Guillaume Lekeu's Sonata for Violin & Piano

Guillaume Lekeu died of typhoid fever in 1894 the day after his 24^th birthday. He was one of a line of distinguished Franco-Belgian composers that includes César Franck, Eugène Ysaÿe, Henri Vieuxtemps and Albéric Magnard. Given his early death, he left a surprisingly rich quantity of chamber music, the best known of which is his sonata for violin and piano composed in 1892-3, the year before his death. The sonata is a work for which I have always had a soft spot, starting with a recording by Menuhin and his sister recorded in 1938. Despite the sonata's quality, it features rarely on concert programmes or recordings by prominent violinists. Even the excellent recording by Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien titles the CD “Ravel Complete Music for Violin and Piano” plus the Lekeu Sonata.

The sonata is a substantial work, playing for around 34 minutes with three movements of around 10 minutes each. Much of the work is suffused with a gentle fin de siècle melancholy, like much of Lekeu's music. Almost as if he had a premonition of his early death. The second movement, in particular, is one of the most beautiful in all violin and piano sonata movements. I listened to the work today in the recording by Ibragimova, one of my favourites amongst modern violinists and equally at home in Bach, Shostakovich ... or Lekeu. She did not disappoint here; Russian by birth she may be, but she entered the world of the Lekeu sonata with an entirely convincing sound and impeccable style.

Handel's Rodelinda, with Lucy Crowe and Iestyn Davies

A generous friend sent me a new recording of Handel's Rodelinda by Harry Bicket and the English Consort. As usual with 18^th century operas, I sit back and enjoy the music, the singing, and the instrumental playing. Just add in the recording quality, and balance. The “plot” passes happily by me. This Rodelinda has an all-English cast, due mainly to Covid restrictions on travel. The two principals are Lucy Crowe, and Iestyn Davies. Ms Crowe has a wonderful soprano voice, and one never winces, even in high and coloratura passages. Like so many sopranos, her diction is sometimes a little woolly; she should listen to Maria Callas or, on this recording, to Iestyn Davies who, although a counter tenor, has excellent Italian diction and, for a counter tenor, an attractive voice. He even overcomes my suspicions about counter tenors. The duet io t'abbraccio between Davies and Crowe comes off well, with the voices and band perfectly balanced by the engineers. The cast of six singers does not, for me, have even one less than acceptable.

In three acts, each of around one hour, Rodelinda is one of Handel's most attractive operas, featuring many superb arias. Georg Friedrich knew how to please the opera-going crowd of that time and the delight has lasted over two hundred years. I never become tired of Handel, and he has a knack of always lifting my mood. The current recording by the Linn company is very good, despite everyone having to be two metres apart throughout. If I had to nit-pick, I'd say the voices are just a little too far forward from the band. But that may also be a question of taste. Handel is a lucky man in the 21^st century. And I am a lucky man to have a friend who supplied me with another Handel opera for my birthday. 

 

In Praise of Emil Gilels

I had forgotten what a superb pianist Emil Gilels was, especially in Beethoven and Brahms. A “star” of the period 1950-84, he was a modest virtuoso who kept a relatively low profile, recorded during his later years mainly for Deutsche Grammophon and, as far as I know, toured infrequently outside Russia. In Moscow he made some superb recordings with Kogan and Rostropovich. Dragged round innumerable charity shops by one of my granddaughters a few days ago, I chanced on Volume 1 of his recording of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. Five CDs. OK, the first CD was missing, so I only had four. But at 50p (around 60 centimes) for the four, I was not complaining. Gilel's playing is just so right. On the four CDs I received, he plays the sonatas 4-15 missing out number 9, for some reason. The recordings were made over the period 1974-84. One just sits back and listens, and admires the pianism.

