I'm going to break a rule right at the start and quote from a review we are yet to publish (it's coming in the March issue next week) of María Dueñas's recording of Paganini's 24 Caprices. The quote is just one word from our reviewer Charlotte Gardner: 'fabulous'.

This recording is María Dueñas's second for DG. Her first, 'Beethoven And Beyond', gave us not just Beethoven's Violin Concerto (with the Wiener Symphoniker and Manfred Honeck) but also five alternative cadenzas and companion works by each of the composers of those cadenzas. In his review of that concerto recording David Threasher wrote, 'The manner in which Dueñas acquits herself is nothing short of remarkable: every technical hurdle surmounted with assurance, no lapses in tone or intonation, the interpretation confident and persuasive.'

Much as with the Beethoven album, Dueñas brings extra value to this new recording of Paganini's Caprices (themselves more than 1 hour and 40 minutes in duration) by adding recordings of works that were inspired by Paganini's compositions or that shine a new light on them. So we get music by Berlioz, Cervelló, Kreisler, Ortiz, Saint-Saëns, Sarasate and Wieniawski. Gabriela Ortiz’s De cuerda y madera was written for Dueñas and this is the premiere recording. A musical feast. 

María Dueñas is the guest on the Gramophone Classical Music Podcast today, listen below:

Ravel's wondrous score for Daphnis et Chloé has inspired many great recordings over the years, not least John Wilson's with the Sinfonia of London for Chandos – shortlisted for last year's Gramophone Orchestral Award and made using a newly revised score featuring thousands of corrections produced by Wilson himself. Today, however, sees the release of a new live recording from Sir Antonio Pappano with the London Symphony Orchestra and the choir Tenebrae on LSO Live. The LSO have made recordings of Daphnis with the likes of André Previn, Pierre Monteux, Valery Gergiev and Claudio Abbado in the past, so it will be fascinating to see how this new recording from Pappano compares.

Pianist Samson Tsoy was a guest on the Gramophone Classical Music Podcast just last week. His new album, 'Inmost Heart', for Linn Records is built around Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, the programme explores Brahms's fascination with the Baroque, but also how his music was later transcribed by Reger and Busoni. Listen to Tsoy's fascinating conversation with James Jolly below:

Benjamin Appl was chosen from a list of potential singers by Kurtág himself for these recordings of Hölderlin-Gesänge and various individual songs, even accompanying Appl on the piano for a song by Brahms and another by Schubert. The principal pianists on the album, however, are James Baillieu and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. 

In the December 2023 issue of Gramophone, Richard Bratby reviewed a filmed broadcast of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol – presented as a double bill with Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias – starring Sabine Devieilhe (Le Rossignol), Cyrille Dubois (Le Pêcheur), Chantal Santon Jeffery (La Cuisinière), Jean-Sébastien Bou (L’Empereur de Chine), Laurent Naouri (Le Chambellan), Victor Sicard (Le Bonze), Lucile Richardot (La Mort) on medici.tv. Bratby wrote: 'There’s real heart here: so much pathos and beauty. How couldn’t there be, with Devieilhe on such irresistible form? She’s magnetic both visually and vocally, singing in a velvety, soaring soprano that shines from within.' Today, Erato release a recording of Le Rossignol made at the same prodiction at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in March 2023.