New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 25th September 2020
As well as recordings marking this year’s Beethoven anniversary from Angela Hewitt and Daniel Lozakovich, today also brings a celebration of the 150th birthday of Czech composer Vítězslav Novák (a pupil of Dvořák) courtesy of Jan Bartoš, Jakub Hrůša and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring the early Piano Concerto and the tone-poem Toman and the Wood Nymph. Other stand-out releases include saxophonist Jess Gillam’s Time (featuring music by Michael Nyman, Philip Glass and Björk, among others), Cramer piano concertos from Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players, and Bach motets from Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion.
Shelley and the London Mozart Players continue their advocacy of the English pianist-composer (1771-1858), which began almost twenty years ago on Chandos; reviewing their first volume on Hyperion (featuring Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 and released last June), Gramophone observed that ‘it takes a special kind of pianist to make certain pieces sound better or more important than they actually are, and Shelley certainly knows how to sell Cramer’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Still only nineteen, the Swedish violinist (who made his first appearance on Deutsche Grammophon two years ago with what BBC Music Magazine described as ‘an uncompromising debut album’ of Bach) first performed the Beethoven concerto at the tender age of thirteen and played it with Gergiev in Moscow two years later; this live recording was made in Munich’s Gasteig Philharmonie last December.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Novák: Piano Concerto & Toman and the Wood Nymph
Jan Bartoš (piano), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Jakub Hruša
To mark the 150th anniversary of the Czech composer’s birth, his compatriots present the first-ever studio recording of his Piano Concerto from 1895, plus the tone-poem Toman and the Wood Nymph (written just over a decade later); Bartoš completes the programme with At Dusk (‘Za soumraku’) for solo piano, composed shortly after the concerto’s premiere.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The mighty Eroica-Variations from 1802 are the centrepiece on Hewitt’s Beethoven anniversary album, which also includes the variations on Rule, Britannia! and God Save the King, the Variations on an Original Theme Op. 34 and WoO 80, and the two sets on themes from Paisiello’s 1788 opera La Molinara.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Michael Nyman’s Where the Bee Dances (written in 1991 for Gillam’s teacher John Harle) is at the centre of the exuberant young saxophonist’s second album for Decca, which also includes music by Max Richter, Björk, Anna Meredith, Philip Glass, James Blake, and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.
Listen to Jess discussing the album with Paul Thomas on the latest Presto Podcast here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French early music ensemble made their recording debut with Bach, winning a Diapason d’Or de l’Année for their first volume of Missae Breves on Alpha; the subsequent instalments were equally well-received, with Gramophone declaring the complete set ‘a Bach project of the highest calibre’ and Building a Library selecting it as a first choice for these works. Following forays into Monteverdi, Gluck, Rameau and Mozart, they now turn their attention to the motets, interspersed with works by Bertolusi, Gallus and Gabrieli.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Maltese tenor is accompanied by remastered original recordings made by the master of ‘cascading strings’ during the 1950s and 60s, with tracks including Besame Mucho, Que sera, sera, Charmaine, Spanish Eyes, Edelweiss, and excerpts from West Side Story. Look out for Katherine’s interview with Joseph and Decca’s Dominic Fyfe about the project in the coming weeks.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Brahms: The Complete Songs, Vol. 10
Sophie Rennert (mezzo), Graham Johnson (piano), Lawrence Power (viola)
The young Austrian mezzo Sophie Rennert (whose recent successes include prizes at the International Cesti Festival and the International Mozart Festival) is Johnson’s companion on the tenth instalment of his Brahms song project, which includes the Zigeunerlieder Op. 103, the two songs for contralto, viola and piano Op. 91, Von ewiger Liebe, Die Mainacht, and excerpts from the Deutsche Volkslieder.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This quartet of orchestral works by the British composer (and daughter of Elizabeth Maconchy) takes its title from an RPS Elgar bursary commission on a poem by John Fuller, described by The Guardian as ‘at once timeless and urgently up to date’ at its first performance in 2017; also includes Columbia Falls (1975), Threnody (2015), and the remastered live recording of the premiere of The Hidden Landscape from the 1973 BBC Proms.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Recorded live at Versailles in January, this account of Rameau’s late opera (which was completed in 1763 but didn’t receive a fully-staged performance until the 1980s) was praised by French early music website Baroquiades for Luks’s ‘real mastery of the beating heart of this tragédie lyrique’; the cast includes Belgian sopranos Deborah Cachet and Caroline Weynants as Alphise and Sémire, and Icelandic tenor Benedikt Kristjánsson as Calisis.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