 

Linus Roth and Virtuoso Dances

Dance rhythms are at the heart of much Western music, classical, folk, and popular. A new CD by the German violinist Linus Roth is titled Virtuoso Dances and promises seven different pieces of music with a strong dance element. Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinsky do not rank high on my favourite composer list. For Bartok, I nevertheless like his Six Romanian Dances for violin and piano, plus his Concerto for Orchestra, and for Stravinsky, his ballets Firebird, Petrouchka, and the Divertimento for violin and piano. The Romanian Dances, and the Divertimento are both on this CD.

Four of Brahms' Hungarian Dances are well played. Antonio Bazzini's La Ronde des Lutins is only worth playing if the violinist is a real virtuoso and never struggles; Roth's playing here is exemplary. I didn't think much of Astor Piazzolla's Le grand tango. Wieniawski's ever-green Polonaise de concert is given a rousing rendition by Roth, and the CD ends with Karol Szymanowski's Notturno et Tarantella.

I have come across the playing of Linus Roth only fleetingly in the past. This CD impresses both with the choice of repertoire, and the violin playing. Roth's borrowed “Dancla” Strad of 1703 sounds a fine instrument. A successful CD.

Note: On my copy of the CD, Track 7 (the Sinfonia of Stravinsky's Divertimento) kept replaying; it was only after the third time round that I realised what was happening. Sort of “play it again, Sam”, over and over again.

Leif Ove Andsnes plays Mozart

I am always suspicious of musicians who are famous for being famous. They probably have superb PR representation and connections. Or they appear frequently on public television. I have the impression that little-known artists are often superior to their better-known colleagues. There are exceptions, of course: Yuja Wang is a publicity hound, but compensates by being an extraordinarily good pianist.

No one could accuse the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes of being a publicity hound. He is, however, a really excellent and musical pianist. I am currently listening to his playing in three Mozart piano concertos, plus a few other works all composed in 1785. He is partnered with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra that he also conducts. The Mozart piano concertos do not normally need a separate, eminent conductor (unless the pianist and orchestra are pretty inexperienced). Andsnes is an excellent pianist for Mozart; like Clara Haskil, he understands well that Mozart requires playing that combines elegance, sophistication, and simplicity. Here he plays three piano concertos: numbers 20, 21 and 22. The two CD set is well balanced and well recorded. To complete the set for 1785, Andsnes plays the C minor fantasia K 475, conducts the band in the Meistermusik K 477, and combines with colleagues in the G minor piano quartet K 478.

Mozart's piano concertos were, of course, written for Mozart himself to perform. It is a great pity that, after the early K 219, he wrote no violin concertos, but we do have 27 piano concertos to compensate, many of them from his prime years after juvenile excursions. In the piano concertos, the orchestral part is mainly that of a back-up group, with no intention for a partnership. The 22^nd piano concerto (like the 26^th) is not one of Mozart's greatest creations, and the G minor piano quartet is dominated by Mozart the star at the piano, with the violin, viola and cello just providing support from time to time. This comes out in this recording, but it's Mozart wish, not that of the balance engineers

 

Akiko Suwanai: Moscow 1990

As a life-long lover of the violin, and of violin playing, I have 44 recordings of Paganini's first violin concerto in D major. Pretty well every eminent violinist has recorded the work, and many of the recordings are first rate. My all-time favourite, however, is that by the Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai, winning the 1990 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow and taking first prize at the age of 18. The live performance is conducted by Pavel Kogan himself an eminent violinist, and son of Leonid Kogan who made a highly distinguished recording of the Paganini as did Leonid's pupil, Viktoria Mullova. The audience is pretty quiet and enraptured but, for once, I don't mind the wild applause at the end of the work. Paganini and I join in the cheers.

