New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 20th March 2020
Today’s new releases include Rachmaninov recorded and composed in Lucerne, Schoenberg and Brahms concertos from British violinist Jack Liebeck, and Keith Warner’s Die Walküre from Covent Garden on DVD and Blu-ray, starring Stuart Skelton, Nina Stemme and Dame Sarah Connolly.
Rachmaninov composed both the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Third Symphony at the Villa Senar (its name a portmanteau of his own name and that of his wife Natalia), which he built on a plot of land near Lake Lucerne in the early 1930s; for the Rhapsody, the young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov plays the composer’s own Steinway, which was installed in the villa the year the piece was composed.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The British violinist pays tribute to his grandfather on this album coupling two apparently very different concertos, which he sees as sharing ‘a weight and depth to the sonority and a lyricism of line’: Walter Liebeck was a talented amateur violinist who loved the Brahms concerto and (like Schoenberg) was forced into exile from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The Italian period-instrument baroque orchestra celebrate their thirtieth anniversary with a programme of six concertos which were composed for the abandoned or orphaned young girls of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, including the violin concertos ‘per la Signora Chiara’ and ‘per Anna Maria’, for which the ensemble’s founder Fabio Biondi (playing an unreconstructed 1758 Vinaccia violin) is the soloist.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
The husband-and-wife piano duo’s recital of music by the Parisian composers’ collective includes Germaine Tailleferre’s Jeux de plein air, Milhaud’s Scaramouche, Satie’s Parade, Honegger’s Pastorale d'été and Sarabande, Georges Auric’s Cinq Bagatelles, Louis Durey’s Romance sans paroles, and Poulenc’s Capriccio d'après Le Bal masqué.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Weinberg: Clarinet Music
Robert Oberaigner (clarinet), Michael Schöch (piano); Dresden Chamber Soloists, Michail Jurowski
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla’s multi-award-winning recording of two of Mieczysław Weinberg’s symphonies last year prompted a resurgence of interest in the Polish-born composer’s music, and this album collects together his three works with a prominent role for clarinet: the youthful Clarinet Sonata from 1945, the Concerto for Clarinet and Strings from 1970, and the Chamber Symphony No. 4 with clarinet obbligato.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Dvořák: Requiem, Biblical Songs & Te Deum
Czech Philharmonic, Prague Philharmonic Choir, Jiří Bělohlávek, Jakub Hrůša
Recorded at the Rudolfinium in Prague, this album includes one of Jiří Bělohlávek’s final recordings (the foreboding Biblical Songs with Czech bass Jan Martiník, dating from February 2017), and accounts of the Requiem (with Martinik, Michael Spyres, Christianne Stotijn and Ailyn Pérez as soloists) and Te Deum conducted by his student Jakub Hruša shortly after Bělohlávek’s death in May 2017.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French soprano’s eclectic recital on ‘love, death and the sea’ includes Poulenc’s Sanglots, Fauré’s Clair de lune and Au bord de l’eau, Barber’s The Crucifixion, Granados’s La Maja dolorosa, Thierry Escaich’s Le chants des lendemains (with director and actor Olivier Py as speaker), the folk-songs Danny Boy and Woman of Ireland, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Oh my love.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Die Walküre (DVD)
Stuart Skelton (Siegmund), Emily Magee (Sieglinde), Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde), John Lundgren (Wotan), Sarah Connolly (Fricka), Ain Anger (Hunding); Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Antonio Pappano, Keith Warner
Filmed at Covent Garden in 2018, this revival of Keith Warner’s 2012 production stars Australian tenor Stuart Skelton in his house debut, delivering what What’s On Stage described as ‘an expertly dramatised performance in firm, clarion-resonant fettle’; the Evening Standard praised Stemme’s ‘tremendously accomplished’ Brünnhilde, Pappano’s ‘wonderfully fluid’ conducting, and the ‘visceral and thrilling’ bunch of Valkyries.
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Wagner: Die Walküre (Blu-ray)
Stuart Skelton (Siegmund), Emily Magee (Sieglinde), Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde), John Lundgren (Wotan), Sarah Connolly (Fricka), Ain Anger (Hunding); Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Antonio Pappano, Keith Warner
Sound format: LPCM 24-bit stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Available Format: Blu-ray
This 12-disc collection includes albums focusing on Erich Korngold, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann and Miklós Rózsa as well as discs devoted to films starring Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. Soloists include Kiri Te Kanawa, Norma Procter and Earl Wild.
Available Formats: 12 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
