New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 12th January 2018
This week brings a stunningly-sung recital of Handel favourites from Franco Fagioli, a Porpora world premiere recording from Max Emanuel Cenčić and his Parnassus Arts colleagues, a new opera about the opera world from American composer Jake Heggie (starring his frequent muse Joyce DiDonato, on familiar territory as a bel canto queen from small-town America!), and an inspiring and humbling documentary on Czech harpsichordist and Holocaust-survivor Zuzana Růžičková who passed away last year aged 90.
Astonishing singing from the Argentine super-countertenor, who radiates joy in this collection of arias spanning Handel’s entire operatic career (and Fagioli’s entire three-octave range!); includes excerpts from Serse, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Radamisto and Rodelinda. Keep your eyes peeled for my interview with him in the next week or two!
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Porpora: Germanico in Germania
Max Emanuel Cenčić, Julia Lezhneva, Mary-Ellen Nesi, Juan Sancho; Capella Cracoviensis, Jan Tomasz Adamus
Fielding vocal pyrotechnics as flamboyant as the cover-image, Cenčić sings the title-role in the world premiere recording of Porpora’s 1732 opera, which received its first modern performance just two years ago; he's touring with a programme of arias by the same composer to mark the 250th anniversary of his death, so fingers crossed for a recording of that!
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
JS Bach: Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord Nos. 1-6
Isabelle Faust (violin) & Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord)
Seven years after her ‘gently voiced and eloquently inflected’ (BBC Music Magazine) accounts of the solo sonatas and partitas, Faust teams up with Kristian Bezuidenhout for the six sonatas for violin and harpsichord, which they performed to great acclaim at venues including the Wigmore Hall and the Concertgebouw in 2016.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French harpist’s ‘Spanish Serenade’ includes music by Albeniz, Falla, Soler and Gimenez, plus Tarrega’s famous guitar showpiece Recuerdos de la Alhambra in an arrangement for harp; Mexican flamenco-dancer and castanet-virtuoso Lucero Tena (who turns 80 this year!) joins him for several tracks.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Released as a companion to his candid and moving new book of the same title (out now on Quercus) which reflects on his recent world tour whilst battling the ‘voices jostling in [his] head’, this album includes music by three composers who are particularly close to Rhodes’s heart: Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninov.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Three years after winning the inaugural Warner Music Prize, the Italian-born violinist makes his solo debut on the label with one of the most formidable challenges in the repertoire: Paganini’s two-dozen caprices for unaccompanied violin, which have fascinated him since he was eight years old and which he describes as ‘beautiful, witty and intelligent’ compositions.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Jake Heggie: Great Scott
Joyce DiDonato, Ailyn Pérez, Frederica von Stade, Nathan Gunn, Anthony Roth Costanzo; Orchestra and Chorus of The Dallas Opera, Patrick Summers
Self-styled ‘Yankee Diva’ DiDonato (a regular collaborator and muse for Jake Heggie) takes centre-stage as Arden Scott, a (fictitious) star opera-singer who returns to her hometown in contemporary America to appear in an exhumed bel canto rarity with the struggling regional company with which she first made her name.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Our dedicated Naxos New Release Brochure returns this week, where you can browse, read about, and listen to excerpts of all the exciting Naxos releases out this month. Highlights include Kodály orchestral music from JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the premiere recording from Dame Evelyn Glennie's new ensemble (titled the The Core-tet Project) and the first volume in a new series of Percy Grainger's complete music for wind band.
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
