New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 15th November 2019
Today’s new releases include Beethoven from Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Schubert from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and their new principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, Paganini and Schubert from Vilde Frang, and an homage to the composers of Versailles from Alexandre Tharaud.
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia "Evgeny Svetlanov", Vladimir Jurowski
After last Christmas’s enchanting Swan Lake (praised by The Sunday Time for its ‘exhilarating momentum and orchestral audacity’ and described by Gramophone as ‘up there with the very best’), Jurowski and his Russian orchestra turn their attention to the most festive of Tchaikovsky’s ballets, recorded live at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in January.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fischer Budapest Beethoven series has been on the back burner for a few years whilst orchestra and conductor completed their Mahler cycle (his brother Ádám’s complete Beethoven appeared on Naxos a few months ago); previous instalments have been described as ‘utterly compelling’ (The Guardian on No. 7) and ‘in the Toscanini class in its clarity and verve’ (Gramophone on Nos. 4 & 6).
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This is the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s debut recording with their new Principal Conductor, who took over from Robin Ticciati in September; Schubert’s ‘Great’ was the first work which the young Russian performed with the orchestra, after stepping in for Ticciati at short notice in March 2018, with BachTrack describing him as ‘a dynamo on the podium; even, perhaps, an iconoclast in his approach to Schubert’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Raminta Šerkšnyté - Going For The Impossible
Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinyté-Tyla, Giedrė Šlekytė
Following her superb advocacy for the music of Mieczysław Weinberg with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Kremerata Baltica earlier this year, the Lithuanian conductor explores three works by her compatriot and near-contemporary Raminta Šerkšnyté: Midsummer Song (2009), De profundis (1998), and the ‘cantata-oratorio Songs of Sunset and Dawn (2007).
Available Formats: CD + DVD Video, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
JS Bach: Violin Concertos
Kati Debretzeni (violin), The English Baroque Soloists, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
The leader of the English Baroque Soloists (who appeared as a soloist on Trevor Pinnock's Gramophone Award-winning recording of the Brandenburg Concertos) performs her own arrangement of the harpsichord concerto BWV 1053, flanked by the two great violin concertos; you can read David’s recent interview with her about adapting and transcribing Bach here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vivaldi: Concerto per Violino VII 'Per il castello'
Alessandro Tampieri (violin), Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone
This is the sixty-second volume of Naive’s venerable Vivaldi Edition, and the seventh to explore the ‘Red Priest’’s violin concertos: the focus here is on the surviving concertos from a set of fifteen which Vivaldi composed towards the end of his life and sold to the Venetian nobleman Count Vinciguerra Tommaso Collalto (who was then residing at a castle in Brtnice, the ‘castello’ of the title).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Norwegian violinist pairs two violinist-composers who found inspiration in the human voice in a programme which features Schubert’s Rondo brilliant and Fantasie in C major (both written for Josef Slavík, whom Chopin described as ‘a second Paganini’) and Paganini’s I Palpiti and Introduction & Variations on Paisiello’s 'Nel cor più non mi sento'. Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst’s Grand Caprice on Schubert’s 'Erlkönig' brings the album to a scintillating close.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The French pianist pays homage to composers associated with the courts of the French kings Louis XIV, XV and XVI, including music by Lully, Rameau, Charpentier and François Couperin and less familiar figures such as Pancrace Royer, Jean-Henri d’Anglebert and Claude Balbastre; soprano Sabine Devieilhe (who won a Diapason d’Or for her Rameau album Le Grand Theatre de l'Amour in 2014) joins for ‘Viens, hymen’ from Les Indes Galantes.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
To mark the 25th anniversary of her landmark live recording of La traviata with Sir Georg Solti on Decca, the Romanian soprano returns to the label for a recital including Debussy’s Beau Soir and Nuits d’étoiles, Fauré’s Après un rêve and Mandoline, Strauss’s Morgen! and Cäcilie, Tosti’s Ideale, Sogno and La Serenata, and songs by Gheorghiu’s compatriots George Stephănescu and Tiberiu Brediceanu.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fernand de La Tombelle: Musique De Chambre, Chorale et Symphonique
Artists include Hervé Niquet, Yann Beuron, Pascal Amoyel, Emmanuelle Bertrand and the Brussels Philharmonic
Palazzetto Bru Zane’s ‘Portraits’ series continues with this beautifully-presented collection of works by the French organist and composer (1854-1928), including the Piano Quartet, Cello Sonata and Suite for Three Cellos, the orchestral suites Livres d’images and Impressions matinales, and a selection of mélodies.
Available Formats: 3 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Previously unpublished, these live recordings were made at Milton Hall, Manchester and broadcast by the BBC; the album opens with a complete concert from December 1947, comprising Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Intermezzo from Delius’s last opera Fennimore and Gerda (in an arrangement by Eric Fenby), and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. The final work is Paul Creston’s Fantasy for Trombone and Orchestra, recorded at its British premiere in 1951.
Available Format: CD
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (DVD)
Andreas Schager (Tristan), Rachel Nicholls (Isolde), John Relyea (King Mark), Brett Polegato (Kurwenal), Michelle Breedt (Brangäne); Teatro Opera of Rome, Daniele Gatti, Pierre Audi
Filmed in Rome in 2016, Pierre Audi’s staging of Tristan led Il Messagero to observe that the French-Lebanese director ‘is one of the few who works with Wagner by subtraction, imagining the story in a minimalist dimension’, whilst KlassikInfo praised the ‘ecstasy, emotion and effect unleashed by Daniele Gatti’ and British soprano Rachel Nicholls’s ‘vocally strong’ Isolde.
Available Format: 3 DVD Videos
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Blu-ray)
Andreas Schager (Tristan), Rachel Nicholls (Isolde), John Relyea (King Mark), Brett Polegato (Kurwenal), Michelle Breedt (Brangäne); Teatro Opera of Rome, Daniele Gatti, Pierre Audi
Sound format: PCM Stereo, DTS-HD MA 5.1
Picture: NTSC, 16:9
Available Format: Blu-ray
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
