Mozart
Exsultate, jubilate etc
Karine Deshayes (soprano); Les Paladins/Jérôme Correas
Aparté AP327 52:12 mins
There is life injected into every corner of this recording of largely early Mozart, from the incisive playing of period instrument ensemble Les Paladins, under conductor Jérôme Correas, to Karine Deshayes’s highly expressive mezzo-soprano. This is Deshayes’s first recording of Mozart, and it is a hugely enjoyable one, showing not only a range of Mozart arias and vocal scores for mezzo (originally castrato, in some cases), but also the range and agility of Deshayes’s voice, whether in the dramatic ‘Quel nocchier que in gran procella’ from La Betulia Liberata, or ‘Lungi le cure ingrate’ from Davide Penitente.
Under Correas, Les Paladins are energetic partners and, loosened from Deshayes for Symphony No. 17, give dashing pace and élan; the second movement conversely rich and poised. Elsewhere, they launch a full attack – perhaps too full at times – on the Church Sonatas, with more than a tinge of the secular, each sonata treated to the full vim of absolute belief in the drama of the moment. Occasionally it sounds a little too harried, and certain similarities of pacing in the works mean that these individual sonatas perhaps wear a little thin when you reach the third in a row. Deshayes singing the Agnus Dei from the Coronation Mass restores calm.
The Exsultate, jubilate is brilliantly joyful and dramatic: Deshayes is always a highly fluid and expressive exponent, with absolute beauty of vocal line, with Les Paladins alongside in joyous tapestry. The only slight downside throughout, if listening on headphones, is that – perhaps through microphone placement – Deshayes’s voice occasionally swirls rather abruptly from ear to ear in the midst of those lines in a recording that is otherwise full of clarity. Sarah Urwin Jones
