Clearing the paper plates of soggy pasta and strudel from the 2013 Verdi and Wagner bicentenary offerings, we come across this fine bottle of French sacrificial wine, uncorked to mark 50 years since the death of Francis Poulenc. The oft-quoted description of the composer as “half monk, half rascal” goes some way to describe the dichotomy of his sacred music, as well as his character in general. All three works feature austere counterpoint grounded in medieval chant yet enveloped in lush orchestral sound with pungent, playful details – the precise dissonances of the Stabat Mater Vidit suum, for instance; the joie de vivre of the Gloria’s Laudamus Te; the Provençal country sir of the Domine Fili. Ever-eccentric French soprano Patricia Petibon proves a sensitive soloist to match Poulenc’s every mood. Her light voice is mysterious on the swooping, ethereal Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, pure-toned but never lacking in warmth; almost too sensual to be sacred. The most austere work is the earliest, the Litanies à la Vierge Noire, dating from 1936 with the openly gay Poulenc’s profound return to Catholicism after the traumatic death of a friend in a car accident. Seeking solace in the sanctuary of Rocamadour with it’s…

This is the sort of ‘spicy’ that doesn’t interfere with polite dinner conversation. Les Passions de l’Âme, the Swiss early music group comprising members of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and other illustrious ensembles, have put together a charming program of 17th-century Austrian music that was, thematically at least, a little out of the ordinary during its time. The three composers use the violin to tell stories about life and nature, while exploring its mimetic and technical capabilities. Biber’s Sonata Representativa is the best known here; Meret Lüthi’s sweet-toned solo imitates a clucking hen and a yowling cat with double stopping, tuning and pitch effects. Biber himself was a virtuoso violinist and one really feels the brilliant sense of play and curiosity (which, in this case, didn’t seem to kill the cat). The violin transforms into a sword for Schmelzer’s balletto Die Fechtschule or The Fencing School, in which stately dance forms are given zest as the agile solo part weaves, lunges and attacks. Composers cross swords in Schmelzer’s Battle Against the Turks, based on one of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas. It’s the most ‘exotic’ moment on the album: irresistible tambourine and darabuka percussion (especially in the syncopated Posta turcica), oriental scales…

‘Tis the season to swing, and I can’t imagine a more irresistible album to set Christmas in motion this year: the 1892 orchestral Nutcracker Suite we know and love, alongside Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s big-band answer to Tchaikovsky from 1960. Far from a slapdash attempt to jazz up the classics this arrangement is testament to Ellington’s particular genius (and the inventiveness of his conservatorium-trained assistant Strayhorn, who deserves his equal billing). It’s heard here not only in the first recording since the Duke’s orchestra more than 50 years ago but also in its first pairing with the original, Steve Richman conducting both versions with his New York ensemble. For a fun exercise, try mixing them up – a Tchaikovsky movement followed by its jazz counterpart. I did just that with the Dance of the Mirlitons and the cheekily renamed Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Pipes), the latter is a miniature masterclass in Ellington’s perfectly balanced orchestration as the famous tune passes from staccato clarinets to slyly muted trumpets. It doesn’t get much steamier than the burlesque Sugar Rum Cherry, the crystalline glockenspiel replaced by Lew Tabackin’s hip-rolling, bluesy tenor sax. The whole thing runs a cool ten…

What do you do in your spare time if you’re the world’s best selling female cellist? Go poking around in a Bavarian castle for undiscovered repertoire, of course. The third instalment of Sol Gabetta’s Vivaldi project blows dust off Italian concertos from the library of the cello-playing Count Shönborn, alongside four popular gems from the Red Priest himself. From the moment she enters as soloist in the opening Vivaldi concerto in A Minor, RV422, it’s clear the chops justify the sales. She draws out the melodic line like spun gold, with detailed trills, flowing phrases and buoyant, textured passage-work rather than just busywork. In the Allegro of Zani’s concerto she imaginatively bends the tuning to her will. The brother/sister duo with violinist and concertmaster Andres Gabetta offers a refreshing take on Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Mandolins in their own arrangement for violin and cello; the tone colour of each instrument is distinguished from the other, piquant and punchy, particularly when they echo one another in close repeated phrases. The Chelleri G Major concerto, with its memorable first-movement ritornello, has a blend of stately bearing and rollicking energy as played by the 16-strong ensemble. But despite the immediate charm of the…

Thus Spake Zarathustra is Richard Strauss’ most recognisable work. But what ideas lurk behind the fanfare?

