New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 11th January 2019
Today’s new releases include a second instalment of French seventeenth-century drinking-songs from William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, an anthology of music by Elizabethan composers in exile from England from Stile Antico, Liszt’s Transcendental Études from Boris Giltburg, and an operetta with a baby-switching plot worthy of Gilbert & Sullivan by André Messager.
The premiere of Arkansas-born Florence Beatrice Price’s Symphony No. 1 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933 was the first instance of a major American orchestra performing a symphony by an African-American woman: the work had won first prize in the Rodman Wanamaker Competition the previous year, and was partially inspired by Dvořák’s New World Symphony. The Fourth Symphony (from 1945) was premiered just last year.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This is only the second recording of Stravinsky’s 1908 elegy for his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov, which was discovered in St Petersburg four years ago: the composer described it as ‘the best of my works before The Firebird’, with which it is paired here. Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12 ‘The Year 1917’ completes Meister’s second all-Russian album with his Viennese orchestra.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Midway through his Rachmaninov concertos project, the Israeli pianist takes a break from his trademark Russian repertoire to tackle Liszt’s mighty Transcendental Studies (performed in the 1852 revision which the composer described as ‘the only authentic’ version of the score), plus the Concert Paraphrase on Rigoletto and La leggierezza from the Three Concert Studies S144.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Rie Miyake (soprano), Mihoko Fujimura (mezzo-soprano), Kei Fukui (tenor), Markus Eiche (baritone), Tokyo Opera Singers, Mito Chamber Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa
Ozawa made his debut on Philips with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the 1970s, and has conducted it many times over the intervening 45 years, including in a massed performance for the opening of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics which involved international choirs participating by video-link! This live recording is taken from a concert marking the Mito Chamber Orchestra’s 100th performance, using just 48 players and 32 chorus-members.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Rousset and his ensemble have serious pedigree when it comes to Couperin, and as a belated commemoration of the 400th anniversary of his death last year they present the four trio sonatas and suites in which he explores the musical styles of Europe: La Française, L'Espagnole, L'Impériale and La Piémontaise.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The conductorless vocal ensemble explore music by composers with Catholic sympathies who found themselves literally or figuratively exiled from Elizabethan England, including John Dowland (described by the Queen as ‘an obstinate Papist’), Peter Phillips (who spent his later years in Flanders after narrowly escaping execution for treason), and Richard Dering, who befriended Phillips in Brussels but eventually returned to England to serve the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
L'Opéra des Opéras
Katherine Watson (soprano), Karine Deshayes (mezzo), Reinoud van Mechelen (tenor), Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet
Inspired by Louis XIV’s request for a ‘ballet of ballets’ made up of highlights from Lully’s many court entertainments, Niquet and his musicians celebrate their thirtieth birthday with an operatic pasticcio centring on a love-triangle involving a prince, a princess and an enchantress, with music by composers including Rameau, Campra, Dauvergne, Montéclair, Rébel, Marais and Lully himself.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following the success of Bien que l’amour in 2016, Christie and his ‘impeccable ensemble’ (BBC Music Magazine) present a second volume of seventeenth-century ‘airs sérieux et airs à boire’, including songs by Michel Lambert, Sebastien le Camus, Etienne Moulinié and Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
André Messager: Les P'tites Michu
Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Chœur d’Angers Nantes Opera, Pierre Dumoussaud
Premiered at the Bouffes-Parisiens in 1897, Messager’s operetta about two babies of noble and lowly birth who are mixed up at bath-time and subsequently raised as twins was a huge success on both sides of The Channel, and receives its first complete commercial CD release here, with Violette Polchi and Anne-Aurore Cochet as the eponymous ‘siblings’.
Available Formats: 2 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Golden Age of Shellac - The Anniversary Edition
Erich Kleiber, Titta Ruffo, Pietro Mascagni, Alda Noni and others
This collection of highlights from Deutsche Grammophon’s Shellac Project (part of the label’s 120th anniversary celebrations last year) includes Mascagni conducting the Intermezzo to his Cavalleria rusticana, Titta Ruffo singing ‘Largo al factotum’, Julius Patzak performing ‘Il mio tesoro’ in German, and jazz standards from Louis Armstrong.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Alongside Boris Giltburg's new Liszt recording and Florence Price's spiritual-inspired symphonies, this month's Naxos releases include the premiere recording of Alfred Cellier's light opera Dorothy conducted by Richard Bonynge and a disc celebrating a century of British women's right to vote, which features works by Judith Bingham, Rebecca Clarke and Imogen Holst.
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
