• The fire that ravaged the first Covent Garden theatre in 1808 destroyed more than an auditorium; it claimed much of Britain’s 18th-century musical heritage, including a pipe organ Handel had played, and many full scores. Thomas Arne’s opera Artaxerxes and his masque of 1742, The Judgment of Paris, were victims of the flames, but fortunately parts of the masque had been published, and Congreve’s text still existed, so in the 1970s editor Ian Spink was able to rebuild its recitatives and choruses. Now, 40 years later, this charming piece is available in a world premiere recording from the Dutton label that features a first-rate lineup of soloists.
Tenor Ed Lyon sings Paris, the shepherd charged with the decidedly un-PC task of choosing which goddess is the sexiest. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it; no wonder he sings “Save me from Excess of Joy”. Sopranos Mary Bevan, Susanna Fairbairn and Gillian Ramm as, respectively, Venus, Pallas and Juno, vie with each other for the prize, with tenor Anthony Gregory as Mercury, Jove’s messenger. It’s all sung with a suitable lightness of touch, with sparkling accompaniment from the Brook Street Band, all artfully directed by John Andrews.
• In March, the Schumann Quartet gave a concert at Kings Place, London, in which they took the audience on a journey through their own musical preoccupations, linking Mendelssohn to Philip Glass, Shostakovich to Webern, Janáček to Gershwin, each piece bridged by one of Mozart’s arrangements of five fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. That fascinating concert is now available on an album entitled Chiaroscuro (Berlin Classics). The playing, particularly in Janáček’s String Quartet No 2 “Intimate Letters”, is outstanding.
• There’s still time to catch the Royal Opera’s fine production of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd, available on BBC Sounds. It’s difficult to imagine finer casting than baritone Jacques Imbrailo as the young sailor Billy, tenor Toby Spence as Captain Vere and bass Brindley Sherratt as the truly menacing John Claggart. Prepare to have your timbers shivered.
