Coming Soon,
Benjamin Appl's Bach and other forthcoming highlights
September brings an enticing trio of recitals from three leading baritones: Thomas Allen’s appropriately-titled September Song on Champs Hill Records, an all-Bach album from Benjamin Appl on Sony, and a programme of songs by composers connected with Chicago from Thomas Hampson on Cedille. There’s also Finzi from Paul Watkins, Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Mahler from Simon Rattle, Magdalena Kožená and Stuart Skelton, and new productions of La bohème and Billy Budd on DVD and Blu-ray.
Like his mentor Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Appl is proving to be a fine interpreter of Bach as well as a thoughtful lieder-singer; this collection of sacred arias includes ‘Mache dich’ and ‘Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder’ from the St Matthew Passion and excerpts from the cantatas Tönet, ihr Pauken, Schwingt freudig euch empor and Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!, plus ‘Bist du bei mir’ and ‘Jesu bleibet meine Freude‘. Released 7th September.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo), Stuart Skelton (tenor), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Simon Rattle
Rattle’s CBSO recording of Mahler’s ‘Song of the Earth’ back in the 1990s used the version for tenor and baritone (and indeed he’s been performing the work with Skelton and baritone Christian Gerhaher this season) - but this live recording from Munich’s Herkulessaal reverts to Mahler’s original conception, with Rattle’s wife Magdalena Kožená joining Skelton for Mahler's meditations on springtime, beauty, loneliness and loss. Released 31st August.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The veteran baritone (who remains active in opera as both singer and director) lets his hair down with this collection of Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern, including songs from Call Me Madam, Lady in the Dark, Gigi, Very Warm For May and Goldwyn Follies - many of which he has performed as recital encores over the decades. Soprano Lucy Crowe joins him for 'I Remember It Well' and 'You're Just in Love'. Released 31st August.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Another baritone elder statesman explores slightly less familiar American music in this programme of songs by composers associated with The Windy City, including settings of Walt Whitman by Louis Campbell-Tipton (1877-1921) and Ernst Bacon (1898-1990), settings of Langston Hughes by Florence Price (1888-1953) and Margaret Bonds (1913-72), and John Alden Carpenter’s Gitanjali on poems by Rabindranath Tagore. Release 14th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The British cellist and conductor Paul Watkins has a special affinity with English music, and here records the Finzi concerto for the first time. Also includes the baroque-influenced Grand Fantasia and Toccata for piano and orchestra (with Louis Lortie as soloist), the early Nocturne (inspired by New Year’s Eve, which Finzi described as ‘the saddest time of the year’), and the popular Eclogue for piano and strings. Released 31st August.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bach: The Cello Suites (recomposed by Peter Gregson)
Peter Gregson (solo cello), Richard Harwood, Reinoud Ford, Tim Lowe, Ben Chappell and Katherine Jenkinson (cello ensemble)
Described by composer-cellist Gregson as ‘looking at the Cello Suites through a different lens’, this ‘recomposition’ takes its cue from Max Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed and adds the sonorities of a quintet of cellos and a synthesised bass line (using Juno-60, Jupiter-4, Moog Voyager and DFAM drum synthesisers) to Bach’s original. Released 19th October.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beal: House Of Cards Symphony
Sharon Bezaly (flute), Jason Vieaux (guitar), Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Jeff Beal
Commissioned by BIS founder Robert von Bahr (a huge fan of the eponymous Netflix political saga and its atmospheric soundtrack), the House of Cards Symphony was premiered at the Krakow Film Music Festival in May 2015 and subsequently performed in Amsterdam, Washington and Odense; it’s accompanied here by a Flute Concerto written for von Bahr’s wife Sharon Bezaly, Six Sixteen for guitar and string quartet, and Canticle for strings. Released 31st August.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Britten: Billy Budd (DVD)
Jacques Imbrailo (Billy Budd), Toby Spence (Vere), Brindley Sherratt (Claggart), Teatro Real Madrid, Ivor Bolton, Deborah Warner
Filmed at its Madrid premiere in early 2017, Warner’s visceral production (described as ‘an instant classic’ by BachTrack) sets the action in the 1940s, complete with 800 litres of water and a stage full of pulleys and hammocks; Imbrailo (who gave a career-defining performance of the title-role at Glyndebourne in 2010) was praised as ‘the soul of the evening’ by Opera Today, whilst Spence makes his role-debut as ‘starry Vere’ six years after illness forced him to withdraw from David Alden’s production at English National Opera. Released 14th September.
The production will travel to Covent Garden next spring, with Imbrailo, Spence and Sherratt all returning to their roles.
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Jacques Imbrailo (Billy Budd), Toby Spence (Vere), Brindley Sherratt (Claggart), Teatro Real Madrid, Ivor Bolton, Deborah Warner
Available Format: Blu-ray
Puccini: La Bohème (DVD)
Michael Fabiano (Rodolfo), Nicole Car (Mimì), Mariusz Kwiecien (Marcello), Nadine Sierra (Musetta), Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano, Richard Jones
The first new production of Puccini’s Parisian opera at Covent Garden in four decades, Jones’s Bohème opened in 2017 and was described by The Guardian as ‘an uncontroversial mainstream staging that can be brought back again and again without the danger of anyone tiring of it’; The Stage had particular praise for Mariusz Kwiecien’s ‘forthright yet complex’ Marcello and Australian soprano Nicole Car’s ‘unusually strong-willed' Mimì, as well as for the ‘exceptional vividness’ of Antonio Pappano’s conducting. Released 31st August.
Available Format: DVD Video
Michael Fabiano (Rodolfo), Nicole Car (Mimì), Mariusz Kwiecien (Marcello), Nadine Sierra (Musetta), Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano, Richard Jones
Available Format: Blu-ray
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