I usually frown at over-long cadenzas, but I don't mind the uncut Sauret first movement one here, because it's just so interesting to listen to Suwanai's playing, some full 31 years ago. Throughout the work, she plays beautifully and with devastating accuracy, even in passages where Paganini demands legato playing of a melody in double-stopped harmonics, a challenge where even the best violinists can make occasional fluffs. Suwanai excels in bravura where bravura is required; she excels in melting sentimentality where sentimentality is required. The work is given uncut, fortunately. I am annoyed when performers such as Michael Rabin cut whole passages in the work. Very rare that out of 44 different recordings I will opt for a personal “best”. But that is the case here. Bravo Akiko.

Alina Ibragimova impresses in Paganini

Pretty well everyone who records the 24 capricci by Paganini takes 75-79 minutes. Alina Ibragimova takes over 104 minutes and no, she does not noticeably play more slowly than the others, but she does repeat much of the music many times over, and some of the caprices — such as the fourth— go on for over nine minutes. Too long, for familiar material, often invoking thoughts of “oh no, not again!”

Ibragimova has a superb technique, and a wonderful sense of intonation, noticeable in the many passages where Paganini writes the music to be played in octaves. She is an intensely musical violinist, and she brings out the best of Paganini's music in the capricci. I just wish she didn't repeat so much of the material so often. The recording is good, though if you want to enjoy the lovely pianissimo playing on these CDs you will need occasionally to put up with some rather raucous fortissimo passages. The dynamic range is rather wide and occasionally taxes my faithful Sennheiser headphones. The sixth caprice has some lovely pianissimo playing; it's a caprice I could never imagine being able to play beyond the first bar, but it's wonderful in Ibragimova's hands.

The older generation of violinists rarely ventured into the caprices on record, and then only usually with a piano plunking uselessly away. So little or nothing from Kreisler, Heifetz, Oistrakh or Milstein. The first recording of the complete 24 was by Ruggiero Ricci in 1949. Nowadays there are plenty of sets on offer, including those by Sueye Park, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Rudolf Koelman, Michael Rabin, Itzhak Perlman, Leonidas Kavakos, Ning Feng, and Thomas Zehetmair. Tianwa Yang recorded the complete 24 when she was thirteen years old!

One does not normally think of Ibragimova in the Paganini-Sarasate repertoire; she is usually a violinist for the more serious repertoire. But in the capricci she shows that she has a real virtuoso side to her. A pity about all the repetitious material; when I come back to the set – as I will – it will be with a frequent use of the skip-to-the-next-track button on my remote control when a passage comes up for the sixth time round. If this is your first encounter with the 24, you may find this recording quite entrancing. If, like me, it's the 100^th time you hear these works, you may well find the amount of repetition annoying. Whatever. The performances are superb.

Magnificent Bach from Augustin Hadelich

I have fifteen different sets of Bach's six sonatas and partitas for solo violin, including versions by such stellar violinists as Heifetz, Grumiaux, Milstein, Ibragimova and Weithaas. Why I bought yet another set I don't know, except the violinist is Augustin Hadelich, a violinist who greatly impressed me with the one CD I have of his playing. His playing reminds me of Heifetz: technically effortless, and with a warm, sophisticated sound. Some of the prestissimo playing in these Bach works is nothing short of breathtaking -- try the double of the Corrente in the B minor partita, or the whirlwind finale of the C major sonata. The fugues positively dance along, helped by swift tempi and light bowing. Throughout the set, Hadelich combines light bowing with the appropriate degree of fantasy and varied dynamics.

The chaconne from the D minor partita is a lesson by both Bach and Hadelich as to just how varied and interesting the sound of a violin can be. The performance style of these works has come a long way in the past 60 or so years, and modern violinists such as Hadelich -- who is no “baroque” player -- have learned a lot from the past experiments by the baroqueux. There is now more consciousness of lightness of touch, of permitted fantasy, of varied dynamics, of the fact that popular dance rhythms underlie so much of this music, whether explicitly as in “gavotte”, “bourée”, “sarabande” etc. or implicitly. Hadelich is a long way from 1960s violinists such as Johanna Martzy or Alfredo Campoli, followed by Sigiswald Kuijken and the baroque crowd.

