New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 7th June 2019
Today’s new releases include Siegfried from Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé (with Simon O’Neill in the title-role and Rachel Nicholls as Brünnhilde), a Fellini/Nino Rota celebration from Riccardo Chailly and the Orchestra of La Scala, Sibelius from Sakari Oramo, and the world premiere recording of Herbert Howells’s recently-reconstructed Cello Concerto from Guy Johnston and the Britten Sinfonia.
Chailly and the La Scala Orchestra pay tribute to the remarkable collaboration between Federico Fellini and Nino Rota, including suites from Amarcord (1973), Otto e mezzo (1963), La dolce vita (1960), I Clowns (1970), and Casanova (1976). Chailly first met Rota when he was just 21, conducting a student performance of his Piano Concerto with the composer as soloist.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Siegfried
Simon O’Neill, Gerhard Siegel, Iain Paterson, Martin Winkler, Clive Bayley, Malin Christensson, Anna Larsson, Rachel Nicholls; Hallé, Sir Mark Elder
Recorded over two concert-performances in Manchester last summer, the final instalment in this award-winning Ring Cycle prompted The Guardian to describe Elder as ‘a superb Wagnerian, acutely conscious of the complex relationship between tempo and pace’ and to praise The Hallé’s ‘deep fervour and burnished warmth of sound’.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bartók: The Wooden Prince & The Miraculous Mandarin Suite
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki
For their first recording together (Mälkki began her tenure as Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic in 2016), the Finnish conductor and orchestra turn to Bartók’s two ballets: the Concert Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin (which the composer compiled after the premiere was censored on moral grounds) and the earlier fairy-tale The Wooden Prince, a one-act pantomime running to almost an hour.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC
Howells: Cello Concerto & An English Mass
Guy Johnston (cello), Stephen Cleobury (organ), Britten Sinfonia, King's College Choir Cambridge, King's Voices, 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.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Finnish conductor has impressive form when it comes to the orchestral music of his compatriot, with a discography including the complete symphonies with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and a Gramophone Award-nominated account of the Violin Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili; this latest album couples two orchestral suites (the popular Lemminkäinen and the lesser-known Belshazzar’s Feast from 1906) with the early Spring Song.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Zwiegespräche: Holliger & Kurtág
Heinz Holliger (oboe/cor anglais/piano), Marie-Lise Schüpbach (cor anglais/oboe), Ernesto Molinari (bass clarinet/ contrabass clarinet), Sarah Wegener (soprano), Philippe Jaccottet (speaker)
Released to celebrate the oboist and composer’s eightieth birthday last month, Zweigespräche interleaves Holliger’s own music with pieces by his long-standing friend György Kurtág, whose Ein Brief aus der Ferne an Ursula (written for Holliger and performed by him here) opens the album. The programme closes with Holliger playing his own Sonata for Solo Oboe, composed in 1956 and recorded just last year.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The husband-and-wife duo’s second album takes its title from a piece written as a 75th birthday-present for Richard by the American composer John Zorn, and also includes the couple’s own arrangements of Bach’s great D minor Chaconne and Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Mika’s transcription of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, and music by Piazzolla and Thomas McKinley.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For the follow-up to White Light: The Space Between, the older Ticciati brother and his Sweden-based chamber orchestra explore the history of the chaconne (outlawed in seventeenth-century Spanish theatres for being ‘‘lascivious, dishonest, [and] offensive to pious ears’!), weaving their own improvisations around music by Purcell, Pellegrini, Piccinini, and contemporary composers Dušan Bogdanović and Johannes Marmén.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Norwegian violinist’s self-titled debut solo album on Deutsche Grammophon includes music by Philip Glass, Max Richter, Peter Gregson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Brian Eno, Pēteris Vasks, and Leo Abrahams.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Subtitled Psalms, Poems and Folksongs, the London chamber choir’s second album of music by James MacMillan includes the Miserere for double choir (‘MacMillan not only imbibes the plainchant tradition of the medieval masters but embellishes it with his own distinctive touches’ - Financial Times), Ave maris stella, Cecilia Virgo, and Domus infelix est.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Kirkman and the Binchois Consort present of programme of early English Renaissance music dedicated to the fourth-century martyr, including Walter Frye’s Missa Nobilis et pulchra and works by Thomas Byttering, John Dunstaple, and Robert Driffelde.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
George Benjamin: Lessons in Love and Violence
Stéphane Degout (King), Barbara Hannigan (Isabel), Gyula Orendt (Gaveston/Stranger), Peter Hoare (Mortimer), Samuel Boden (Boy/Young King) 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.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
