New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 24th May 2019
Today’s new releases include the fourth volume of Sir Andrew Davis’s Strauss series from Melbourne, a rare recording of Granados’s 1916 opera Goyescas, the world premiere of a reconstructed Bach cantata composed for a Polish coronation, and a celebration of Emanuel Ax’s upcoming seventieth birthday and long-standing musical partnership with Yo-Yo Ma.
Strauss: Violin Concerto & Don Quixote
James Ehnes (violin), Daniel Müller-Schott (cello), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis
Begun just after Davis was appointed Chief Conductor, the Australian orchestra’s Strauss series has gone from strength to strength (Gramophone described Davis as possessing ‘the easy confidence and command of an instinctive Straussian’, whilst BBC Music Magazine admired the 'impressive lower-brass weight’ in their 2016 Heldenleben); for this fourth instalment, principal viola Christopher Moore steps up to portray Sancho Panza alongside guest soloist Müller-Schott’s ‘knight of the doleful countenance’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Granados: Goyescas
Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Gustavo Pena, Lidia Vinyes Curtis, Jose Antonio Lopez; BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Josep Pons
Currently receiving glowing reviews for her Salud on Juanjo Mena’s recording of Falla’s La vida breve (released in March on Chandos), Canarian mezzo Nancy Fabiola Herrera heads up the cast of another Spanish opera premiered in the 1910s – Granados’s Goya-inspired one-acter from 1916, drawing on melodies from the piano suite of the same name from five years earlier.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Two years on from her debut album Suites and Fantasies (described by The Observer as ‘melding technical assurance with rare artistic sensibility’) the Korean-born British violinist presents a second genre-based recital, opening with the mighty Chaconne from Bach’s D minor Partita, and including works by Vitali, Stravinsky, Bartók, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Panchu Vladigerov.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht & Honegger: Symphony No. 2
Baltic Chamber Orchestra, Emmanuel Leducq-Barôme
The Baltic Chamber Orchestra’s debut album on Rubicon with their French conductor (pairing Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony with Strauss’s Metamorphosen, both written in response to the Second World War) was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice in late 2017; now they turn their attention to two works premiered during the War, Honegger’s 1942 Symphony and Schoenberg’s 1943 arrangement of his 1899 Verklärte Nacht.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
JS Bach: Celebration Cantatas
Miriam Feuersinger (soprano), Deutsche Hofmusik, Elvira Bill (alto), Daniel Johannsen (tenor), Stephan MacLeod (bass), Alexander Grychtolik
Both scores here were reconstructed by the conductor and musicologist Alexander Grychtolik, and Blast Lärmen, ihr Feinde (composed for the 1734 coronation of Augustus III as King of Poland) receives its world premiere recording. It’s followed by the ‘Shepherds’ Cantata’ BWV249a, a secular forerunner of the Easter Oratorio, which was written for the birthday of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels in 1725.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nicola Logroscino: Stabat Mater
Giulia Semenzato (soprano), Raffaele Pe (countertenor), Marcello Gatti (flute) Talenti Vulcanici, Stefano Demicheli
A contemporary of Domenico Scarlatti and Leonardo Leo, Logroscino composed his Stabat mater for the same forces as Pergolesi’s famous setting from 25 years earlier, though his approach is more overtly operatic (Logroscino was a prolific and influential composer of opera buffa, and has been described as a forerunner of Rossini). The album also includes a flute concerto and the virtuosic cantata for soprano Ecco l'ara, ecco il nume.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Cambridge and Midlands-based choirs join forces for a programme of large-scale sixteenth-century choral works including Alessandro Striggio’s sixty-part Missa Ecco Si Beato Giorno (interspersed with chants by Hildegard von Bingen) and Ecce Beatam Lucem, and Tallis’s O nata lux and Spem in alium.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
This musical autobiography of the explorer is divided into four chapters (Genoa – Venice, Madrid-Seville – Córdoba, At the Court of the Catholic Kings, and Valladolid) and features music by Bartolomeo Tromboncino, Alexander Agricola, Juan Ponce, Juan del Encina, Mabranius de Orto, and Francisco de la Torre.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ponchielli: La Gioconda
Anita Cerquetti (La Gioconda), Mario Del Monaco (Enzo), Ettore Bastianini (Barnaba), Giulietta Simionato (Laura); Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Recorded in 1957 (just four years before Cerquetti’s premature retirement from the stage aged 30), this first stereo recording of Ponchielli’s best-known opera won plaudits at the time for the Italian soprano’s ‘intelligence, musicianship, and appealing voice’ (High Fidelity) and ‘dramatic edge’ (The Musical Times); more recently Gramophone described it as ‘a thoroughly authentic, no-nonsense reading’.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
György Ligeti Masterworks
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), Irina Kataeva (piano), Elisabeth Chojnacka (harpsichord), Arditti Quartet, Philharmonia Orchestra, Terry Edwards
Recorded under supervision of the composer and originally released on single albums in the mid-1990s, Sony Classical’s Ligeti Edition includes Esa-Pekka Salonen’s recording of Le Grand Macabre, the Études and Musica ricercata from Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the String Quartets from the Arditti Quartet, and the Nonsense Madrigals from The King’s Singers.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
The American pianist Emanuel Ax turns seventy next month, and this 21-CD box celebrates both his milestone birthday and his long-standing partnership with Yo-Yo Ma; the collection includes their Grammy Award-winning recordings of Brahms and Beethoven cello sonatas (‘masterly performances with exceptionally vivid sound’ - Gramophone), and works by Strauss, Schumann, Britten, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and John Corigliano.
Available Format: 21 CDs
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
