Coming Soon,
A Farinelli homage from Cecilia Bartoli and other forthcoming highlights
Announced today, Cecilia Bartoli’s portrait of the great castrato Farinelli is due out in early November and features music by Broschi, Porpora and Hasse; other autumn highlights include Viennese confections from Jonas Kaufmann, Weinberg chamber music from Gidon Kremer and friends, and Ermonela Jaho’s searing Violetta from Covent Garden on DVD and Blu-ray.
Ten years on from Sacrificium, Bartoli focuses on the most celebrated castrato of them all, Carlo Maria Broschi, with a collection of arias from his brother Riccardo’s La Merope (one of which is a world premiere), Porpora’s Polifemo, Semiramide and La festa d’imeneo, Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, Caldara’s La morte d’Abel, and Giacomelli’s Adriano in Siria. Released 8th November.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following his 2015 album of operetta excerpts and evergreens from 1920s and 30s Berlin, Kaufmann turns his attention to early twentieth-century Vienna with a programme of Johann Strauss II (including highlights from Die Fledermaus, Eine Nacht in Venedig and Die Tänzerin Fanny Elssler), Léhar, Kalman, Weinberger, Hans May, Robert Stolz, Carl Zeller and Rudolf Siecynski. Released 11th October.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Brazilian pianist marks his 75th birthday next month with a selection of favourite encores, including a dozen of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, two Scarlatti sonatas, Shostakovich’s Three Fantastic Dances, and music by Paderewski, Purcell, Rubinstein, Albéniz, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Granados, Mompou, and Richard Strauss. Released 18th October.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
In the wake of a hugely impressive Faust for Christophe Rousset on Bru Zane last month, the French lyric tenor makes his debut on Deutsche Grammophon with excerpts from some of his recent and upcoming roles, including two Rodolfos (from La bohème and Luisa Miller), Verdi’s Duke of Mantua and Alfredo, Donizetti’s Edgardo and Nemorino, Massenet’s Werther and Chevalier des Grieux, and Tchaikovsky’s Lensky. Released 11th October.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Kavakos’s 2013 set of the complete Beethoven sonatas with Enrico Pace was described as ‘vital, joyous…among the very best’ (bbc.co.uk) and ‘a worthy successor to the four-decades-old Perlman/Ashkenazy classic’ (International Record Review); here he directs his first recording of the concerto from the violin, and joins colleagues from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for the Septet and a selection of folksong arrangements. Released 18th October.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Ann-Helen Moen (soprano), Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo), Allan Clayton (tenor), Neal Davies (bass); Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki
Suzuki and the singers of Bach Collegium Japan recorded Beethoven’s final symphony back in 1998, in Wagner’s youthful arrangement of the work for piano, soloists and choir, prompting BBC Music Magazine to observe that ‘if a composer feels impelled to make a piano arrangement of a work so inherently orchestral in spirit, this is probably the best that could be done’; now they tackle the original in advance of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary next year. Released 1st November.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Weinberg: Chamber Music
Gidon Kremer (violin), Yulianna Avdeeva (piano), Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė (cello)
Kremer featured on Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla’s widely-praised recording of Weinberg’s Kaddish Symphony earlier this year, and now joins forces with Avdeeva for the early Three Pieces for Violin and Piano (written when Weinberg was just 15 and had received no formal training in composition) and the Violin Sonata No. 6, dating from the early 1980s but only discovered in 2007; Dirvanauskaitė joins for the 1945 Piano Trio. Released 18th October.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Tchaikovsky & Babajanian: Piano Trios
Vadim Gluzman (violin), Johannes Moser (cello), Yevgeny Sudbin (piano)
Three distinguished Tchaikovskians team up for the Piano Trio in A minor ‘In memory of a great artist’ (dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein) and Babajanian’s late-Romantic trio from 1952; Sudbin’s own arrangement of the Tango from Schnittke’s 1992 opera Life with an Idiot completes the programme. Released 1st November.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Purcell’s patriotic semi-opera on a libretto by John Dryden has been part of Gabrieli’s repertoire for two decades, and this recording uses a new performing edition by cellist and musicologist Christopher Suckling and Paul McCreesh; the cast includes Roderick Williams, Carolyn Sampson, Anna Dennis and Mhairi Lawson. Released 25th October.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Verdi: La Traviata (DVD)
Ermonela Jaho (Violetta), Charles Castronovo (Alfredo), Placido Domingo (Germont); Royal Opera House, Antonella Manacorda, Richard Eyre
Now 25 years old, Richard Eyre’s production is already available on DVD and Blu-ray with Renée Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson, but the impetus for this new release was Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho’s staggering central performance in one of her signature-roles: The Times described her as ‘hugely affecting’, whilst Opera Today observed that ‘if a wrenching portrait of physical and psychological demise is what you’re after, this is a Traviata for you’. (Look out for Katherine’s interview with Jaho about portraying another abandoned woman, Anna in Puccini’s first opera Le Willis, later this month). Released 1st November and also available on Blu-ray.
Available Format: DVD Video
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