New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 10th July 2020
Elgar's Sea Pictures and The Music Makers from Vasily Petrenko and Kathryn Rudge, Beethoven violin sonatas from James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong, the first complete recording of Nielsen's incidental music for The Mother, and Mozart with a Cuban accent from Berliner Philharmoniker horn-player Sarah Willis and the Havana Lyceum Orchestra.
Elgar: Sea Pictures & The Music Makers
Kathryn Rudge (mezzo), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko
Following much-praised recordings of Elgar’s two completed symphonies and the Enigma Variations, Petrenko and his Liverpool orchestra turn to two great works for contralto and orchestra, with illustrious local girl Kathryn Rudge (who made an outstanding showing on the recent world premiere recording of Parry’s Judith and proved herself a fine Elgarian on a Somm song recital last year) as soloist.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their pairing of the Pastoral Symphony and Justin Heinrich Knecht’s 'Portrait musical de la nature' in February (‘there is an agreeable sense of flexibility, the more striking since there is no conductor’ - BBC Music Magazine), Forck and the Berliners present Beethoven’s first two symphonies alongside CPE Bach’s Symphonies in F major Wq. 175 and Wq. 183.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat & Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Alejandra Gómez Ordaz (mezzo), Jorge Federico Osorio (piano), Orchestra of the Americas, Carlos Miguel Prieto
Following the success of their debut recording of Copland and Chavez, Pan-American Reflections, Prieto and the Orchestra of the Americas turn their gaze in the direction of Spain with two of Manuel de Falla’s most popular works. The programme is completed by two operatic excerpts: the Interlude & Dance from Falla's La vida breve and the Intermezzo from Granados’s Goyescas.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Auber: Overtures Vol. 2
Markéta Čepická (violin), Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Dario Salvi
The second volume of Salvi’s sparkling Auber series (which launched in December 2019) features the overtures from his first stage-work Julie, ou L’Erreur d’un moment (1805), Couvin, ou Jean de Chimay (1812), Le concert à la cour, ou La débutante, Léocardie (both 1824) and Fiorella (1826), as well as the Violin Concerto in D major from circa 1805 and entr’actes from Lestocq, ou L’Intrigue et l’Amour and La Fiancée.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Alongside her work with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the charismatic horn-player Sarah Willis also performs regularly in Cuba, where she founded the ensemble The Havana Horns several years ago; this ebullient album features Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 3 and Rondo K371 alongside a Mozart-inspired ‘Rondo alla Mamba’, a Cuban-influenced Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the song Dos Gardenias para ti (composed in 1945 and made famous by Buena Vista Social Club).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The third release in the duo’s Beethoven series centres on the Spring Sonata, and also includes the early G major Rondo WoO41 and the Six German Dances WoO42; previous volumes have received praise for their ‘clarity of ideas and uncluttered, conversational generosity’ (The Guardian) and ‘the instantaneous rapport and subtle, crystal-clear tonal beauty of the pair’s playing’ (Gramophone).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vienne 1900
Eric Le Sage (piano), Zvi Plesser (cello), Daishin Kashimoto (violin), Paul Meyer (clarinet), Emmanuel Pahud (flute)
This exploration of fin de siècle Vienna from Le Sage and friends includes piano trios by Korngold and Zemlinsky, Berg's Piano Sonata Op. 1 and Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1, and transcriptions of two Mahler songs for flute and piano.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Supported by the Herbert Howells Trust and the British Music Society, this album of world premiere recordings explores a neglected side of the English composer’s output, from the early Summer Idyls (written in 1911 when Howells was a student at the Royal College of Music) to the Petrus Suite, composed between 1967 and 1973. The programme also includes Howells’s memorial for Gerald Finzi, Harlequin Dreaming, My Lord Harewood’s Galliard, and other unpublished works.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Francis Pott: At First Light
Christian Wilson (organ), Joseph Spooner (cello), Commotio, Matthew Berry
On their second album devoted to the music of Francis Pott (b. 1957), the Oxford-based chamber choir present the world premiere recordings of two substantial recent works: At First Light for double choir and solo cello, and Word, described as ‘A Meditation on the Meaning of the Gospel in the 21st Century’ and incorporating texts by the Welsh poet and priest R.S. Thomas.
Read David's interview with Francis here
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nielsen: The Mother
Adam Riis (piano), Ole Bartholin Kiilerich (piano), Palle Knudsen (baritone), Odense Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Andreas Delfs, Morten Heide
Composed for a gala celebrating the reunification of Southern Jutland with Denmark in 1920, Nielsen's score was only published in its entirety in 2007 and receives its first complete recording here.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre make their debut on Pentatone with Mozart’s great unfinished Mass of 1782/3, given here in Helmut Eder's 1985 edition for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, with a small ripieno choir and soloists Ana Maria Labin, Ambroisine Bré, Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Norman Patzke.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart: Mass in C minor (DVD)
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Camerata Salzburg, Salzburger Bachchor, Andrew Manze
Manze takes a different approach to the same work in this concert from last year’s Salzburg Festival, opting instead for a new score reconstructed and edited by the renowned musicologist and Mozart expert Ulrich Leisinger; Sampson (who is also the soloist in Leopold Mozart’s rarely-performed Litaniae Lauretanae) is joined by Marianne Beate Kielland, Benjamin Bruns and Douglas Williams in the Mass.
Available Format: DVD Video
Mozart: Mass in C minor (Blu-ray)
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Camerata Salzburg, Salzburger Bachchor, Andrew Manze
Picture format: 16:9 Sound format: PCM Stereo
Available Format: Blu-ray
Adam: Le Postillon de Lonjumeau (DVD)
Michael Spyres (Chapelou/Saint-Phar), Florie Valiquette (Madeleine/Madame de Latour), Franck Leguerinel (Le Marquis de Corcy); Accentus, Orchestre de l'Opera de Rouen Normandie, Sebastien Rouland
Staged at the Opéra Comique in Paris last April, with costumes by the celebrated fashion-designer Christian Lacroix, this production of Adam’s 1836 opera about a newly-wed coachman who is persuaded to leave his bride and embark on an operatic career by a scurrilous impresario was warmly praised in Le Figaro, who described Spyres’s gullible hero as ‘fit for a king’ and also singled out the young Canadian soprano Florie Valiquette for her ‘treasurable vocal pyrotechnics’ as his estranged and ennobled wife.
Available Format: DVD Video
Adam: Le Postillon de Lonjumeau (Blu-ray)
Michael Spyres (Chapelou/Saint-Phar), Florie Valiquette (Madeleine/Madame de Latour), Franck Leguerinel (Le Marquis de Corcy); Accentus, Orchestre de l'Opera de Rouen Normandie, Sebastien Rouland
Picture Format: HD 16:9
Sound Format: PCM Stereo and DTS-MA 5.1
Available Format: Blu-ray
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