Hadelich plays on a del Gesù violin previously owned by Henryk Szeryng. It sounds superb in Hadelich's hands and he is given an excellent recording: not too close, not too far away, not too much reverberation to muddle the sound. Notwithstanding all the other great violinists who have recorded these works over the decades, I know that whenever in future I want to listen to one of Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, it will be the Hadelich version I take off the shelf. I can give no higher praise. He has technique to spare, coupled with imagination, taste and musicality. I hope he does not record too many more CDs, since I am running out of shelving space, years to live, and money to buy.

Bach's St. Matthew Passion

It being Easter, I cooked myself a leg of lamb, and listened to Bach's St Matthew Passion. There are worse ways of celebrating an Easter weekend in England. Except I over-cooked the lamb. When it comes to recordings of the Matthew Passion, I have Herreweghe (1994, and 2008), Klemperer (1961), Richter (1958), Harnoncourt (2000). For my Easter listening this year, I selected the 2008 recording by Philippe Herreweghe. Bach's music does not demand a demonic maestro in charge. It needs someone to set the tempi, to adjust the balance, to control the dynamics, to maintain the flow of the music. It needs good vocal soloists, and good instrumentalists. In the era of recording technology, we can also add recorded balance and overall recording expertise. I listened happily to the Herreweghe recording.

The hero of the day was Johann Sebastian Bach. The St. Matthew Passion is one of the highest peaks of all western classical music, along with the Mass in B minor. At times in his cantatas, Bach would appear to be composing by numbers (but to a very high standard). Not with the St. Matthew Passion; this is Bach putting all his immense skill and genius into nearly three solid hours of great music. From the initial Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen, until the final Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder, we listen in enthralled amazement.

Casts on rival recordings include Christoph Prégardien, Bernarda Fink, Christiane Schäfer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Ernst Haefliger, and Irmgard Seefried. Herreweghe II has a good cast, including Ian Bostridge, Andreas Scholl, Werner Güra, and Dietrich Henschel. No quibbles about that. My equipment allows me to adjust the volume at the press of a button. If I had a speed button, I'd occasionally press it for minus 6 percent. That's about the only criticism I can come up with for Herreweghe II. And no criticisms whatsoever for Bach's music.

 

The music of Béla Bartók

Josef Haydn wrote 68 string quartets. Mozart wrote 23, Beethoven 16, Schubert around 20, and Shostakovich 15. I love string quartets and recalled having on my shelf for several decades a double CD album of the six string quartets by Béla Bartók, recorded in 1965 by the Novak Quartet. I took them down out of curiosity, blew off the dust, and settled down.

I have never taken to Bartok's music; I have always found it dessicated and lacking in soul. So it was now with the string quartets; I listened to two of them, then decided I was wasting my life and listening time. One would have thought Bartok would have learned from his extensive folk song collecting that, to appeal to listeners, music needed the occasional theme, motif, melody or tune. None of that here: the quartets meander down the river. There are no landmarks, no memorable sites, nothing to retain in the mind. The six quartets are firmly back on my shelves where my heirs will no doubt discover them sometime in the future. Mr Bartok's music is not for me.

Renaud Capuçon in Elgar

The premier of Edward Elgar's one and only violin concerto took place in 1910, with Elgar conducting Fritz Kreisler and the LSO. Despite its 1910 date, the work is firmly anchored in the 19^th century. Weighing in at around 50 minutes, it can often seem over-long, a feature of so many works at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th. But it contains much genial and affectionate music, and I've always had a soft spot for it.

