New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 5th July 2019
Today’s new releases include an operatic recital themed around Handel’s ‘rival queens’ Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni, symphonies by Copland and Chávez from The Orchestra of the Americas, Vivaldi arias and cantatas from French contralto Delphine Galou, and Yuval Sharon’s 2018 staging of Lohengrin with Piotr Beczała, Anja Harteros and Waltraud Meier from Bayreuth.
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.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Handel's Queens: Cuzzoni and Faustina
Lucy Crowe, Mary Bevan (sopranos), London Early Opera, Bridget Cunningham
The two British sopranos go head-to-head as the Italian divas Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni, whose alleged rivalry provided much of the inspiration for Handel’s Alessandro; the album features arias from Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Scipione, Ottone and Alessandro, as well as music by Vivaldi, Porpora, Torri, Orlandini, and Faustina’s future husband Hasse.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Born in 1924 in the former Dutch East Indies (where he now resides after spending most of his life in England and the US), Schurmann was a pupil of Alan Rawsthorne, who recommended him to Ealing Studios in the mid-50s as composer for the police drama The Long Arm. Schurmann went on to compose the scores for dozen of films, including The Gambler, Dr Syn alias The Scarecrow, Horrors of the Black Museum, and The Ceremony, all of which are featured here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Orchestra of the Americas and their Mexican music director (recently named Conductor of the Year by Musical America) pair Copland’s Third Symphony with Carlos Chávez’s single-movement Sinfonía India, written in the mid-1930s while the composer was touring the United States for the first time and based on Native American melodies.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following on from their ‘fresh, intelligent and strikingly stylish’ (Gramophone) accounts of the First and Third Piano Trios earlier this year, the Leonore Trio fill in the gap with this recording of the Second Piano Trio, premiered in 1884; it’s coupled here with the 1879 Piano Quartet, which prompted The Times to describe Parry as ‘a musician who is not afraid to obey the dictates of his own inner consciousness’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vivaldi: Arie e cantate per contralto
Delphine Galou (contralto), Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone
The French contralto’s previous recital of baroque cantatas, Agitate (which opened with Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans), won the Recital Category at last year’s Gramophone Awards, and now she teams up with the same musicians for this programme of two solo cantatas (O mie porpore piu belle and Cessate, omai cessate (and arias from Tito Manlio, La verità in cimento, Il Giustino, La Candace, and Tieteberga.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Weber: Euryanthe
Joan Sutherland, Marianne Schech, Otakar Kraus, Beryl Hatt, Kurt Böhme, Lloyd Strauss-Smith, Frans Vroons; Fritz Stiedry, BBC Symphony Orchestra
Recorded and broadcast shortly after Sutherland created the role of Jenifer in Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage (and four years before the London production of Lucia di Lammermoor which made her an overnight star), this was the great Australian soprano’s only assumption of the title-role in Weber’s rarely-staged opera, and comes courtesy of the archives of Richard Itter in remarkably good sound.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Delius: Sea Drift - Vinyl Edition
Roy Henderson (baritone), New English Symphony Orchestra and Choir
Issued to mark the label’s ninetieth birthday this year, this limited edition vinyl re-pressing of the label’s first release feature a ‘needle-drop’ flat transfer of the original 1929 recording from the Delius Festival on the A-side, and a cleaned-up version (refurbished using the latest technology at Abbey Road) on the B-side.
Available Format: Vinyl Record
Released to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Karajan’s death on 16th July, this re-issue of his 1975-1981 Bruckner cycle is presented on nine CDs and a Pure Audio Blu-ray disc, mastered at 24bit/96kHz from original analogue sources (Symphonies Nos. 1-3 were originally recorded in 16bit/44.1 kHz and upsampled for the Blu-ray).
Available Format: 9 CDs + Blu-ray Audio
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
