Classical
Royal command performance
by Ian Dando
An opera diva ventures beyond the old warhorses.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT, Kate Royal, Orchestra of English National Opera, Edward Gardner (conductor) (EMI). Plaudits to opera divas like soprano Kate Royal who abandon warhorses for uncharted territory. She’s intensely inside those “heroines laid bare and vulnerable in their journey to emotional fulfilment”. Her ecstatically shaped long aria from Dvorak’s Rusalka is typical. In Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, she captures with anguish the drama of long-term desertion. Her aria from William Alwyn’s Midsummer Night portrays sensual love on a balmy night with sexual abandon. Other arias by Igor Stravinsky, Sir William Walton, André Messager, Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Benjamin Britten show her targeting poignancy and sensuality in this exceptional and mainly 20th-century lot.
VIVALDI, Magdalena Kozena, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Andrea Marcon (conductor) (Archiv). In her selection of Vivaldi’s opera and oratorio arias, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena can dispatch the presto ones, such as track 11 and the aggressive vengeance aria, track 2, with the same virtuosity as Cecilia Bartoli. However, she is more interested in plumbing the dramatic depths in arias such as Farnace’s long aria (track 4), where her florid word painting of key words “cruelty” and “terror” sends a shudder down the spine. It’s her personal favourite – “a stunning masterpiece”. This and other long dramatic hefties (track 5 from Orlando Furioso) demonstrate her stunning portrayals and excellent choice of repertoire.
BACH, Anne Sofie von Otter, Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen (conductor) (Archiv).
Swedish mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter builds an imaginative programme of mainly plangent arias suiting her warm low register, such as the sad Erbarme dich from St Matthew Passion and the Agnus Dei from the B minor Mass. The inclusion of two finely performed chamber orchestra sinfonias, the classy mezzo/tenor duet O Ewigkeit from Cantata No 60 and the chorale prelude chorus ending to Cantata 117, all add imaginative variety. But it is Otter’s interpretative authority and rich singing that dominates.
JOSQUIN DESPREZ:
MISSA D’UNG AULTRE AMER, MOTET &
CHANSONS, Alamire, Andrew Lawrence King (harp) (Obsidian/Southbound). There’s
no antiseptic aloofness here. The declamatory punch of the Alamire vocal octet’s expressive involvement is obvious in such items as Josquin Desprez’s two dramatic motets. Their delineation of contrapuntal line is so articulate in the one parody mass that you hear the woven-in Johanne Ockeghem model with rare clarity. The sheer melodic beauty of the simple solo chansons with soprano and harp has moving emotional poignancy. This fine and wonderfully performed cross-section of sacred and secular music by Desprez (circa 1440-1521) ushers in the renaissance era with polyphonic eloquence. A strongly recommended release.
THOMAS TOMKINS: THESE DISTRACTED TIMES, Fretwork, Alamire, Choir of Sidney Sussex
College Cambridge (Obsidian/Southbound). A mix of choral church items and chamber music by Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656), who ushered in the English baroque. Church music is largely verse anthems, full anthems and psalm settings. The extensive and elaborate texture in tracks 5 and 7 have a rich variety of viols (courtesy of the consort Fretwork), organ choir and virtuosic soloists, typifying many items here. The emotively sung madrigalesque lament When David Heard adds the cream to the CD of this unjustly neglected composer.
A NEW HEAVEN, The Sixteen, Harry Christopher (conductor) (Decca). What eloquent power from only 16 voices in the stately nobility of Charles Hubert Parry’s I Was Glad. This is a splendid buy if you are a lover of Britain’s Anglican church music of the Victorian and modern Elizabethan days, wonderfully sung by a top world choir. The 14 tracks include familiar church composer names, from Parry and Charles V Stanford through to John Rutter. The emotional honesty and simplicity of Herbert Howells’ Like as the Hart makes it one of England’s greatest choral works.
ENGLAND MYENGLAND, Choir of King’s College, Cambridge (EMI). This double CD of 40 tracks casts a wide net over mainly English church music, from Thomas Tallis’ spectacular renaissance 40-part Spem in Alium through hymns and Charles Hubert Parry to the odd lively secular ones by Frederick Delius, and a finely arranged Edward Elgar Nimrod that brings out the billowing climactic warmth of the choir’s sopranos. The selection of Henry Purcell and Ralph Vaughan Williams items is especially strong. Eight tracks are new; others are reissues dating back to 1969. Some have organ or orchestral accompaniment. The choir’s declamatory power in Handel’s Zadok the Priest is highly assured.