I bought the new recording with Renaud Capuçon and the LSO, with Simon Rattle conducting, and I am mightily impressed. Capuçon's elegant and sophisticated playing turns out to suit the work like a glove. I've never been an admirer of Rattle, but here he ensures that the violin and orchestra conduct a true dialogue; here the concerto is really a concerto for violin and orchestra. And, to cap it all, the recording (Erato) is extremely fine, with an exemplary balance between orchestra and solo violin. I listened to the recording with my full attention engaged throughout. I've always been an admirer of Capuçon's violin playing, but here he rises to even greater heights in my estimation since he appears to be at one with Elgar's sentimental and long-breathing music. Three stars, and my grateful thanks to all concerned for bringing this concerto to life. In future, whenever I want to listen to Elgar's concerto, this is the first of my twenty-three recordings of the work I will turn to.

The current CD also contains a recording of the late sonata for violin and piano by Elgar, a melancholy work that I must have listened to many times, but rarely remember having done so. Renaud Capuçon is joined by Stephen Hough, and the performance would seem to me to be the best since 1918. All praise to the recording engineers. Balancing a violin and piano for a recording would appear to be difficult; either the violin is recorded too close, with a distant piano, or more often a giant piano too close with a violin almost inaudible when playing pianissimo. Not here. Violin and piano are recorded as equals. The playing is also wonderful, with both musicians entering into the spirit of Elgar's work. I am running out of stars.

Francesca Dego and Paganini's Il Cannone

I bought a recent CD on which Francesca Dego plays an assortment of pieces mainly to hear Paganini's 1743 Guarneri del Gesù “Il Cannone” in action. The violin sounds splendid, as does the playing of the highly talented Ms Dego. Italians somewhat dominated the early 18^th century violin scene, with the Cremona makers, and violinists and composers such as Corelli, Vivaldi, Locatelli et al. The cauldron of eminent violinists later shifted to Central and Eastern Europe -- and is also now strong in China, Korea and Japan. There have been few eminent Italian violinists of late (and even fewer Spanish, for some reason). So I greatly welcome Ms Dego's arrival on the scene.

She plays here a jumble of different music, most of it connected in some vague way with Paganini, though Kreisler's Recitative & Scherzo does not really fit the Paganini mould. Paganini's La Campanella arranged by Kreisler for violin and piano is well played. John Corigliano's Red Violin Caprices is more interesting than I originally feared. Carlo Boccadoro's Come d'autumno did not make an impression on me, and I actively disliked his reworking of the piano accompaniment to Paganini's Cantabile Op 17, a work that should celebrate the cantabile powers of a good violin without the distraction of twirls and thumpings from a piano that strives to rival the violin for interest. Rossini's Una parola a Paganini proved a bit pale and lacking anything of interest.

I didn't dislike Alfred Schnittke's A Paganini as much as I feared I was going to. It is well written for the violin. Karol Szymanowski's reworking of Paganini's caprices 20, 21 and 24 has never appealed to me. When writing for the violin, Paganini knew what he was doing, and Szymanowski's attempt to make the caprices into duo music for violin and piano is somewhat doomed. All those — including Robert Schumann, who should have known better — who attempted to “improve” Paganini's caprices with a piano thumping away, are doomed to failure.

So a CD with interesting bits from time to time. Hardly a great success; there are hundreds of metric tonnes of music of shorter pieces for solo violin, or violin and piano, and Francesca Dego could have made some more interesting choices with music from the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

In Praise of the Treble Clef (and other matters)

In my teen years in the 1950s I had only around 14 LP records; mainly Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. I played my collection over and over again and, to this day, I find it difficult to go back to many over-familiar works from that period: the Beethoven symphonies and concertos, the symphonies mainly with von Karajan and the Philharmonia, the Beethoven violin concerto with Bronislaw Gimpel mainly because it was on the cheaper Vox label and the LP also contained the F and G major romances for violin and orchestra. I used to play the romances on my violin (Gimpel played them even better than I did).

My father was a professional double bass player all his life. For some reason, I am a thoroughly treble clef person. A big part of my listening is to violinists and sopranos, and my principal reason for compiling this blog is to remind myself of the good things on my shelves to be listened to again. With such a large collection, one can simply forget things that have given great pleasure in the past. I didn't have such problems in my teen years with my collection of just a few LPs.

