New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 27th March 2020
Today’s new releases include a second helping of Korngold from John Wilson on Chandos (this time with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and his violinist friend Andrew Haveron), baroque double concertos with a twist from Giuliano Carmignola and Mario Brunelli, a birthday homage to Leopold Godowsky from the brilliant young Moscow-born pianist Andrey Gugnin, and Haydn, Grisey and Nono from soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan and Ludwig Orchestra.
Korngold: Violin Concerto & String Sextet
Andrew Haveron (violin), RTÉ Concert Orchestra, John Wilson, Sinfonia of London Chamber Ensemble
Following his much-praised recording of the Symphony in F sharp, Theme and Variations and Straussiana with Sinfonia of London last summer, Wilson and his Irish orchestra turn to one of Korngold’s most popular works, with violinist Andrew Haveron (who contributed an eloquent solo in the Méditation from Massenet's Thaïs on Wilson’s recent French album Escales) as soloist.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic brought Shostakovich’s commemoration of the St Petersburg uprising to the BBC Proms last year, receiving what The Times’s Neil Fisher described as 'a deserved standing ovation’ for a performance of ‘tremendous intensity’; like Yvgeny Mravinsky’s 1959 account, the recording uses four church-bells (on loan from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in this case) rather than the standard orchestral tubular variety.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
World premiere recordings of three responses to Beethoven to mark his 250th birthday: Yaniv Segal’s three-movement symphony on themes from Fidelio, Segal and Garrett Schumann’s Sonata for Orchestra (based on the Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor), and Gabriel Prokofiev’s BEETHOVEN9 Symphonic Remix from 2011, described by The Times as ‘an exciting 24-minute rampage…outrageous but still loving’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
I remember being hugely impressed by the verve and vitality of this young Italian’s playing when he directed Il Pomo d’Oro from the harpsichord in a recital with Jakub Józef Orliński at Wigmore Hall just before Christmas, so am looking forward to hearing this first instalment of a projected four-album series of Bach’s keyboard concertos.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bach - Vivaldi: Double Concertos for Violin & Cello Piccolo
Giuliano Carmignola (violin), Mario Brunello (cello), Accademia dell’Annunciata, Riccardo Doni
The Italian violinist and cellist join forces for transcriptions of three concertos originally scored for two violins (Vivaldi’s RV508 and 515 and Bach’s famous BWV1043) and another which was written for two harpsichords (Bach’s BWV1060); the album is the second in Brunello’s series of recordings of violin music transposed for violoncello piccolo, following an audacious account of Bach’s solo violin works which impressed BBC Music Magazine with its ‘lightly worn inégalitié’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This third instalment of Donohoe’s widely acclaimed Mozart series (launched in 2018 and praised by BBC Music Magazine for the ‘compelling vitality and freshness’ of his playing) focuses on works which were composed in the second half of the 1780s, including the Hunt and Alla Turca Sonatas.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French pianist’s first Fauré album Après un rêve (released in 2016) was awarded five stars in BBC Music Magazine and was described by Gramophone as ‘a lovingly conceived programme…rendered with the utmost refinement’; this crepuscular sequel features Lortie’s own transcriptions of two movements from the Requiem, plus a selection of Nocturnes and Barcarolles and the Theme and Variations in C sharp minor.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Six months on from his electrifying debut album of Shostakovich for Hyperion (currently in the running for a BBC Music Magazine award), the Moscow-born pianist marks Godowsky's 150th birthday with this selection of works which were dedicated to him, including music by Josef Hofmann, Felix Blumenfeld, Ignaz Friedman, Eugenio Pirani, and Emil von Sauer.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Haydn’s eponymous Symphony No. 49 is bookended here by Gérard Grisey’s Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil (which he described as ‘a musical meditation on death’ and which turned out to be his final work) and Luigi Nono’s monody for solo soprano Djamila Boupachà, part of the song-cycle Canti di Vita e d’Amore - the piece was inspired by an Algerian militant of the same name who was sentenced for death in 1961 but freed the following year.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Latvian soprano’s second recital-album on her own label includes scenes and arias from Massenet’s Thaïs, Manon, Hérodiade and Le Cid, Charpentier’s Louise, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Faust, Bizet’s Carmen and Les pêcheurs de perles, and Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue; look out for my interview with Marina about the project over the next week or two.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Pärt’s great 1985 setting of the Stabat Mater is the final work on an album which also includes his Da pacem, Domine, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis and The Woman with the Alabaster Box, plus Pēteris Vasks’s Plainscapes (with cellist Oliver Coates) and James MacMillan’s Miserere for double choir, written for The Sixteen and premiered in 2009.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Subtitled Clandestine Catholic Music by William Byrd, the Marian Consort's new album intersperses movements of the Mass in Four Parts (thought to have been funded by wealthy Catholic recusants) with motets including Gaudeamus omnes, Timete Dominum, Infelix ego, and Laetentur coeli.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
