Last year’s recital by the dream duo of Joyce DiDonato and Antonio Pappano works wonderfully as a double CD - arguably more effective than the concert itself. Haydn’s dramatic scena, Arianna a Naxos, comes into its own, the seriousness, virtuosity and beauty of the performance easier to enjoy in private contemplation. The songs of Francesco Santoliquido (1883-1971) sound silken rather than cloying. On CD2, the selection from big-name American songwriters – Stephen Foster, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers – never disappoints. All the Things You Are, I Love a Piano and Over the Rainbow act as touching encores. DiDonato’s immaculate voice relishes every vowel sound, Pappano responds with pianistic wit and idiomatic invention. Ad libs and applause are judiciously included. All a delight.