For sopranos and mezzos I love especially: Simone Kermes, Sabine Devieilhe, Carolyn Sampson, Joyce DiDonato, Véronique Gens, Maria Callas, Sandrine Piau, Diana Damrau. My violin loves are well documented throughout this blog.

And just for this blog: my favourite cuisines (in alphabetical order) are Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Thai, and Vietnamese. My favourite FRESH foods are crab, Dover sole, lobster, scallops, oysters, whelks, squid, mussels, rump steak, veal chops, duck, spaghetti al ragù, spaghetti alle vongole. All very un-English, I'm afraid.

Bach's Musical Offering, from Bratislava

J.S. Bach's Musikalisches Opfer BWV 1079 is a bit of a strange beast. A collection of canons and fugues on a Ricerar theme, Bach left no order for the pieces, nor any indication of instrumentation. The whole lasts for just under one hour and makes for delightful listening. I listened to it by the Czech group Capella Istropolitana, a small breakaway group from the Czech Philharmonic directed from the cello by Christian Benda with a flute and violin also playing. A harpsichord is listed but, fortunately, rarely seems to be audible. The recording dates from distant 1993 and is still excellent listening. Company is Naxos, of course, and the recording was made in Bratislava. It was in Bratislava, long ago, that I ate in a restaurant offering wild boar in game sauce. Only the menu translated it as “savage pig in wild custard”. I ate the savage pig, none the less.

 

Ning Feng and the Paganini Caprices

I appear to have some eighteen different recordings of the 24 Capricci by Niccolò Paganini. I added a new one by the Chinese violinist, Ning Feng, since I greatly admire his playing. Feng is a top virtuoso on the violin and, of course, the Paganini caprices come out note-perfect. I admired Feng's virtuosity, but also his wide dynamic range and his ability to make the caprices interesting musically, as well as extreme virtuosic. There is a wide dynamic range in both playing and recording. The tricky sixth caprice is whispered as is the first theme of the twentieth. Solo violins can be tricky to record, but the Dutch engineers here have done well, with the violin at an intelligent distance from the recording microphones. So far, so excellent.

My only negative thought with Feng's superb playing is with his violin on this recording. There are some truly excellent modern violins around, but the violin by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (2017) is not one of them. It sounds scrawny at times, and lacks sonority throughout the range, sounding a bit new and unbroken-in, needing another decade or so of daily exercise. Feng might even have done better had he borrowed my violin.

Well, eighteen different recordings of the Capricci is probably quite enough, though if the rumour that Alina Ibragimova is also recording them is true, I might have to stop at nineteen. I recently admired the versions by two more young violinists, Augustin Hadelich, and Sueye Park. Enough is enough!

Bach's "48" with Edwin Fischer

I have just completed a journey of nearly four hours through Bach's 48 Preludes & Fugues. Music that is endlessly fascinating, endlessly varied, and endlessly satisfying. Bach knew what he was doing when he wrote the 48 so they fitted comfortably on four CDs; apart from anything else, this enables the listener to approach the music in four chunks of around one hour each. The 48 do not fit well into live concert performances, which is probably why pianists play just a small selection of the total. The works show Bach's love of fugues, polyphony, counterpoint, and sheer inventiveness. After I had finished listening to the 48^th Prelude and Fugue, my reaction was to cry “More! More!”

My guide throughout the four hours was Edwin Fischer, recorded in 1933-4. A rough calculation shows that in those days, the whole work would have required around 50 sides of 78 rpm disks. Fischer had a lovely touch on the keyboard, and brought a wide range of dynamics to the set. For me, it's an all-time classic for satisfying listening, and I do not contemplate finding a competitive performance.

Nearly 90 years on, the sound of Fischer's playing is still perfectly acceptable in the Naxos transfers I was listening to. Where would we music lovers be without Naxos? Bravo Johann Sebastian Bach, Edwin Fischer, and Naxos!

