CD

This is something of a standard ‘top hits’ compilation of soulful Slavic quartets. 

The Delta Piano Trio deliver a very powerful and convincing account of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio, one which takes nothing in the music for granted.

This revelatory series from Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien benefits from offsetting works of Mozart’s middle-period and maturity with some of his earliest compositions. One of the joys of this set, expertly played and annotated (by Misha Donat), is the way these outstanding artists subtly shade the two early sonatas of 1764, fully endorsing Mozart’s original instruction that they ‘can be played with the accompaniment of a violin or transverse flute’.

This beautifully programmed recital will make you want to rush out and buy as many volumes of British songs as you can. It collects – imaginatively, coherently, and to deeply moving effect – 23 songs on the theme of war.

Prima donna Giulia Frasi (1740-74) was well known to London’s concertgoers. 

So many vocal tics and tricks are used in the making of Danish composer Line Tjørnhøj’s Vox Reportage that it can seem uncomfortably close to a virtuoso demonstration of the manifold noises top chamber choirs are capable of creating nowadays.

Northern Irish mezzo-soprano Carolyn Dobbin has set herself the task of collecting and performing art song from her homeland, and here – aided and abetted by one of the most enthusiastically knowledgeable of today’s accompanists – presents a first selection on disc. 

Black is only one of the myriad colours on this inventive and absorbing collection. 

Victoria seems to have composed these works in Rome since they were published in 1585, two years before he returned to his native Spain. The texts come from services commemorating the dramatic events of Holy Week including that ‘dark’ (‘tenebrae’) period when Christ was ‘out of action’ between his crucifixion and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Here is the greatest song cycle, indeed one of the supreme works of art, a great singer at the height of his powers, and an admirable accompanist – exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

The late 15th century musical scene on the continent was dominated by Josquin des Prez, Johannes Ockeghem and Jacob Obrecht (1457/8-1505). We hear quite a lot about the first two, but Obrecht seems to have had a problematic life and ended up dying of plague in Ferrara. Only a handful of his splendid works have been recorded before – and most on this disc are new to CD.

This is the seventh in Graham Johnson’s planned series of ten discs covering the entire piano-accompanied vocal works of Brahms, several hundred settings shaped by the varied musical, literary and artistic influences he absorbed over half a century.

Hyperion added a ‘Bach in B minor’ to its catalogue as recently as 2014, and now here comes another – like Arcangelo’s, recorded after the experience of performing the work in concert. There the similarities end. Jonathan Cohen mustered a choir of 20.

Listening to the three cantatas on this disc, we are, as so often, almost overwhelmed by the diverse and colourful means by which Bach harnessed and deployed his compositional genius.

Although he met Michael, the most famous Praetorius of the age, Hieronymous was no relation, and worked for the most part in his home city of Hamburg where, in 1586, he eventually succeeded his father as organist of the illustrious Jacobikirche. Among

Hyperion added a ‘Bach in B minor’ to its catalogue as recently as 2014, and now here comes another – like Arcangelo’s, recorded after the experience of performing the work in concert. There the similarities end. Jonathan Cohen mustered a choir of 20.

Listening to the three cantatas on this disc, we are, as so often, almost overwhelmed by the diverse and colourful means by which Bach harnessed and deployed his compositional genius.

This is boys having fun. And the CD is at its best when the composer is having fun too. So Rolando Villazón and Ildar Abdrazakov make the most of Donizetti’s Act I duet from L’eslisir d’amore, with Villazón a plaintive love-sick Nemorino and Abdrazakov a snake-like Dulcamara.

With a handful of exceptions, the operetta repertoire is eschewed by the bigger UK companies. This new recording of Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg – which debuted in Vienna in 1909, but is heard here in the composer’s second version (1937) – derives from live performances at the Frankfurt Opera (2015-16).