Tamsin Waley-Cohen / James Baillieu C.P.E. BACH Complete Original Works for Violin & Keyboard

COMPLETE ORIGINAL WORKS FOR VIOLIN & KEYBOARD

Peter Moore / James Baillieu LIFE FORCE

Don’t judge this disc by its cover. The artwork is the usual moody monochrome of a young soloist in a vaguely industrial setting – so far, so contemporary. But the contents are something else entirely: music chosen by Peter Moore because, he says, it ‘feels special to me’ and which, taken together, portrays a young trombonist with a deeply romantic soul. There’s something disarmingly likeable about an artist who feels as warmly about, say, Thoughts of Love – a sugar-coated concert waltz by Arthur Pryor, formerly of Sousa’s band – as he does about Mahler’s ‘Urlicht’, and who plays both with such genuine sympathy.

Moore is helped at every stage of the way by his duet partner, James Baillieu – who supports him with the same sensitivity to mood and colour that he brings to Lieder. And this is a real partnership: the way Baillieu teases gently at the piano part of the slow movement from Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata, or generates a hushed, pregnant space at the opening of Brahms’s Op 121 songs, very audibly gives Moore something to work with and helps shape the direction of his long, carefully phrased lines.

The Brahms, Bruch and Mahler transcriptions, with their prevailingly sombre atmosphere, perhaps convince more fully than Schumann’s more mercurial Fantasiestücke – though Moore and Baillieu find something distinctive to say in everything here. I hope Moore will take it as the compliment that’s intended when I say that his pianissimo tone in the Schumann is reminiscent of a horn. And that the two ‘lollipops’ – the Pryor and the amusingly jaunty Concerto by Friedebald Gräfe – have just as much character, providing enjoyable contrast in a predominantly serious (though always beautiful) recital. (Richard Bratby / Gramophone)

Benjamin Appl / James Baillieu HEIMAT

Anyone who enjoyed Benjamin Appl’s previous disc, a Schubert recital (Wigmore Hall Live, 7/16), will recognise the same qualities on this new album, the first fruit of a newly forged relationship with Sony Classical. The voice has a burnished, oaky beauty as well as considerable sweetness (well captured in Sony’s natural engineering), while the interpretations are suffused with a gentle intelligence, an instinct for unforced but direct communication and what feels like a real love for the repertoire. The latter characteristic is even more in evidence in this project, one which has a disarming personal element: a carefully assembled programme that explores not just the abstract concept of ‘Heimat’ but also the young baritone’s relationship with his two homelands, original and adopted.

It’s a delightful selection, split up further into evocative subheadings, which mixes songs familiar and less well known, the expected with the unexpected. Schubert, Wolf and Brahms dominate the larger, German part of the programme, beautifully performed. But we also have the disarming, twinkling simplicity of Reger’s ‘Des Kindes Gebet’, as well as Adolf Strauss’s suave ‘Ich weiss bestimmt’, presented with a gentle pathos and sophistication that quietly underlines the tragedy of its having been composed in Terezín – here, as throughout, the piano-playing of James Baillieu is superb.

Appl’s move to the UK is announced in a confused whirl with Poulenc’s Hyde Park and then a half a dozen songs in English, with a slightly more folksy tone. You’ll have to go a long way to hear more enchanting accounts of Britten’s ‘Greensleeves’, Ireland’s ‘If there were dreams to sell’ or Bishop’s ‘Home, sweet home’. Appl’s English, unsurprisingly, cannot be faulted. The two Grieg songs that make up the epilogue are outstanding, too. But the final moments of an otherwise near-ideal account of ‘Ein Traum’ highlight one reservation. The voice is very beautiful across a broad range but it remains a great deal happier up to forte than above it, where it loses flexibility and can develop a slightly fuzzy, even woofy quality.

It’s an issue that will hopefully be ironed out as Appl develops. As it is, though, there is more than enough quality in his singing, and pleasure to be had from his musicianship and interpretative instincts, for this charming and often moving disc to be confidently recommended. (Gramophone)