'archet Indomptable (Blu-ray)
(The Indomitable Bow)
Documentaries: Dolby Digital 2.0
Concert: PCM Stereo
Available Format: Blu-ray
