Coming Soon,
A Soirée with Magdalena Kožená & Simon Rattle and other forthcoming highlights
Several family affairs feature among the latest highlights for the autumn, with Magdalena Kožená and Simon Rattle teaming up with friends for a recital of Brahms, Stravinsky, Janáček and more, French conductor Raphaël Pichon constructing an ingenious Mozart pasticcio with a cast headed by his wife Sabine Devieilhe, and Daniel Barenboim joining forces with his son Michael and protégé Kian Soltani for Mozart’s Piano Trios.
Soirée
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo), Sir Simon Rattle (piano), Rahel Rilling (violin), Wolfram Brandl (violin), Yulia Deyneka (viola), David Adorjan (cello), Andrew Marriner (clarinet)
The Czech mezzo and her husband (making his recording debut as a pianist) join forces with friends for a programme of songs with small ensemble, including Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle, Stravinsky’s Three Shakespeare Songs, Brahms’s Ophelia-Lieder, Ravel’s Chansons Madécasses, and Janáček’s Nonsense Nursery Rhymes. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Libertà!
Sabine Devieilhe (soprano), Siobhan Stagg (soprano), Serena Malfi (mezzo), Linard Vrielink (tenor), John Chest (baritone), Nahuel di Pierro (bass-baritone); Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon
Another husband-and-wife collaboration for the autumn comes courtesy of Devieilhe, Pichon and Pygmalion: three years on from their Gramophone Award-winning Mozart recital The Weber Sisters, the French soprano and conductor team up with four outstanding young singers for a pasticcio including Mozart concert-arias and excerpts from Thamos, König in Ägypten, L’oca del Cairo and Lo sposo deluso, plus music by Salieri, Soler and Paisiello. Released on 30th August.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos
Jan Lisiecki (piano/director), Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Following on from the success of his conductorless recording of the Mendelssohn concertos with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra earlier this year, the young Canadian pianist directs the Academy of St Martin in the Fields from the keyboard in anticipation of next year’s Beethoven anniversary; reviewing his recent performance of the cycle in Berlin, Der Tagesspiel described his interpretations as ‘refreshingly spontaneous…yet intellectually perfectly formed’. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The fourth instalment of the Finnish conductor’s Mahler series, which began in 2017 with a recording of the Fifth Symphony which was subsequently nominated for a Grammy – you can read James’s full review of that recording (and his first impressions of Vänskä’s approach to Mahler) here. Released on 30th August.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven & Sibelius: Violin Concertos
Christian Tetzlaff (violin), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Robin Ticciati
This is the first collaboration between Ticciati and Tetzlaff on disc, though the pair have been performing together regularly with various orchestras for around five years and have just finished touring the Sibelius concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Tetzlaff has recorded the Beethoven twice before, with Michael Gielen and David Zinman; the latter account prompted The New York Times to describe him as ‘one of the most brilliant and inquisitive artists of the new generation’. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Swiss pianist takes a break from Liszt’s Années de pélerinage (now two volumes in on Orfeo) to make his debut on Pentatone with the last three Schubert sonatas, which he began studying in 2008, receiving guidance from Alfred Brendel along the way: you can read Piemontesi’s reflections on these works on his blog. Last August, he embarked on a mission to perform the composer’s complete piano works, which will continue in partnership with Wigmore Hall over the coming years. Released on 27th September.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Barenboim’s recording of the Mozart Piano Quartets with his son Michael and protégé Soltani (previously principal cellist of Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra) was a Recommended Recording on Radio 3's Building A Library earlier this summer, as well as a Presto Editor’s Choice last August; now they join forces for the complete Piano Trios, recorded live at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin in February. Released on 13th September.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Kolesnikov’s 2016 recording of twenty-four Chopin mazurkas on Hyperion won a Diapason d’Or de l’Année and was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award; this new album includes another nine mazurkas, two impromptus, three waltzes and the Fantasy in F minor Op. 49. Classical Ear described its predecessor as ‘arguably the best Chopin recording I have encountered in recent years’, and MusicWeb International's reviewer deemed it ‘one of the most appealing Chopin discs I’ve ever come across.’ Released on 27th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The German tenor’s currently limbering up to debut heavier roles including Lohengrin and Florestan in 2020, but Mozart stills features prominently in his repertoire – this new album includes arias from roles which he’s already recorded in full (including Tamino, which he sang on René Jacobs’s multi-award-winning Zauberflöte in 2010) as well as Tito, Idomeneo, Belmonte, and Ozia in La Betulia liberata. Released on 20th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Described by The Independent as ‘one of the pre-eminent Baroque tenors of our time’, Lyon has a substantial discography of opera and oratorio to his name (including several notable Handel recordings on Delphian), but this programme of music by Cavalli, Landi, Moulinié, Lanier and Dowland is his debut solo album. Look out for our exclusive interview with him about the project next month. Released on 27th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schubert: Schwanengesang & Brahms: Vier ernste Gesänge
Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)
‘Swan-songs’ may be the theme of this recital, but there’s no suggestion that the Canadian bass-baritone is gearing up for retirement! He and Drake have been working together on Hyperion for nearly fifteen years, notching up Gramophone Awards for their recordings of Britten’s Songs & Proverbs of William Blake, Schumann’s Dichterliebe, and songs by Samuel Barber. Released on 27th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea
Sonya Yoncheva (Poppea), Kate Lindsay (Nerone), Stéphanie d'Oustrac (Ottavia), Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Jan Lauwers (director)
Recorded live at last year’s Salzburg Festival, this Poppea features Jardin des Voix alumna Sonya Yoncheva taking a break from heftier assignments such as Norma and Tosca to return to her early music roots; The Financial Times praised her for ‘bring[ing] a plush, seductive soprano and touch of vulgarity that is not inappropriate’ to the role, whilst BachTrack described her as ‘an all-round artist, as at home in the early 1600s as she is in the late 1800s.’ Released on 30th August.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Rossini: Ricciardo e Zoraide (DVD)
Pretty Yende, Juan Diego Flórez, Sergey Romanovsky, Victoria Yarovaya; Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Giacomo Sagripanti, Marshall Pynkoski
Despite its considerable success during the composer’s lifetime, Rossini’s 1818 opera fell off the radar for almost 150 years until the Pesaro Festival revived it in 1990, and last year they mounted a new production to mark the work’s bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death; the Financial Times hailed the ‘radiant and richly expressive’ singing of Yende and the ‘laser-like precision’ of Flórez in the title-roles, and observed that the young Italian conductor Sagripanti ‘extract[s] maximum detail and electricity from Rossini’s novel score’. Released on 13th September.
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Rossini: Ricciardo e Zoraide (Blu-ray)
Pretty Yende, Juan Diego Flórez, Sergey Romanovsky, Victoria Yarovaya; Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Giacomo Sagripanti, Marshall Pynkoski
Picture Format: 1080i 16:9
Sound Formats: PCM Stereo
DTS-HD MA 5.1
Available Format: Blu-ray
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