New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 7th August 2020
Today's new releases include the Dvořák Cello Concerto from Kian Soltani, Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, a Rachmaninov recital from Sergei Babayan, the first-ever commercial recording of Ethel Smyth's choral symphony The Prison, and a major new project inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Max Richter.
For his first concerto recording, the Iranian cellist teams up with his regular collaborator Barenboim for the Dvořák – a work which he played in London last year, impressing The Strad with his ‘wonderful articulacy and flexibility of phrasing'. The album also includes arrangements (three of them Soltani’s own) of Goin’ Home, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Silent Woods, the first of the Four Romantic Pieces, and Lasst mich allein for six cellos.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Armenian-American pianist has appeared alongside Martha Argerich in Prokofiev and Daniil Trifonov in Chopin for Deutsche Grammophon, but this is his first solo recording on the Yellow Label; the programme features a selection of Préludes, Études-Tableaux and Moments Musicaux, plus Arcadi Volodos's transcription of the slow movement of the Cello Sonata and an arrangement of Lilacs for solo piano.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Outi Tarkiainen: The Earth, Spring's Daughter & Saivo
Virpi Räisänen (mezzo-soprano), Jukka Perko (soprano saxophone), Lapland Chamber Orchestra, John Storgårds
World premiere recordings of two large-scale works by the Finnish composer (b.1985): the song-cycle The Earth, Spring’s Daughter (Eanan, giđa nieida), which sets texts by female Sami poets and was first performed in 2016, and the soprano saxophone concerto Saivo, performed here by its dedicatee Jukka Perko and also inspired by Sami mythology.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This album takes its title from Brett Dean’s 1996 piano quintet, inspired by a Rainer Maria Rilke poem and composed whilst Dean was a viola-player in the Berliner Philharmoniker; the programme also includes Sofia Gubaidulina’s Ein Engel, the first of Wagner’s Wesendonk-Lieder, Rachmaninov’s Muzyka and How Fair this Spot, Schnittke’s Hymn II for cello and double bass, and a transcription of Bach’s chorale prelude Vor deinen Thron tret' ich.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Commissioned by the Barbican, Richter’s large-scale new work is scored for what he describes as a ‘negative orchestra’ (dominated by low frequencies and comprising six violas, twenty-four cellos, twelve double basses and a harp), solo violin, female voices and keyboards, overlaid with crowd-sourced readings from the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in multiple languages.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Reviewing the first two instalments of Giltburg’s Beethoven series last weekend, The Guardian described the Israeli pianist’s approach as ‘refreshingly straightforward, and never contrived’, observing that ‘textures are lean and clear, rubato never overdone’. Giltburg is spending 2020 recording all 32 sonatas (21 of which he is learning over the course of the year) in chronological order, and is documenting his progress on his YouTube channel and dedicated website. Download-only.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Smyth: The Prison
Dashon Burton (Prisoner), Sarah Brailey (Soul), Experiential Orchestra and Chorus, James Blachly
Premiered at the Usher Hall in 1931, Smyth’s choral symphony (which sets text from an 1891 philosophical work by her beloved Henry Brewster, and centres on a prisoner’s contemplation of imminent death) received a handful of performances in the 1930s but disappeared from the repertoire almost entirely for around eighty years. It receives its first commercial recording here.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
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