Recording of the Year and Operatic category

Rossini Il viaggio a Reims

Cecilia Gasdia, Katia Ricciarelli, Lelia Cuberli sops Lucia Valentini Terrani mez Edoardo Gimenez, Francisco Araiza tens Enzo Dara, Leo Nucci bars Samuel Ramey, Ruggero Raimondi basses Prague Philharmonic Chorus; Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Claudio Abbado (DG)

Producer: Rainer Brock; Engineer: Karl-August Naegler

Thanks to the gramophone we can all be king for a day, summoning compositional and vocal talent in a way that in 1825 was the preserve of the newly crowned French king and a select band of well-heeled Parisians lucky enough to get seats in the Salle Louvois for the three performances of Il viaggio a Reims which the commercially astute Rossini permitted the government to mount. Composed as an elaborate and sophisticated entertainment for the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims marked Rossini's debut in Paris as the international superstar which his dazzling and innovative Italian career had justly made him.

The wonder of the piece, which revolves around the intrigues of the smart stage-coach set en route for the coronation in Reims, is that it can be enjoyed on so many levels. Musically it is bewitching: an intoxicant that gives sustained sensuous pleasure quite independent of the libretto. At the same time, it is a sophisticated satire on the romantic sensibility (Mme de Staël's Corinne the relevant text), an amused retrospect on aspects of Rossini's own Italian period, and a further deepening and broadening of his compositional method. Amid all the fizz and razzmatazz, there are things in Il viaggio a Reims which look forward to the apostrophizing of Hellenic ideals we are soon to encounter in the revised numbers for Le siège de Corinthe and to the epic reach of some of the ensembles in Rossini's crowning masterpiece for the epic stage, Guillaume Tell.

The rediscovery and assembly of the complete score of Il viaggio a Reims, which Rossini partially dismantled and expertly reallocated to Le Comte Ory, is the brilliant scholarly achievement of Janet Johnson and Philip Gossett, both of whom contribute essays in the accompanying booklet. The set is also a triumph for Claudio Abbado, the finest Rossini conductor of our day, and for Deutsche Grammophon, whose munificence helped make possible the assembly of that dazzling array of vocal talent which the piece needs. The recording – the last made by the late Rainer Brock and a worthy memento – was made during performances at the 1984 Pesaro Festival in the Conservatorio's Auditorium Pedrotti and is itself a miracle of clarity and brilliance, with the kind of electricity in the atmosphere which it is virtually impossible to reproduce in studio conditions. Richard Osborne

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Chamber

Fauré Piano Quartets — No 1 in C minor; No 2 in G minor

Domus (Hyperion)

Producer: Andrew Keener; Engineer: Antony Howell

Joan Chissell wrote that it was a long time since she had enjoyed a record so much, and there is 'exceptional intimacy of ensemble, here underpinned by an instinctive feeling for the music's style.' (Domus derives its name from the white mobile dome seating about 200 people in which the group gave its first performances.)

The critic Emile Vuillermoz once remarked that Fauré 'concealed his harmonic learning where another composer would have advertised it', and the two piano quartets exhibit all the refinement yet are enormously spirited. The intimacy to which this group aspires is ideally suited to this repertoire, and their performances have the requisite lightness of touch and subtlety. Their nimble and sensitive pianist, Susan Tomes, can hold her own in the most exalted company.

This is really first-class chamber-music playing without any of the public concert-hall projection that is so prevalent nowadays. Their performances have just the right sense of scale and grasp of tempos. Joan Chissell also wrote of 'quicksilver-like fluidity of phrasing' in the C minor Quartet. Lovely playing from all concerned in this immensely civilized music. Robert Layton

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Choral

Janáček Glagolitic Mass

Elisabeth Söderström sop Drahomíra Drobková contr František Livora ten Richard Novák bass-bar Czech Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra / Sir Charles Mackerras (Supraphon/Counterpoint)

Producer: Zdeněk Zahradník; Engineer: Václav Roubal

It is a measure of the respect in which Sir Charles Mackerras is held in Czechoslovakia that this recording should have been possible. The compliment is no less than his due, for no man has done more to win acceptance in this country for Janáček as one of the great composers of the twentieth century. Supraphon, moreover, are fast closing the gap which has existed between their work and the best of which our own studios are capable: if those who set highest store by recording quality may still turn to the recent HMV version of the Mass by Simon Rattle, admirers of Sir Charles’s Janáček will find nothing to come between them and the detail of this performance.