Three discs in a year and it’s safe to say that Diego Fasolis is serious about Steffani (1654–1728). The conductor and his energetic period orchestra accompanied Cecilia Bartoli on her Mission album to revive the Italian priest’s reputation, following that success with his sombre, subdued Stabat Mater. Now I Barrochisti step out from under Bartoli’s cassock (see questionable Mission cover art) into their own with an all-instrumental selection from the operas. An Italian who perfected his art in Rome but took up ecclesiastical posts in Munich, Hanover and Düsseldorf, Agostino Steffani somehow became king of the French overture, of which there are several searingly focused examples. He couldn’t have asked for more sympathetic champions in this generous collection of 43 little gems. Fanfare outbursts of natural horns and thundering timpani in Niobe, Regina di Tebe (a neglected opera dusted off at Covent Garden in 2010) add a wild edge to an elegant sound without trampling over the refined, lilting articulation. There’s a delicious lick of the exotic in the light yet detailed percussion of La liberta contenda and Orlando generoso. I Barrochisti relish a playful rigadoun or an uprushing tempest, always making the most of Steffani’s dramatic flourishes. The album’s…

You’d think that naming her new disc of Michael Nyman’s solo piano music after his short piece All Imperfect Things would be inviting critics to pick Sally Whitwell apart. But it’s clear from her previous releases that she proudly wears her personal quirks and imperfections on her sleeve as part of her musical make-up. Literally, in the case of the cover art in question, with the normally punk-styled pianist decked out in foreboding Victorian gothic leather. The portrait suggests an affinity between Whitwell and Ada, the mute heroine of Jane Campion’s The Piano who gives voice to her fiery temperament and innermost desires only through her instrument. Does Sally do the same? Of course, she opens with Ada’s suite of pieces from the best-selling soundtrack that has made Nyman a household name for amateur pianists for the past 20 years. And she does indeed knead some new shapes out of this well-known music. She plays first with lingering rubato and then wildly revs up for the compound rhythms of The Heart Asks Pleasure First – the spark that made her debut Philip Glass album Mad Rush such a success. The floating folk melodies of Silver-Fingered Fling are contrasted with punchy…

The first thing you notice are the asterisks all over the liner notes. They’re on every track bar the opener to denote world premiere recordings of these sometimes outrageously virtuosic Neapolitan arias for the famous castrati. David Hansen’s voice, too, is something of a modern world first.   On his debut solo album he soars across three octaves, so that listeners are left to marvel at his stamina and dexterity in the 13-minute tour de force Son Qual Nave (by Farinelli’s brother Riccardo Broschi) as he flips between octaves – showing off the equally impressive lows – and embellishes impossibly long passages leading to a thrilling da capo high D. Hansen’s interpretation is as close to Farinelli’s as possible, in the version the castrato annotated with his own ornaments. That D is Hansen’s fullest and richest high on the album; at other moments it can get cold up there – occasionally drifting a little sharp despite his care and precision – but it’s a remarkable feat you certainly won’t hear anywhere else.   It was perhaps inevitable that the refined playing of the orchestra Academia Montias Regalis would be outshone by the soloist, but in Leo’s Freme Orgogliosa L’Onda (with…

Ian Bostridge may well be the busiest interpreter of Benjamin Britten in this the composer’s 100th birthday year. Previous recordings of Our Hunting Fathers and the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings have demonstrated the English tenor’s sensitive characterisation of text, but this latest collection of song cycles, written for Britten’s partner and muse Peter Pears, is Bostridge’s finest and most compelling offering yet. A big part of that is Antonio Pappano’s accompaniment. The duo collaborated on a Schubert album, but the eccentricities of Britten’s piano writing – all angular figurations and chiaroscuro effects he put into play himself – allow his imagination, and fingers, to run wild, whether bright and brilliant or sparse and eerie. Both performers vary their touch and articulation judiciously for a disc that is alive at every moment, leaving you hanging off every word. Listen to the way Bostridge leans into dissonance, gouging the text of Before Life and After from the late cycle Winter Words. Or the cat-and-mouse runs passed between singer and pianist in the nursery rhyme-like Wagtail and Baby. Bostridge’s intonation and enunciation are faultless but never characterless; I particularly relish how he shapes drawn-out melismas such as the sweet-toned “Seraphim”. His…

The cellist waited 40 years to record the most beloved concerto. Limelight visited his London home to see what kept him.

Dvořák would have been swept away by the gamut of human expression in Steven Isserlis's playing.

If a label like ECM chooses to back a young composer it’s safe to assume she’s beyond just showing promise. And if Janine Jansen and Maxim Rysanov come to the party with works composed especially for them, their endorsement affirms a major new talent. Meet Dobrinka Tabakova, born in Bulgaria in 1980 but based in London since her early teens. At once forward-looking and steeped in old-school romanticism, the music is sensually attuned to timbre and sweeping melody, with just enough Eastern European bite and folk-derived earthiness lurking beneath the polished surface (listen to the lilting, modal solo in Suite in Old Style’s third movement). Tabakova has a gift for string writing that connects the English lyricism of Vaughan Williams and Elgar to the glassier, sombre textures of Arvo Pärt – the music is always brimming with personality, even if it’s not always immediately apparent that it’s her own. Jansen, the dedicatee of Such Different Paths, steps out of her spotlight to indulge her chamber proclivities, bringing sweetly focused lightness to the driving rhythms. In the dark- hued Concerto for Cello and Strings, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra play at the level of their solist, Latvian Kristina Blaumane (principal cellist of…