New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 8th May 2020
Today's new releases include Beethoven concertos from Inon Barnatan and Martha Argerich, a postcard from Spain and South America courtesy of Tabea Zimmermann and Javier Perianes, Schubert and Beethoven from Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside, and Tobias Kratzer's provocative new production of Tannhäuser from last year's Bayreuth Festival.
The second half of the Israeli pianist’s Beethoven diptych with ASMF features Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 5, the composer’s own arrangement of his Violin Concerto, and the Choral Fantasy (with soloists including Toby Spence, Lydia Teuscher, and Neal Davies). Volume One was described as ‘at once classy and unaffected’ by BBC Music Magazine, whilst Fanfare observed that ‘the performances take on a feeling of real authority and a sublimity of expression’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Taking its title from the best-known movement of Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras (the album’s centrepiece), this journey through Spain and South America also includes Falla’s Siete Canciones populares españolas, Montsalvatge’s Canciones Negras, Granados’s Tonadillas en un estilo antiguo, and music by Pablo Casals, Albéniz, and Piazzólla.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schubert: Schwanengesang & Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte
Roderick Williams (baritone), Iain Burnside (piano)
This is the second instalment of Williams and Burnside's projected survey of Schubert's three great cycles, following an 'intelligently, thoughtfully and beautifully sung' (Gramophone) Schöne Müllerin last summer. You can read Katherine's 2016 interview with Williams about his relationship with Schubert's songs here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Finnish maestro conducts two works by his namesake: the 1889 Symphony in D minor, and the rarely recorded early symphonic poem Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne, based on a Victor Hugo text which also inspired a Liszt work of the same name fifteen years earlier.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Founded in 2008, Kammerorchester Wien - Berlin make their Deutsche Grammophon debut with the world premiere recording of Schnittke’s 1979 Concerto for Piano and Strings, flanked by Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Lutosławski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini (originally scored for piano and orchestra but arranged here for piano and percussion by Alexander Warenberg).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Grieg: Holberg Suite
Martha Argerich (piano), Mito Chamber Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa
Recorded live in Japan last May, this is only the second-ever collaboration on disc of two veteran artists whose friendship has spanned four decades, following a 2017 recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the same orchestra; reviewing that earlier issue, Gramophone declared that ‘Argerich remains indefatigable and, on this evidence, Ozawa may be entering a glorious Indian summer of creativity.’
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: Orchestral Works Vol. 4
Michael McHale (piano) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson
The fourth volume of Wilson's survey of orchestral works by his late friend and mentor comprises the Piano Concerto (premiered by Stephen Kovacevich in 1968), Troubadour Music (based on a thirteenth-century minstrel song), the 1982 BBC commission Anniversaries, and the Aubade for Orchestra.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their much-praised recording of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom last year (which won Best Choral Recording at the International Classical Music Awards in January), Klava and Co. complete their survey of Tchaikovsky’s complete choral works with this album centring on the All-Night Vigil; the programme also includes The Angel Cried Out and the Hymn to Cyril and Methodius.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Tannhäuser (DVD)
Stephen Gould (Tannhäuser), Lise Davidsen (Elisabeth), Elena Zhidkova (Venus), Markus Eiche (Wolfram von Eschenbach), Stephen Milling (Hermann), Bayreuth Festival, Valéry Gergiev (conductor), Tobias Kratzer (director)
Filmed at last year’s Festival, Tobias Kratzer’s controversial new production was described as ‘intelligent and surprisingly wrenching’ by The New York Times and praised by Limelight Magazine for its ‘inventive contemporary relevance’. It features the Bayreuth debut of Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, whose singing was hailed as ‘the kind of revelatory music-making that Bayreuth should be delivering all the time’ in the Financial Times.
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
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