It is a straightforward and vivid recording, well-balanced and true. Moreover, the soloists make an outstanding team, mutually and also as artists responding to the colour of Sir Charles’s reading. Elisabeth Söderström, heroine in every sense of some Janáček opera performances with Sir Charles, is superb here once more; and of the other soloists, especial praise must go to František Livora; but the contribution of the chorus and orchestra is of a piece with his impassioned performance, and make this an unforgettable record. John Warrack

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Concerto

Beethoven Piano Concertos – No 3; No 4

Murray Perahia pf Concertgebouw Orchestra / Bernard Haitink (CBS Masterworks)

Producer: Steven Epstein; Engineer: Stan Goodall

The short list of 1986 concerto records is formidable indeed, but those who have heard Murray Perahia play the Beethoven G major Concerto in the concert hall will not be surprised that his record of it and the C minor Concerto with Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra should meet with its present accolade. Stephen Plaistow wrote in his first review that 'the air of purpose about the playing... is so compelling as to make you feel these concertos couldn’t be done in any other way,' and this surely is the test of a great performance.

Perahia brings to Beethoven a mastery and authority that is hardly less magical than his Mozart. And as SP stressed (and I paraphrase) it is not only the remarkable soloist but the total integration that comes from superb orchestral playing and direction and from everyone working together. Moreover, the sound is absolutely first class: it has a natural perspective and depth, as well as finely detailed yet splendidly homogeneous textures. I can only echo SP’s words that while not forgetting earlier classic accounts of both concertos, one’s 'enthusiasm for the new record is paramount.' Robert Layton

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Contemporary

Lutosławski Symphony No. 3. Les espaces du sommeil

John Shirley-Quirk bar Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen (CBS Masterworks)

Producer: David Mottley; Engineer: Bud Graham

Large-scale orchestral works that are both highly individual and instantly appealing have not exactly been common in the 1980s. All the more reason to hail Lutosławski’s Symphony No 3, a major contribution to the genre that challenges the intellect as it stimulates the emotions. The composer has described what amounts to a 'love-hate' relationship with symphonic traditions, and recounted the long process of trial and error, over some 11 years, that marked the work’s gestation. The music actually benefits from the fact that something of this sense of struggle with the past remains, but the predominant impression is of unrestrained confidence in what is essentially of our own time, given positive expression in some of Lutosławski’s most exuberant and brilliantly orchestrated music.

Esa-Pekka Salonen may be less than half the composer’s age, but he brings an ideal blend of discipline and spontaneity to a performance that finds the Los Angeles Philharmonic on its best form. Add, as coupling, a definitive interpretation of one of Lutosławski’s most absorbing vocal pieces, its surreal text sung with great sensitivity by John Shirley-Quirk; add further a very high standard of recorded sound, and the result is a winner all the way, even in a year of many powerful and attractive alternatives. Arnold Whittall

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Early Music (Baroque)

Bach The Art of Fugue

Davitt Moroney hpd (Harmonia Mundi)

Producer: Michel Bernard; Engineer: Jean-François Pontefract

Over the past 30 years or so we have gradually come to accept that The Art of Fugue was, in all probability, intended for solo harpsichord. Davitt Moroney is a performer who has a mature understanding of the complexity of Bach’s music. In a lucid essay accompanying his fine recording of Bach’s last great work, he discusses the many problems of performing it and, more specifically, his own approach based on recent scholarship. He offers his own completion of the last Contrapunctus but also, out of respect for Bach’s work, performs it as the composer left it, incomplete.

Moroney’s performing technique is of a high order and his account of The Art of Fugue is notable for its clarity of texture, a reflection of his clarity of thought. But this is no mere didactic reading since Moroney reassuringly places great emphasis on the beauty of the music – an aspect of this work which is often overlooked. Here is an outstanding example of sensible thinking, fine practical musicianship and a keen aesthetic response which amounts to a noble tribute to Bach and one which, appropriately, was made in the year celebrating the 300th anniversary of his birth. Nicholas Anderson

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Early Music (Medieval & Renaissance)

Chansons de Toile

Esther Lamandier sop (Aliénor/Harmonia Mundi)

Producers: Esther Lamandier and François Perret; Engineer: Georges Kisselhoff

Several qualities make this an obvious choice. First, Esther Lamandier has the kind of voice that you can listen to all evening with continued pleasure. Second, she presents over half of the surviving repertory of chansons de toile, thirteenth-century narrative songs in short stanzas. This decision reflects a marked recent change in recordings of early music, a realization that an apparently restricted stylistic range tends to provide correspondingly greater musical satisfaction because the ear has the opportunity to appreciate the essential features rather than the superficial ones. Third, she sings the entire record unaccompanied. That seems important less because it happens to accord with current scholarly views of the repertory than because you receive the music direct. Again, we are perhaps beginning to understand that attempts to make early music colourful by adding instruments and percussion can often have precisely the opposite effect. Fourth, the record makes no attempt to disguise the fact that this is an old and distant repertory in which the listener will appreciate the generous quantity of seriously written sleeve material. But the fifth quality of the record is that although you can gather a rich cultural education by reading all the sleeve material, you can also derive enormous pleasure by simply sitting back and listening. David Fallows

