New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 18th September 2020
Today's new releases include Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie from Mannheim, a second helping of Mozart arias from Swisss soprano Regula Mühlemann, chamber works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, and Jamie Barton making her Pentatone debut in song-cycles by Jake Heggie, with the composer himself at the piano.
The American dramatic mezzo has had huge success as Sister Helen Prejean in Heggie’s 2000 opera Dead Man Walking, and here she makes her first appearance on Pentatone alongside the composer; their programme includes his song-cycles Iconic Legacies: First Ladies of the Smithsonian (written for Susan Graham, who also created the role of Sister Helen), The Work at Hand, and Statuesque. Look out for my interview with Barton and Heggie next week – they were terrific virtual company!
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Magic Mozart
Florian Sempey (baritone), Stanislas de Barbeyrac (tenor), Jodie Devos (soprano), Sandrine Piau (soprano), Loïc Félix (tenor), Lea Desandre (mezzo); Insula Orchestra, Laurence Equilbey
As well as popular arias and ensembles from Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, this ‘enchanted Mozart Cabaret’ also features excerpts from Musik zu einer Pantomime K446 and the early Galimathias musicum, written by the ten-year-old composer on his grand tour of Europe.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Swiss soprano’s second all-Mozart album features arias from La finta Semplice, Idomeneo, Lucio Silla and Zaīde as well as ‘Un moto di gioia’ (an alternative aria for Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro) and the concert-aria Ah se in ciel, benigne stelle.
Available Format: CD
Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony
Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Thomas Bloch (ondes martenot), Nationaltheater Orchesters Mannheim, Alexander Soddy
This live recording captures the Mannheim premiere of Messiaen’s masterwork last autumn, with two Messiaen specialists as soloists: Bloch has previously recorded the piece for Antoni Wit, whilst Stefanovich performs the composer’s music regularly - often with her husband Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who enjoyed a close friendship with him and his wife Yvonne Loriod.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
This collection of chamber works by the British composer (b.1980) takes its title from a 2016 commission from The Schubert Ensemble, praised by The Guardian at its premiere for its ‘vision and radiance’; the programme also includes Frances-Hoad’s first professional commission The Prophecy (for cello and piano), Medea (for solo flute), and My Day in Hell (for string quartet).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Exploring the Italian composer’s impact on musical life in the English capital, French early music ensemble La Rêveuse’s debut recording on Harmonia Mundi features concertos and sonatas by Handel, Geminiani, Schickhardt and Babell, as well as an aria from Nicola Haym’s Pyrrhus and Demetrius - an adaptation of Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Pirro, which marked the London debut of the castrato Nicolini, creator of Handel’s Rinaldo.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The American harpist Parker Ramsay (a former Organ Scholar at King’s) performs his own arrangement of the Goldbergs, described by music critic Tim Page in his extensive booklet-note as ‘both brainy and beautiful, its easy-on-the-ear timbres stimulating, paradoxically, an even more intense analysis than usual’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Toby Young: Beowulf
Elin Manahan Thomas (soprano), Anne Denholm, Timothy West, Toby Young Armonico Consort, AC Academy Warwick, AC Academy Scholars, Christopher Monks
Scored for narrator, soprano, choir, harp, keyboards and children's choir, Young’s setting of the Old English fantasy saga melds folk, classical and pop elements, and was premiered in 2017 (with Harry Potter actor Mark Williams as narrator); conductor Christopher Monks describes the score as ‘captur[ing] all the excitement and drama of this epic story, and the tender moments too’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Giovanni Battista Bononcini: Polifemo
Ensemble 1700, Helena Rasker (alto), Bruno De Sá (counter-tenor), João Fernandes (bass), Maria Ladurner (soprano), Roberta Mameli (soprano), Liliya Gaysina (soprano), Roberta Invernizzi (soprano); Dorothee Oberlinger
This is the first Italian-language recording of Bononcini’s one-act opera from 1702 (a live 1944 version in German, with Anton Dermota as Acis, exists on Walhall); it’s taken from a performance in Potsdam last summer, of which BachTrack observed that ‘every aspect worked and the singing was little short of magnificent’.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
