Coming Soon,
Tchaikovsky from Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker
The Berliner Philharmoniker announced details of their first seasonand first full-length recording with their new Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko yesterday afternoon – a live account of Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, captured at the orchestra’s home shortly after the news of Petrenko’s appointment broke. (The Russian-born conductor has so far recorded remarkably little for a musician of his stature, though his performance of The Wound-Dresser from the same concert appears on the orchestra’s Grammy-nominated John Adams Edition).
Other forthcoming highlights for late May and June include Clara Schumann from Decca’s new signing Isata Kanneh-Mason, the world premiere audio recording of Sir George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence, and a set of six works for unaccompanied violin commissioned by Hilary Hahn from Spanish composer Antón García Abril.
This debut recording from the Berliner Philharmoniker and their new chief conductor is taken from a live performance in March 2017 – their first concert together since Petrenko’s appointment was announced. Their account of the Tchaikovsky was praised by Classical Source as ‘one of those performances that refreshed an (over-)familiar piece through vibrancy and identification, but not by way of histrionics.’ Released 10th May.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mendelssohn in Birmingham, Volume 5 - Overtures
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
The fifth instalment of a series that’s been described as ‘highly satisfying’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘thoroughly committed and scholarly’ (International Record Review) comprises the overtures to Paulus, Die schöne Melusine, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Athalie and Ruy Blas, as well as The Hebrides, Meeresstill und glückliche Fahrt and the ‘Trumpet’ overture Op. 101. Released 31st May.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nine years on from her Spanish-inflected album Habanera, the Latvian mezzo presents a programme of popular songs from southern Europe and Latin American, including Augustin Lara’s Granada, Paolo Tosti’s Marechiara and Non t’amo più, Ernesto de Curtis’s Torna a Surriento and Non ti scordar di me, and Yo soy Maria from Piazzolla’s tango opera Maria de Buenos Aires. Released 10th May.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Berliner Philharmoniker’s principal oboe presents a programme of works which explore nostalgia for a bygone age, all composed in the aftermath of war: Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin from 1919, Elgar’s Soliloquy for Oboe and Orchestra from the 1930s, and Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto of 1945. Eugène Goossens’s one-movement concerto of 1927 – composed for his brother Léon’s American tour – completes the album. Released 17th May.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Howells: Cello Concerto & An English Mass
Britten Sinfonia, King's College Choir Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury, Christopher Seaman
The English Mass of 1955 (dedicated to the composer Harold Darke) is flanked by the Magnificat and Te Deum of the ‘Coll. Reg.’, written for the college in 1944 and orchestrated by John Rutter. Former King’s chorister Guy Johnston joins for the Cello Concerto, composed in the aftermath of the death of Howells’s young son from polio in 1935 and completed by Jonathan Clinch in 2015; three solo organ works performed by Cleobury complete the programme. Released 7th June.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
George Benjamin: Lessons in Love and Violence
Stéphane Degout, Barbara Hannigan, Gyula Orendt, Peter Hoare, Samuel Boden; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, George Benjamin
Loosely based on the history of Edward II, George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s compelling, claustrophobic third opera premiered at Covent Garden last spring and was released on DVD and Blu-ray at the end of 2018; this first audio recording is taken from the Dutch National Opera revival last June, with the original cast. You can read Katherine’s in-depth interview with Sir George about the opera’s genesis here. Released 7th June.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Following their debut on Deutsche Grammophon with a spectacular concert from the Forbidden City, China’s oldest orchestra present Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and two works by the Chinese-born French composer (and student of Messiaen) Chen Qigang: the violin concerto La Joie de la souffrance from 2017 and the five-movement suite Wu Xing (The Five Elements) from 1999. Released 28th June.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The BBC Young Musician of the Year finalist (and elder sister of cellist Sheku) makes her solo debut on Decca with a celebration of Clara Schumann’s bicentenary, beginning with the Piano Concerto which she composed in her early teens; the album also includes the Three Romances for Violin and Piano, the Piano Sonata, and Clara’s transcriptions of her husband Robert’s Widmung and Mondnacht. Released 5th July.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Romantic Violin Concerto Volume 22
Linus Roth (violin), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Antony Hermus
Three real rarities here, two from the late nineteenth century and one from the mid-twentieth: Copenhagen-born conductor and composer Eduard Lassen’s concerto from 1888, Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka’s Mendelssohn-influenced 1894 work, and Rued Langgaard’s single-movement concerto, written in 1943 (between his ninth and tenth symphonies) but unselfconsciously Romantic in style. Released 31st May.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
