Coming Soon,
Patricia Kopatchinskaja and other autumn highlights
Late August and early September highlights include Strauss tone-poems from Riccardo Chailly and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the original 1859 version of Gounod’s Faust from Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques (with Benjamin Bernheim and Véronique Gens as Faust and Marguerite), two Falla ballets from Pablo Heras-Casado, and a live recording of Tristan und Isolde with Stuart Skelton and Gun-Brit Barkmin in the title-roles.
Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Concerto funebre is the centrepiece of Kopatchinskaja’s first album with Camerata Bern, of which she became artistic director last year; the programme also includes Frank Martin’s Polyptique (written for Yehudi Menuhin in 1973), John Zorn’s Kol Nidre, and an arrangement of the Kyrie from Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame for violin and strings. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Tod und Verklärung, Till Eulenspiegel & Salome's Dance
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly
The music of Richard Strauss hasn’t featured in Chailly’s discography to date, nor had it figured in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s repertoire until 2017, when Chailly devoted a considerable chunk of their season to the tone-poems; in a five-star review of a live performance of these works shortly before this recording was made, The Times announced that ‘a new era has well and truly begun’. Released on 6th September.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Debussy: Nocturnes and Duruflé: Requiem
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Robin Ticciati
Following their accounts of La mer and music by Ravel and Duparc, Ticciati and his Berlin orchestra continue their explorations of French repertoire; Kožená (who was the soloist on their recordings of Ariettes oubliées and Duparc melodies) returns for the Duruflé, which marks the Rundfunkchor Berlin’s first foray into French music under their British conductor. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Spanish conductor has recorded relatively little music by his compatriots, but this double-bill of two Falla ballets (both inspired by the composer’s friendship with husband-and-wife dramatists Gregorio Martínez Sierra and María Lejárraga) proves to be well worth waiting for; the recording marks the centenary of the premiere of El Sombrero de Tres Picos, which was first performed on 22nd July 1919 with choreography by Diaghilev and sets by Picasso. Released on 20th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Veress: String Trio & Bartók: Piano Quintet
Vilde Frang (violin), Barnabás Kelemen (violin), Lawrence Power (viola), Nicolas Altstaedt (cello), Alexander Lonquich (piano)
German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is the driving force behind this double-bill of Hungarian chamber works, made in partnership with the Lockenhaus International Chamber Music Festival, of which Altstaedt became artistic director last year; the early Piano Quintet is one of Bartók’s least-recorded works, and the String Trio by his pupil Sándor Veress is also a relative rarity. Released on 30th August.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
JS Bach: Sonatas for Viola Da Gamba and Harpsichord
Antoine Tamestit (viola), Masato Suzuki (harpischord)
Back in 2013, Tamestit’s recordings of the Bach Cello Suites arranged for viola were praised in The Sunday Times as ‘a joy to Bachians and viola fans alike’, whilst Gramophone observed that ‘you are left with the feeling that you're listening to the warmest of violas da gamba’; now he joins forces with Masato Suzuki (son of Masaaki) for the gamba sonatas, performed on the same ‘Mahler’ Stradivarius from 1672 which he used for the earlier recordings. Released on 23rd August.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Song Of Love
Kitty Whately (mezzo), Roderick Williams (baritone), William Vann (piano)
This programme of solo songs and duets features the Rossetti cycle The House of Life (almost always recorded by male voices but sung here by Whately in deference to the piece’s first performer Edith Clegg) as well as fifteen world premiere recordings, including French and German songs and settings of texts by the Irish poet Seumas O'Sullivan. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Elegy – Countertenor duets by Purcell & Blow
Iestyn Davies, James Hall (countertenors), The King’s Consort, Robert King
Hot on the heels of his album of Purcell and Michael Nyman with Fretwork, Davies is joined by up-and-coming fellow countertenor James Hall (who created the role of Guildenstern in Brett Dean’s Hamlet) for a programme which includes Purcell's Sound the Trumpet and Since the Toils and the Hazards of War, and Blow’s Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell. Released on 27th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
Christiane Karg (soprano), Matthias Goerne (baritone); Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding
Three years on from their account of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Paul Lewis (one of our Recordings of the Week in April 2016), Harding and his Swedish forces tackle the Requiem, recorded in Stockholm last October; his soloists, too, have both won considerable acclaim for their interpretations of the composer's music. Released on 6th September.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Gounod: Faust (1859 version)
Benjamin Bernheim (Faust), Véronique Gens (Marguerite), Andrew Foster-Williams (Méphistophélès); Les Talens Lyriques, Flemish Radio Choir, Christophe Rousset
Rousset conducts the original version of Gounod’s most popular opera (premiered at the Théâtre-Lyrique in 1859) rather than the more familiar revision from a decade later; this early incarnation includes spoken dialogue, and is closer in spirit to opéra comique than to the grand opera aesthetic of its successor. The title-role is sung by French tenor Benjamin Bernheim, whose debut solo album of opera arias on Deutsche Grammophon will appear later this autumn. Released on 30th August.
Available Formats: 3 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Stuart Skelton, Gun-Brit Barkmin, Ekaterina Gubanova, Boaz Daniel, Ain Anger; West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Asher Fisch
Recorded live in concert last August, this Tristan was described by Limelight as ‘an astonishing gift to audiences and a triumph of music making’; Isolde is sung by Gun-Brit Barkmin, whom Jaap van Zweden described as ‘one of the great singers of the moment’ following her Brünnhilde on his Naxos Ring Cycle from Hong Kong last year. You can read Katherine’s interview with Stuart Skelton about the challenges of singing Tristan here. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This 20-disc collection from the Magginis includes music by Alwyn, Bax, Bliss, Bridge, Britten, Elgar, Ireland, Moeran, Rawsthorne, Rubbra, Vaughan Williams and Walton; the recordings have been praised in Gramophone for the ‘luminous refinement and beguiling tonal beauty’ on display. Released on 13th September.
Available Format: 20 CDs
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