• Antonio Salieri has had a renaissance as a composer famous for being not quite as good as Mozart. Partly as a result of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, his grand operas Les Danaïdes and Tarare have been revived. They were successful in their own time; now comes a fine account of Les Horaces (Aparte), which was not. Composed in 1786 (the year of Figaro), it was destined for the French court at Fontainebleau, but the queen rejected it, and in spite of adjustments it never found favour.
The libretto, about a power struggle in ancient Rome, is awkward, but there is enough dramatic impetus to produce some terrific music, especially for the unfortunate Camille (Judith van Wanroij), who is caught up in the conflict. Horace is the fresh-voiced Julien Dran, and his implacable father is Jean-Sébastien Bou.
The chorus excel in the battle scenes and intermedii between the acts: Christophe Rousset, conducting Les Talens Lyriques, drives the whole with enormous vitality. But it’s not the emotional subtlety of Mozart that looms over this music; it’s the noble simplicity of Gluck taken to a new level of relentless insistence.
• It’s something of a relief to turn from Salieri’s bravado to the intimate subtlety of the 17th-century Frenchman Louis Couperin, whose Nouvelles Suites de clavecin (Harmonia Mundi) sing with resonant eloquence under the flexible hands of Rousset, this time as keyboard player. The miracle here is the remarkable 1652 instrument by Ioannes Couchet, which has a lovely range of colour that makes the chaconnes and passacaglias ring with sumptuous tone, and a pure tuning that allows the thirds to sing.
• The famous Leeds piano competition has had a radical makeover this year, spilling on to the streets and achieving extensive broadcast output, not only on Radio 3 (available on BBC iPlayer) but also on medici.tv, where all the final rounds can be seen. Now there are so many possible routes to a performing career, via self-publishing or social media, what competitions need to survive are good winners – and it may just be that the 20-year-old American Eric Lu is one. His Beethoven Fourth Concerto, with Edward Gardner and the Hallé, had both maturity and sparkle.
