New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-up - 3rd August 2018
Today’s new releases include a collection of Marian music from the ‘long fifteenth century’ by the Binchois Consort, a collection of Renaissance lute music on a nocturnal theme from Jakob Lindberg, a trio of live Poulenc recordings from Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Alicia De Larrocha’s complete recordings on Decca/American Decca.
Subtitled ‘Adoration of the Virgin in sound and stone’, this collection (a sequel to Music for the 100 Years War, which was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award last year) explores the parallels between representations of Mary in music and alabaster during the late Plantagenet period, with works by composers including John Dunstaple, Walter Frye, John Bedyngham and John Plummer.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
John Dowland’s Come, Heavy Sleep is the centrepiece of this recital by the Swedish lutenist; six shorter pieces by the composer are also included, alongside music by his contemporaries William Byrd, Antony Holborne, Daniel Batchelar, Robert Johnson, John Danyel and Edward Collard, plus Lindberg’s own transcription of Britten’s Nocturnal (which he studied before switching from modern guitar to lute).
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The Princess & the Bear
Laurence Perkins (bassoon) & Sarah Watts (clarinet), Martin Roscoe (piano), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Sian Edwards
This quirky recital takes its title from Richard Strauss’s late ‘Duet-Concertino’ (written at around the same time as the Oboe Concerto and the Four Last Songs, and based on the fairy-tale Beauty and the Beast with a dash of Homer’s Odyssey!), and also includes Beethoven’s Clarinet Trio Op. 38 and Glinka’s Trio pathétique.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Poulenc: Piano Concerto, Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani & Stabat Mater
London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Recorded live at London’s Royal Festival Hall during 2013/14 (Nézet-Séguin’s final season as the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor), these performances feature Alexandre Tharaud as soloist in the Piano Concerto, James O’Donnell in the Organ Concerto, and Kate Royal in the Gloria; reviewing the concerts, BachTrack praised Nézet-Séguin as ‘a master-painter…who decorates each of these scores in a distinctive way’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The penultimate instalment in a series which has been described as ‘one “complete” recording that I want to see to completion’ (Fanfare), the sixth volume of Belder’s Fitzwilliam project sees him performing music by composers including John Bull, Thomas Tomkins, William Byrd, William Tisdale and Thomas Oldfield on instruments by Adlam Burnett and Titus Crijnen.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
A contemporary of Biber, Rupert Ignaz Mayr (1646-1712) spent the last three decades of his life in Munich as Kapellmeister at the court of Maximilian II Emanuel; many of his compositions show the influence of Bavarian folk music, as well as a slight Parisian accent picked up during his studies in France. This collection focuses on his psalm-settings for voice, obbligato violin and basso continuo (composed just before he took up his post in Munich); the majority are world premiere recordings.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded in Perugia in January 2017, this 3-CD set is the first complete set of Hummel’s keyboard sonatas performed on a fortepiano. Look out for David’s interview with Costantino Mastroprimiano (whose previous recordings include surveys of Alkan, Burgmüller and Francesco Pollini, plus Clementi’s complete keyboard works) early next week…
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Ravel & Debussy: The Decca 78s
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Ernest Ansermet
The Swiss conductor worked closely with both composers featured on this album, with Ravel declaring that he ‘understood La Valse perfectly’. These recordings were made in Paris and Geneva in the late 1940s: La Mer was praised by Gramophone at the time for its ‘accuracy and fidelity of nuance’, whilst High Fidelity described Shéhérazade (with Suzanne Danco as soloist) as ‘marvellously interpreted and beautifully recorded’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Wagner: Tannhäuser
René Kollo (Tannhauser), Helga Dernesch (Elisabeth), Christa Ludwig (Venus), Victor Braun (Wolfram); Wiener Philharmoniker, Sir Georg Solti
Solti’s 1970 recording was Building A Library’s first choice for the Paris version of the opera in 2003, and appears here in 5.1 surround sound, mastered at 24-bit/96kHz from the previously unreleased experimental quadraphonic tapes from 1970. Includes 3 CDs and one Blu-ray audio disc in a deluxe hardback booklet with German, English and French librettos.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
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