Hindemith/Berg/Chausson/Schoenberg:
Infinite Voyage, Emerson String Quartet with Barbara Hannigan soprano (Alpha Classics)
In 1976, four pals studying at Juilliard got together and formed a group. The Emerson String Quartet finally disbanded in October 2023, but before they went, they left this wee treasure, made with frequent collaborator Barbara Hannigan. It’s all wonderfully played, with the group favouring a Romantic view of the Berg and Schoenberg. The highlights, though, are the lesser-known pieces: Hindemith’s Melancholie and Chausson’s brief, beautiful Chanson Perpétuelle. What a way to go out.
Various Composers:
Idylle, Lea Desandre soprano, Thomas Dunford lute (Erato classics)
It was a toss-up between this and Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe’s conceptually similar Broken Branches, but Idylle pips it for the range of expression, control, and purity of soprano Desandre’s singing, which she uses on these French love songs spanning several centuries. It’s not every day you hear Satie played on the lute, either.
Stravinsky, Violin Concerto & chamber works: Isabelle Faust violin, with Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth conductor (Harmonia Mundi)
Writing about Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto earlier this year, I suggested the opening chord was simultaneously the sound of joy and an unholy racket. Faust emphasises the joy.
Janet Jennings & Gabriel Faure:
The Earth Child, Natasha Te Rupe Wilson soprano, Somi Kim piano (Atoll Records)
Several albums vied this year for the title of best local release, but this selection of songs – recorded to mark 100 years since Katherine Mansfield’s death – tops the lot. Hamiltonian Janet Jennings is a fine writer for voices, and her setting of five Mansfield poems gets its world premiere here, accompanied by the same composer’s previously recorded Sit Down With Me Awhile and Fauré's La chanson d’Ève. Natasha Te Rupe Wilson makes sensitive work of all three, and her performances suggest that while we have many fine singers, she may be the one who has taken the biggest artistic step up in recent years. Wilson’s association with NZTrio pianist Somi Kim goes back to high school days, and you can hear that connection in tracks like Jennings’ The Opal Dream Cave.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Greeting Cards:
Andrea de Vitis, guitar (Naxos)
He wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky, and taught composition to Andre Previn, Nelson Riddle, Henry Mancini and John Williams, but Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is largely a musical footnote in other people’s stories. Except in the classical guitar world. He composed something like 100 works for the instrument, mostly beautiful miniatures that sound easy but are fiendishly difficult to play. Here, Italian guitarist Andrea de Vitis posts 21 of the composer’s Greeting Cards – musical portraits of friends, colleagues, admired artists– into one superbly performed album.