The Grumiaux Trio in Beethoven and Mozart

“Civilised” is the only appropriate adjective for the latest CD plucked from my archives, where the Grumiaux Trio is recorded at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1966 by the SWR radio station in Stuttgart. The music is eminently civilised: early Beethoven (the string trio opus 9 number 1 by early Beethoven, the duo for violin and viola K 423 by Mozart, and the divertimento K563 by Mozart). Each one of the high points of the 18^th classical tradition.

For me, Arthur Grumiaux was one of the three great violinists of the 20^th century (on the podium with Kreisler and Heifetz). A suave, meticulous violinist with an immaculate virtuoso technique that enabled him to play anything and everything, Grumiaux carried the flame of the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing. Never a constantly-touring virtuoso, Grumiaux travelled little outside Europe and appears to have rejoiced especially in playing chamber music with chosen colleagues.

This current CD comes from SWR Music, distributed by Hänssler Classic. As I have remarked before, Grumiaux live is often even better than Grumiaux in the studio. In the current world, it's a rare and necessary treat to be able to bask in 18^th musical civilisation for an hour or so. Musically, I appear to be stuck for the time being in the 18^th century. There are worse places to be.

Joyce DiDonato, Sandrine Piau, and Handel

I have hundreds of recordings of the music of Handel and Bach. During the current long Covid lockdown, they are a great comfort. They include an immense library of recordings of Handel's music – duets, cantatas, operas, and oratorios, as well as many recordings of excerpts, particularly of opera arias. Ditto a library of Bach recordings, plus many others of 18th-century music (including that of Purcell who died in 1695 at the age of 36). The 18^th century with Bach, Handel, Pergolesi, Vivaldi, the Scarlattis, Rameau, Haydn and Mozart has become, at the moment, my listening period of choice. A pity about all those 19^th and 20th-century composers for the moment, until my tastes change again and the wind swings round to the 19^th century.

Stars of my listening have been Sandrine Piau and Joyce DiDonato. Piau has an angelic voice (although her diction isn't great). DiDonato has a highly dramatic mezzo-soprano voice, with excellent diction. Together they make a fine pair of contrasted listening, even in much of the same music. Is there any more heartbreaking air in the whole of music than Purcell's “Dido's Lament”? Joyce DiDonato (with Il Pomo d'Oro) sings it most movingly, as she does Handel's “Lascia ch'io pianga” from Rinaldo. Sandrine Piau in arias from Handel's Opera Seria (Naïve, 2004 with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset) gives us twelve Handel arias to complement her previous Handel CD “Between Heaven and Earth” that I wrote about enthusiastically a short while ago. DiDonato's CD of “In War and Peace”, an Erato CD from 2016, recorded in the South Tyrol, makes for over an hour of happy listening. Bach and Handel spent a lot of care over their accompanying orchestras, featuring different colours. Since singers can be a pretty unreliable lot, subject to colds and sniffles, it made sense to ensure that the band could always play up with interesting music to distract from vocal foibles. The band members would have been a pretty known quantity, whilst singers varied according to the season. It is important in a performance, then, that the band be given equal prominence with the singers. Too many recording producers, on the evidence of many I have been listening to, follow the pop music norm of lead singer with a big microphone up-front, whilst the “backing group” shares a small microphone towards the back. Not good, in Bach and Handel. Joyce DiDonato's recording of “In War and Peace” shows how it should be done. Airs and arias by Handel, Purcell and a few others are beautifully sung, beautifully accompanied, and beautifully balanced by the recording engineers.

To end this enthusiastic write-up on a scowling note: A burst of crass American commercialism by Erato (Warner). The makers of DiDonato's dress, jewellery, and make-up are all listed. On a CD liner note! No one tells us where Maxim Emelyanychev (the conductor) bought his shoes, nor to which barber he reported. Not a word about who made Handel's and Purcell's wigs. We need to know these things.