New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 21st February 2020
Today’s new releases include the Chopin Piano Concertos from Benjamin Grosvenor, Louise Farrenc from Christoph König and the Solistes Européens Luxembourg, songs by the Boulanger sisters from Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës, and a documentary on the Russian prima ballerina Natalia Osipova.
Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Elim Chan
Grosvenor describes Chopin as ‘the first composer to whom I felt a strong connection as a child’ (he included a selection of the scherzos and nocturnes on his debut album in 2011, which was described as ‘quite superlative in every way’ by International Record Review and won two Gramophone Awards), and for his first recording with orchestra in eight years he pairs the two concertos, which he will perform across Europe and the US throughout the spring.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their ‘splendid advocacy’ (BBC Music Magazine) of the French composer-pianist’s Second and Third symphonies in 2018, König and his Luxembourg orchestra turn to her German-influenced First Symphony from 1842, two Overtures composed in 1834 (one of which was admired by Berlioz), and the Grand Variations on a Theme by Count Gallenberg for piano and orchestra.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The American orchestra’s first recording with their current music director is also the first release on their own label, launched in partnership with LSO Live (for whom Noseda has recorded Verdi’s Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem, and three Shostakovich symphonies); the recording was made live in concert at the Kennedy Center last June, with Washington Classical Review praising the ‘warm nostalgia’ conjured in the Copland, and the ‘brilliant sense of attack’ in the finale of the Dvořák.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Recorded in February 2016, the French conductor’s farewell to a house with which he had been associated for over half a century features the overtures to Beethoven’s Egmont and Verdi’s La forza del destino, Ravel’s Boléro, and Offenbach’s Barcarolle (Les contes d’Hoffmann) and Can-can (Orphée aux Enfers).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
To mark the (unusually early!) beginning of Lent next week, St John’s present a complete service for Ash Wednesday, recorded live in the chapel last year and including prayers and readings; the programme features Allegri’s Miserere, Weelkes’s Short Service, the Byrd Responses and Ne irascaris, Domine.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Hot on the heels of Nicholas Phan and Myra Huang’s excellent Clairières last month, here’s another fine lyric tenor championing the music of the Boulanger sisters: Nadia’s Les heures claires (composed in 1909 and setting texts by the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren) is the mainstay of the programme, which also includes Lili’s Quatre Chants on poems by Maeterlinck and Bertha Galeron de Calone.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their 2017 recording of Dvořák’s Cypresses on Supraphon, Breslik and Pechanec turn their attention to another Czech depiction of ‘a young lad in love’ (as Dvořák described his own cycle), Janáček’s vanishing farm-boy; the album also includes the Detva Songs (or ‘Brigand’s Ballads’) from 1916 and the Six Folksongs Which Eva Gabel Sang from 1909.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Francesco Morlacchi: Tebaldo e Isolina
Virtuosi Brunensis, Poznań Camerata Bach Choir, Antonino Fogliani
The Perugia-born Morlacchi (1784-1841) spent most of his career as music director of the Dresden Opera, but this most successful of his operas received its premiere at Venice’s La Fenice (with the celebrated castrato Giovanni Velluti as Tebaldo) and went on to be widely performed across Europe throughout the 1820s; this recording uses the revised version which Morlacchi prepared for Dresden in 1825.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schiff’s late-night performance of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier at the 2017 BBC Proms was described as ‘a thoughtful, sober, even understated performance’ by The Independent and ‘a Bach masterclass' by BachTrack, whilst The Times observed that ‘his playing has a sort of universality in its immaculateness, an archetypal quality.’ Book One was released on DVD and Blu-ray last month.
Available Format: DVD Video
Picture format: HD 16:9
Sound format: PCM stereo and DTS-MA 5.1
Available Format: Blu-ray
Directed by BAFTA-winner Gerry Fox, this documentary follows the Russian ballet star as she prepares for her fifth season as a principal at The Royal Ballet; we see Osipova in rehearsal for a revival of Natalia Makarova’s La Bayadère (which is also released on Opus Arte today) and two new works, Arthur Pita’s The Mother and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Medusa, and in conversation about her childhood and early career in America.
Available Format: DVD Video
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 + Master Audio 5.1
Aspect Ratio: 1080i / 16:9
Available Format: Blu-ray
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