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Historical (non-vocal)

Beethoven String Quartets. Violin Sonatas

Busch Quartet; Rudolf Serkin pf (HMV mono)

Producer: Lawrance Collingwood; Remastering Engineers: Keith Hardwick and Anthony Griffith

It says much for the spell still cast by this legendary quartet that in a field that included such outstanding historic material as the Simon Barere set and the pupils of Clara Schumann, all new to LP, the Busch Quartet recordings of Beethoven should triumph. True, most of this set has been on LP before, but before these Awards were instituted. They are as revealing of the Beethoven quartets as Schnabel is of the sonatas, and if it were ever correct to speak of any performances as definitive, here is an instance when one might be tempted to do so. As I said in my review, the Busch "set standards by which successive generations of quartets were judged — and invariably found wanting!" Their insight and wisdom, their humanity and total absorption in Beethoven's art has to my mind never been surpassed and only sporadically matched, even by such superb modern ensembles as the Végh and the Lindsay. In addition to the quartets we have early recordings by Busch and Serkin of three sonatas (Opp. 12 No. 3, 24 and 30 No. 2). Made in the early 1930s, the piano sounds a little frail, though there is nothing frail about Serkin's playing and the classical spirit of Busch's playing remains undimmed. Robert Layton

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Historical (vocal)

The Record of Singing, Volume 3 (1926-39)

Various artists (HMV)

Remastering Engineer: Keith Hardwick

Dramatic truth on stage and reasonable fidelity to what the composer wanted in the concert hall were of at least equal importance to vocal agility and display in the period covered by this, the latest in HMV's exhaustive study of the voice on disc. As a result, the years 1926 to 1939 seemed to me to hold in balance, in a way previous and later generations do not, the attention to the voice and to the music in hand.

Most of the 200 singers represented here confirm the thesis, not least the succession of splendid German-based sopranos, tenors and baritones, but also the superb roster of Italian mezzos and international tenors – an era that could boast Melchior, who opens the volume as Tannhäuser singing Venus's praises with unrivalled generosity: Merli, Gigli, Björling, Cortis, Lauri-Volpi, Pertile, Thill; and our own Widdop and Nash need not fear comparison with any other age.

Another kind of ideal is found in the interpretation of melodies and other French music by the likes of Vallin, Croiza, Germaine Martinelli, Panzera and Vanni Marcoux. What most of the singers can teach their successors is that it is not a bad thing to stick to your last. Alan Blyth

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Instrumental

Mozart Piano Sonata in D major, K448 Schubert Fantasia in F minor, D940

Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu pfs (CBS Masterworks)

Producer: Andrew Kazdin; Engineer: Robert Auger

In a strongly competitive field which includes Richter's wonderful account of Schubert's C major Sonata (Relique), D840, and Murray Perahia's own record of Beethoven sonatas, the claims of these two performances have proved irresistible.

The Mozart sonata is for two pianos and the Schubert is for piano duet. 'Whether it is in the perfectly crafted busy activity of the Allegro con spirito first movement of the Mozart or the introspective and soulful depth of the Schubert, the players find a unanimity of vision,' wrote James Methuen-Campbell in his first review. But it is not only a common musical tongue and purpose that inspires the listener but the sense of these players being 'lost in each other's thoughts,' as JM-C put it.

Both are great pianists in their own right but together they are artistically more than their sum, and if there is (or ever has been) a finer record of the Mozart I have never heard it. The CBS recording, made during a public performance at The Maltings in 1984, is natural and lifelike, and does justice to two altogether special performances, which will assuredly acquire classic status. Robert Layton

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Orchestral

Vaughan Williams Sinfonia antartica

Sheila Armstrong sop London Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra / Bernard Haitink (HMV/Warner Classics)

Producer: John Fraser; Engineer: Christopher Parker

The Antartica has never been one of the most highly regarded Vaughan Williams symphonies. I have the feeling that this new version may cause many listeners to reappraise the work. For me it is a revelation. Haitink's conducting has a quality of high concentration and emotional commitment and the music has obviously made a deep impression on him.

