New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 2nd November 2018
Today’s new releases include Sir Simon Rattle’s first and last performances of Mahler's Sixth Symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Josquin from The Tallis Scholars, an electrifying account of Handel’s Serse from Il Pomo d’Oro, and an imaginatively-staged Tchaikovsky double-bill from Dmitri Tcherniakov at the Paris Opera.
Handel: Serse
Franco Fagioli, Vivica Genaux, Inga Kalna, Francesca Aspromonte, Andrea Mastroni, Delphine Galou; Il Pomo d ́Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev
Franco Fagioli makes history by being the first countertenor to record the role of the volatile, tree-loving Persian king; reviewing a live performance of the work by the same forces in London earlier this week, Opera Today observed that ‘not a single person present in the Barbican Hall could surely have failed to be bowled over by Fagioli’s dramatic commitment and acrobatic musical accomplishment’.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
After flying the flag for Flemish Renaissance composer Jacob Obrecht with such style and dedication last winter, Rice and the Brabants explore the music of his countryman and contemporary Antoine de Févin, who spent his final years as a court composer and singer for Louis XII. The album includes the Missa Ave Maria and Missa Salve Sancta Parens, and a motet for Ascensiontide which has only recently been authenticated as genuine Févin.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Elgar: The Music Makers & The Spirit of England
Dame Sarah Connolly, Andrew Staples, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Andrew Davis
Following their multi-award-winning Dream of Gerontius (also on Chandos) from 2015, Davis and the BBC forces reunite for two late works for solo voice, chorus and orchestra: the 1912 musical autobiography The Music Makers (for which they are joined by Dame Sarah Connolly, who sang The Angel on Gerontius) and the much less frequently-recorded The Spirit of England from 1917, in which the solo is taken by tenor Andrew Staples.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Elder and the Hallé also have serious form when it comes to Elgar, with acclaimed recordings of Gerontius, The Kingdom and The Apostles under their belts; now they tackle the two orchestral suites which Elgar compiled from music which he’d written for family theatricals in his childhood, plus the evergreen Salut d’amour and Chanson de Nuit and the late Nursery Suite, which also draws on boyhood sketches.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Previous instalments of Phillips’s Josquin survey with The Tallis Scholars have been critically acclaimed (the inaugural volume was Gramophone’s Recording of the Year in 1987, and the Missa De beata virgine & Missa Ave maris stella album was nominated for the Early Music category in 2012); Phillips argues that ‘few [of Josquin’s mass settings] offer as great a contrast’ as the two works on this latest recording.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Esfahani returns to Hyperion with a recital of music by the English virginalists, including Orlando Gibbons, William Byrd, Giles Farnaby, John Dowland and Thomas Tomkins; most of the programme is performed on a double-manual harpsichord by Robert Goble & Son, modelled on an early eighteenth-century instrument from Hamburg by Carl Conrad Fleischer.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The fifth instalment of Drake’s treasurable Liszt series sees the pianist partnering British tenor Allan Clayton (who recently spoke to us about creating the title-role in Brett Dean’s opera Hamlet) for a programme which includes settings of poetry by Victor Hugo, Clemens Brentano, Goethe and Heine.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The 20-year-old Chinese-American pianist makes his debut on Warner with this live recording of his winning performance in the finals of The Leeds international Piano Competition in September; you can read David’s interview with him about the competition itself and the ‘moments of beauty and sense of pathos’ which he finds in this particular concerto here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Premiered in Sydney in 1954 and based on The Book of Revelation, Goossens’s gargantuan oratorio has received relatively few outings in concert or on record, despite its epic sweep and fantastic orchestration; this recording was made in 1982 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Broadcasting Company, and makes a splendid case for this rich and strange work.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Biondi and Europa Galante have an extensive Vivaldi discography to their name (as well as a distinguished roster of recordings on Naïve), but this collection of six violin concertos marks their first joint appearance on the label’s much-praised Vivaldi Edition, now standing at fifty-seven volumes. (The opera seria Il Giustino will follow later this month).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Tchaikovsky: Iolanta & The Nutcracker (DVD)
Sonya Yoncheva, Arnold Rutkowski, Opéra national de Paris; Alain Altinoglu, Dmitri Tcherniakov
Tchaikovsky’s festive fairy-tale ballet and his one-act opera about a blind princess whose sight is restored by a Moorish physician may no longer seem like obvious bedfellows - but the two works were premiered together at the Mariinsky in 1892, and Dmitri Tcherniakov draws out astute parallels between them in this Palais Garnier staging from March 2016, which was described by The New York Times as ‘beautifully conceived, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally suggestive’.
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Tchaikovsky: Iolanta & The Nutcracker (Blu-ray)
Sonya Yoncheva, Arnold Rutkowski, Opéra national de Paris; Alain Altinoglu, Dmitri Tcherniakov
Picture format: 1080i Full-HD Sound format: PCM 2.0 / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Available Format: Blu-ray
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