Translated material
Review of classic discs
Every self-respecting German baritone considers it his duty to sing Bach at some stage of his career: in the collection of lovers of the German genius there will certainly be recordings by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau or Hermann Prey, from the younger generation - Olaf Baer or Matthias Goerne. Thomas Quasthoff, without reservation the patriarch of the German vocal school, turns to Bach for the second time: his first disc with solo bass cantatas received no less than a Grammy, but now he has moved towards a less popular repertoire, turning his attention to three cantatas built in the form of dialogues between bass and soprano, between Jesus and the soul. The beautiful, purely baroque in its theatricality, idea of a conversation between the Son of God as a luminary of reason and a suffering, restless soul, dreaming of leaving the corporeal shell, is realized in a series of beautiful recitatives and arias filled with truly Bach-like lyrics. It’s paradoxical, but true: having performed the role of Jesus in Bach’s “Passion” many times and probably having sung these cantatas on the concert stage many times, Quasthoff throughout the entire album seems to feel the resistance of the material - his voice overcomes Bach’s intricate passages with noticeable tension, sometimes losing strong in the lower register and somewhat operatic in resonance in the upper register. A much more gratifying impression remains from the singer’s partner, German soprano Dorothea Reschmann, whose sensual, colorful voice luxuriates in Bach’s music, easily doing everything that is so difficult for her partner. Perhaps, only Reschmann is the undoubted advantage of these cantata-dialogues: the third component of the ensemble - the orchestra "Berlin Baroque Soloists", alas, is very modest in its achievements, and does not come close to the level that the leading authentic ensembles of Europe set in Bach.
Alexander Tharaud plays Couperin on piano. Harmonia Mundi France.
The works of François Couperin (1668-1733), the greatest representative of the French dynasty of harpsichordist composers, belong to rare examples of musical rococo - “toy” baroque, which preferred miniature and intimate sound to the cosmic scale of the general style of the era, and light play to the drama of great feelings half-hints and allusions. Couperin's harpsichord pieces, each of which is a small masterpiece with its own musical plot, only at first glance seem like cute trinkets: behind their external shine, just like behind the initially naive pastorals of Antoine Watteau, serious emotions and not at all artificial passions are visible. The subtle ear of the French pianist Alexandre Taro, who risked playing the harpsichordists' repertoire at the Steinway concert, recognizes these hidden plots without the slightest difficulty. Moreover, the sophistication of the pianist's sound palette suggests an idea that would be ashamed of at the dawn of the new millennium - that the piano is still ahead of the harpsichord in terms of the number of expressive means. All that remains for the listener to do is to trust the performer and follow him through the musical world of François Couperin. And this in itself is a great pleasure.
Amor profano. Vivladi -- Opera Arias. Simone Kermes (soprano). Venice Baroque Orchestra directed by Andrea Marcon. Deutsche Grammophon.
It’s difficult to surprise a Baroque lover with a collection of Vivaldi’s arias - with the light hand of Cecilia Bartoli, all the best Baroque singers on the planet regularly turn to the legacy of the “red monk”, and given the fact that the composer left behind thirty-odd operas and countless scattered fragments, There will be enough work on this front for at least another twenty years. Nevertheless, the loud statements of conductor Andrea Marcona that his new disc Amor profano (“Worldly Love”) contains a dozen world premieres of works that have never been heard before can be safely ignored: three or four arias have indeed never appeared before not on any album, but all the others managed to turn into big hits - here is the virtuoso Agitata da due venti from the opera “Griselda”, and the enchanting Qual nave from “Olympiad”, remembered from Cecilia Bartoli’s “Vivaldi Album”. The highlight of the new disc is not in the program, but in the performer - the German Simone Kermes, familiar to Moscow music lovers, a red-haired baroque singer with the temperament of a rock diva, who also has the crystal purity and tenderness of a soprano. Such an unusual combination of tenderness and strength, iron will and fragility gives rise to a devastating effect - Vivaldi’s music acquires such a variety of colors and shades that your head is spinning. At the same time, it cannot be said that Kermes’s vocal technique is superior to the “arsenal” of her famous Italian rival - Bartoli still has no equal in the meticulous singing of coloraturas and athletic speeds. However, Kermes's temperament seems more natural, and her manner of performance is more sincere - probably because it completely lacks museum care, and the performers themselves (let alone the listeners!) literally shiver from Vivaldi's motifs.