New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 26th April 2019
Today’s highlights include Janáček and Ligeti from the Belcea Quartet, Suk from the late Jiří Bělohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic, Ravel, Liszt and Weber from Melvyn Tan, and the debut solo recording from trailblazing young saxophonist Jess Gillam.
Bělohlávek first recorded Suk’s memorial to his teacher and father-in-law Dvořák with the Czech Philharmonic on Chandos back in the 1990s, and revisited it with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on Supraphon near the beginning of his tenure as the orchestra’s chief conductor. This new recording was made live at Prague’s Rudolfinum in 2014, and is coupled with the ‘fairy-tale’ Podhádka - an orchestral suite which Suk compiled from his incidental music for Julius Zeyer’s Radúz and Mahulena.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The former concert-master of the Berliner Philharmoniker makes his debut on Pentatone with an all-Tchaikovsky programme, which opens with the Violin Concerto and also includes the Sérénade Mélancolique, the Valse-Scherzo Op. 34, the Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, and transcriptions of the Letter Scene and Lensky’s aria from Eugene Onegin.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Belceas won a Diapason d’Or for their 2001 recording of the two Janáček quartets on Zig-Zag Territoires, and after several changes in personnel they have now re-recorded both works alongside Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1, Métamorphoses nocturnes, described by György Kurtág as ‘Bartok’s seventh quartet’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Tchaikovsky & Dvořák: Piano Trios
Renaud Capuçon (violin), Lahav Shani (piano), Kian Soltani (cello)
On this live recording from the Easter Festival at Aix-en-Provence last April, Capuçon, Shani and Soltani pair two works from the early 1880s, both written when their composers were still primarily known for their orchestral music – Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor Op. 50 ‘In memory of a Great Artist’ (a tribute to his friend and mentor Nikolai Rubinstein), and Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Los Angeles-based string quartet bookend the Swedish composer’s 2006 Kongsgaard Variations (which take a theme from Beethoven’s last piano sonata as their inspiration) with early and late Beethoven: the String Quartet No. 3 in D Op. 18/3 and the great String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor Op. 131.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Tan explores the influence of Domenico Scarlatti, Liszt and Weber on Ravel’s piano music, prefacing the Valses nobles et sentimentales with Weber’s Invitation to the Dance, and interspersing the movements of Miroirs with Scarlatti keyboard sonatas and excerpts from Années de pèlerinage.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The BBC Young Musician of the Year 2016 finalist makes her debut on Decca with an eclectic programme encompassing Dowland, Marcello, Milhaud, David Bowie and Kate Bush; the album also includes a new commission by Gillam’s teacher John Harle, inspired by folk-songs from her native Cumbria. Look out for Katherine’s interview with Jess next week.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For his second recording on Alpha, the German lyric tenor flanks Dichterliebe with solo piano works and songs by Robert and Clara Schumann, including Die Löwenbraut, Sängers Trost and several Romances; soprano Sandrine Piau joins for In der Nacht, Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär, and a canon by Clara.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
I Fagiolini commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death with a programme curated by da Vinci expert Martin Kemp, conceived as a sequence of musical reflections of some of his greatest paintings and including works by Tallis, Victoria, Monteverdi, Josquin and Janequin, plus a new commission Shaping the Invisible by Adrian Williams which celebrates Da Vinci the scientist.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For their hundredth recording, the Cambridge choir mark the 150th anniversary of the college chapel’s consecration with a programme of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, including a piece by their former Director of Music Christopher Robinson as well as works by Finzi, Britten, Poulenc, Bruckner, Rachmaninov, Jonathan Dove, and Giles Swayne.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
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