Classical

Březina, Briscein, Prague National Theatre/Jaroslav Kyzlink
Janáček: The Excursions Of Mr Brouček
Supraphon SU4339-2 (two CDs; downloads to 48kHz/24-bit resolution)

Janáček’s loopiest and most neglected opera – Al Murray’s Pub Landlord goes to the Moon, in a nutshell – has long needed a modern Czech recording. Opera recordings often don’t work out this way, but here you get the best of both worlds. Supraphon’s engineers capture the rich soundstage of the Rudolfinum voices to the fore, obsessive rhythms carefully dotted and pointed. Meanwhile the Prague Theatre musicians and singers must be the only ensemble around who have the score under their fingers as well as in their blood, including a terrifically bullish Brouček from tenor Jaroslav Březina, and a touching cameo from the 89-year-old Helena Tattermuschová. PQ

Sound Quality: 90%

Claudia Barainsky, Delian Quartet
‘Im Wachen Traume’ – Byrd, Purcell, Schumann, etc
ECM 4875876 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)

Frauen-Liebe und Leben meets Byrd’s Ave Verum: a far-out idea, but it makes for an addictive concept album. In a transcription by the late Aribert Reimann, Schumann’s song-cycle sheds early-Romantic effusion and takes on a fragile skin of knowing uncertainty. Claudia Barainsky floats and teases the text into shape, in the manner of Schoenberg’s Pierrot. The Delians’ pure tone underscores her theatrical approach even while leaning into phrases with 1840s affection and pathos. They take the aching suspensions and remote elegance of courtly and chapel worlds from period England, ending with idiosyncratic takes on Dido’s ‘Farewell’ and ‘Hear My Prayer’. PQ

Sound Quality: 85%

Aline Piboule
Fauré: Nocturnes & Barcarolles
Harmonia mundi HMM902510 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit res)

The communing inner world of Fauré’s piano music is best taken in instalments. Stretches of rippling figuration and elusive melodies soon fade into a hazy mist. What sets Piboule apart is her strong line and sense of contrast, both within and between pieces. She has ordered 12 pieces across almost 40 years of Fauré’s career, without tracing a straight line through them. If anything, the late Nocturnes from 1921–2 take on more Lisztian splendour and drama than the post-Chopin, moonstruck Barcarolles from the 1880s. But in each case she plays out, and deep into the keybed of a 1929 Gaveau piano, which has an extrovert personality of its own. PQ

Sound Quality: 85%

Aigul Akhmetshina, RPO/Rustioni
Arias from Carmen, Werther, Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Decca 4870262 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)

The reigning Carmen of our day flourishes a winning five-card trick on her debut album. Rather than a standard sequence of hit numbers, tantalising excerpts from coloratura-mezzo roles display her versatility and maturity. Just 27, Akhmetshina has a Homeric bronze spear of a voice, ringing and flying through the air, unerringly hitting the target of each phrase. She could have allowed herself to sing more quietly, especially in Charlotte’s soliloquies from Massenet’s Werther, but the heavily ‘produced’ sound (with a couple of glaring edits) is partly responsible for a want of intimacy. The Cenerentola numbers should pin you to the back of your seat! PQ

Sound Quality: 80%