The Penguin Guide to Compact DISCS & DVDs 2003/4 Edition [antikvár]

FOREWORD In the 2002 edition we explained that we had reached the stage where future editions of our Guide might not be able to encompass all the composer listings and reviews in a single volume, and we asked for readers' comments. We were very gratified by the response and the many helpful suggestions offered. It was obvious that the easy choice of dividing the book into two volumes (A-M and N-Z plus Collections) was not a popular one. So for the present volume at least we have adopted a compromise between the remaining options. A small number of lesser composers and also some of the least recommendable recorded versions of major works have been carried forward to Part II of our bi-annual survey, to take advantage of the extra space available there, alongside the Collections, which make up the greater part of our Yearbook. But all the major recordings have been retained in the present volume. We have been helped not only by the fact that our publishers have found a way of including more material within our limit of around 1,600 pages but also by the large number of deletions that have occurred during the last twelve months. Clearly, the influence of the ever-expanding Naxos catalogue has been profound, and all the major companies have been replacing older, premium-priced recordings with less-expensive reissues. The Warner Apex (budget) and Hiatus (mid-priced) labels are good examples, as is EMIs super-bargain Encore label. Even BIS is inaugurating a new mid-priced series as we go to press. The BMG/RCA and Arte Nova lists have been greatly slimmed down, the ASV Quicksilva catalogue has for the moment disappeared, and Koch (classical) issues are no longer readily obtainable. However, we are glad to report on the other side of the equation that Nimbus has reappeared and is back in business. As ever, an astonishing number of new names have joined the composers' roster in our current survey, many of whom are unfamiliar. Among the earliest are Gautier de Coincy (c.l 177-1236), whose Miracles de Nostre-Dame offers a remarkable window into vocal and instrumental music at the turn of the twelfth century, while the Magnificat settings of Nicolas Gombért (c.l495-c:.1560) are a highlight of recent issues by the Tallis Scholars under Peter Phillips. Andrew Garwood and Cardinall's Musick continue their comprehensive exploration of the music of William Byrd on Gaudeamus, and Ahstair Dixon's Chapelle du Roi are doing much the same for Thomas Tallis on Signum. From Harmónia Mundi comes a fascinating two-disc survey of the so-called 'Altenbach Archives', manuscripts, preserved by Bach himself, of music that he admired and that was performed by earlier members of his own family, notably Johann Christoph and Johann Michael Bach, johann Sebastian was their first cousin, once removed! In Oxford the New College Choir under Edward Higginbottom have issued a particularly fine anthology of Palestrina's motets. In Cambridge one of the most recent CDs from King's College Choir under Nicholas Cleobury is a similarly admirable collection of the choral music of Domenico Scarlatti, while down the road, St John's College Choir, directed by Christopher Robinson, has been successfully recording more recent British choral music for Naxos by, among others, Stanford, Finzi and Rubbra. Lieder and song are also very well covered (especially by reissues), but two new discs are especially worth mentioning. A fascinating collection of Schubert Lieder with orchestra (the orchestrations being provided by Berlioz, Brahms, Britten, Liszt and even Webern) is beautifully sung by Anne Sofie von Otter. Equally well sung is the enterprising and delightful collection of lesser-known Scandinavian songs recorded by Barbara Hendricks for EMI. A distinguished new cycle of Beethoven's Symphonies from Sir Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra now goes to the top of the list, while the Lindsays are successfully continuing their new series of the Beethoven String Quartets; and it is good to see that our Naxos friends, the Kodály Quartet, are well into a beautifully recorded set of Schubert's String Quartets, to which their genial, civilized style is well suited. There is also plenty of more modern chamber music, notably a fine series of new recordings from Dutton Laboratories covering British composers, including Richard Arnell, York Bowen, Cole ridge-Taylor, William Hurlstone and Edmund Rubbra, while the Nash Ensemble on Hyperion have produced an impressive Vaughan Williams anthology. The repertoire coverage on Naxos is constandy expanding in the most imaginative ways (especially in the fields of twentieth-century British and American music) and not least in the area of historical opera recordings, splendidly re-transferred by Mark Obert-Thorn. Who, a year or two ago, would have expected to see the great - and in some ways unsurpassed - 1952 RCA mono recording of II Trovatore (with Milanov, Bjoerling, Barbieri and Warren) appearing on Naxos, with better documentation than we are sometimes offered at full price? EMI is also maintaining its reputation in the world of opera not only in making available reissues of a wide range of lighter fare, including the three major works of Auber ~ Fra Diavolo, Manon Lescaut and La Muette de Partid - but also offering a superb new Carmen from Gheorghiu, Alagna and Hampson, and an outstanding La Gioconday with Plácido Domingo at last taking on disc the role of Ezio Grimaldi. Decca have looked to the past and reissued a retrospective of all Renata Tebaldi's early Puccini opera sets, often unevenly cast but consistently demonstrating that Tebaldi's was one of the great soprano voices of the mid-twentieth century.