Two principal elements fired Vaughan Williams’s inspiration when he was writing the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic, which begat the symphony — that is to say, the cold, beautiful but dangerous frozen landscape and the stoical endurance of Scott's ill-fated party. Haitink vividly brings these elements to life so that you almost shudder with cold and share with the explorers their feelings of hope and then despair.

Michael Kennedy wrote in his original review that Haitink brings out 'the savagery, heroism and tragedy in the score and it is strongly held together.' I was certainly made more aware of the work as a symphonic entity and not merely as a group of tone pictures. Sheila Armstrong’s eerie, disembodied soprano solo, the remote wordless chorus and the LPO at its characterful best all match Haitink’s inspirational conducting, and the performance is complemented by a recording which is sonorous and spacious yet captures every fine subtlety of Vaughan Williams’s scoring. Alan Sanders

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Solo Vocal

Schubert Winterreise

Peter Schreier ten Sviatoslav Richter pf (Philips)

Producer: Reimar Bluth; Engineer: Horst Kunze

This is not a Winterreise for those expecting the conventional. Tempos, possibly under Richter’s spell, tend to be on the fast ('Die Krähe') or slow ('Der Wegweiser') side, and Schreier can go to the extremes of interpretative licence in word emphasis and changes in tone colour, but these are only aspects of a reading that gives its all in matters of intensity, of feeling anew the pangs of the heart inherent in the cycle. Besides, by and large, the essentials of Lieder singing – the emphasis on line and long breathing, on full-blooded phrasing and tense tone – are there.

Much of the special concentration comes from the fact that the reading was caught live at a concert. Admittedly the Dresden audience coughs in the most awkward places but that disturbance hasn’t deterred me from enjoying the performance again and again, even in the searching medium of CD, where you get the bonus of Richter’s version of the Relique Sonata, a mesmerizing performance, with just the poised and deeply considered playing he brings to his accompanying of the tenor. Alan Blyth

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Remastered CD

Britten Peter Grimes

Sir Peter Pears ten Claire Watson sop James Pease, David Kelly, Owen Brannigan basses Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Benjamin Britten (Decca)

Producer: Erik Smith; Balancing Engineer: Kenneth Wilkinson

The record companies are to be congratulated on balancing the CD issues of new recordings with a representative showing of CD transfers of celebrated recordings from the past. This has pleased the serious collector and has caused the 'Sounds in Retrospect' panel to listen not only for ‘the best of the new’ but also ‘the best CD transfer of the old’: hence this new Awards category. Some remastered CDs have been a revelation and well-loved performances, previously dimmed by inadequacies of the earlier media, have come up with a new clarity and depth. The Decca engineers have taken digital remastering very seriously. Their successes include the Solti/Culshaw Ring and recordings of Clifford Curzon, Kathleen Ferrier, etc. Our Award goes to the CD restoration of the definitive recording of Britten’s Peter Grimes with the composer conducting. The vocal presence and dramatic stereo staging are thrilling, and the orchestral dynamics have maximum impact. EMI have been no less active and amongst many praiseworthy CD reissues we can strongly recommend the Furtwängler Tristan und Isolde and Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. A special mention should also be made of the uniquely successful Robert Parker remastering of Jazz Classics In Stereo issued on LP, cassette and CD by BBC Records. John Borwick

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Engineering & Production

Respighi Belkis, Queen of Sheba – orchestral suite (1934); Metamorphoseon modi XII (1929–30)

Philharmonia Orchestra / Geoffrey Simon (Chandos)

Producer: Brian Couzens; Engineers: Ralph Couzens and Bill Todd

Looking back over a year of listening sessions for our quarterly 'Sounds in Retrospect' panel review of recorded sound quality, half a dozen recordings came so close to scoring full marks that a final choice became difficult indeed. However, this coupling of two contrasted and rarely heard works by Respighi finds the Chandos producer/engineer team so much on top of their form that it just goes to the top of our list.

The spacious acoustics of All Saints’ Church, Tooting make it a favourite, though sometimes fickle, recording venue with several companies. Here we have the ultimate in accurate orchestral detail – spectacularly demonstrated in the Metamorphoseon variations – combined with a fine sense of natural depth and exciting dynamics, best revealed in the more blockbusting passages in Belkis, Queen of Sheba.

Suffice it to say that this recording, particularly in the CD version, has become standard test material for our equipment reviews. This year’s other strongest contenders, also beautifully engineered and produced, included the Concertgebouw / Haitink / Philips recording of Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem with the CBSO and Rattle on HMV, and Honegger’s orchestral works (including Pacific 231) with the BRSO and Dutoit on Erato. John Borwick

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