Mozart
La Clemenza di Tito Mark Padmore (Tito), Bernarda Fink (Sesto), Alexandrina Pendatchanska (Vitellia), Freiburger Barockorchester/Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi HMC 901923.24) £19.99
Mozart's 250th birthday sees two versions in a month of his underrated last opera : Charles Mackerras's recording for DG, welcomed here a month ago, and now this outstanding period performance from the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under the meticulous RenŽ Jacobs. His soloists are superb, Mark Padmore bringing heft to the title role and Bernarda Fink lending conviction to Sesto. Both were the product of concert performances, but Jacobs's version has more urgency.
Vaughan Williams
The Wasps Henry Goodman (narrator), Hallé/Elder (Hallé HLD 7510) £12.99
Vaughan Williams's overture to The Wasps - part of the incidental music he wrote for a 1909 Cambridge production of Aristophanes's satire - has long been among his most popular works. Less well-known is the five-movement suite he fashioned from the score in 1912. Unheard before this recording is the entire piece, here in a brassy English translation by David Pountney, theatrically delivered by Henry Goodman. It's far from being vintage VW, but devotees will cherish the two-minute choral parabasis at the end of Act II.
Chopin
Piano sonatas Artur Pizarro (piano)
(Linn CKD 250) £13.99
Winner of the 1990 Leeds piano competition, the versatile Portuguese-American pianist Artur Pizarro made some fine Beethoven recordings for Linn before turning to Chopin with a collection of favourite solo works entitled 'Reminiscences'. Now he brings his energy, passion and refinement to the harmonically complex Bacarolle, and true virtuoso panache to the Variations Brillantes. Romantic music comes naturally to Pizarro; his delicate touch and sense of lyrical line in the second and third sonatas are as elegant and assured as these wonderful works demand.
