New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 24th September 2021
Today's new releases include Price's Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 from Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chopin Études and Scherzi from Beatrice Rana, a second volume of Buxtehude trio sonatas from Arcangelo, and Bellini's Il Pirata starring Marina Rebeka, Javier Camarena and Franco Vassallo.
For her first all-Chopin recording, the Italian pianist couples the Études Op. 25 with the Four Scherzi; reviewing her performance of the Études at Zankel Hall in 2019, The New York Times declared that Rana ‘didn’t just surmount the technical challenges; she made the pieces sound as poetic and colorful as anything Chopin ever wrote’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Recorded at Verizon Hall earlier this year, this digital-only release is the first instalment of a projected series celebrating the work of Price, whose Symphony No. 1 (premiered by Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933) was the first work by an African-American female composer to be performed by a major US orchestra. Nézet-Séguin describes the Third Symphony (premiered in 1940) as a score in which 'every melody feels as if it should be sung'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Buxtehude: Trio Sonatas Op. 2
Thomas Dunford (lute), Sophie Gent (violin), Jonathan Manson (cello), Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
Arcangelo’s recording of Buxtehude’s first set of trio sonatas was nominated for a Grammy in 2017, with The Guardian applauding Dunford and Cohen’s ‘buoyantly beautiful accompaniments’ and Gramophone describing Gent and Manson as ‘master[s] of this music’s sometimes virtuoso demands’; this sequel presents works from the second collection, published in 1696.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following recordings of music by Jean-Baptiste Quentin & Louis-Gabriel Guillemain and Telemann’s Paris Quartets (the latter praised in BBC Music Magazine for its ‘unerring sense of stylistic decorum’), the French ensemble turns its attention to CPE Bach; the centrepiece of the programme is a set of three quartets for continuo, flute and viola which he composed at the behest of a female musician in Berlin during the last year of his life.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Saint-Georges: Symphonies concertantes
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Michael Halász
Born in Guadeloupe in 1745, Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a champion athlete and fencer as well as a noted composer, conductor and virtuoso violinist; this recording features four of his Symphonies Concertantes (a genre which he did much to develop and popularise) and the Symphony in G, premiered in Paris in 1779. A film about his remarkable life is currently in production, starring Kelvin Harrison Jr (It Comes at Night, Twelve Years a Slave) as Saint-Georges.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The German clarinettist, composer and conductor appears in all three of his capacities on this album, which opens with his own Beethoven-inspired concert overture Con Brio, commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mariss Jansons in 2008; Widmann is then joined by bassoonist Diego Chenna for Strauss’s Duett-Concertino, and takes up the baton for Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (one of the works which is referenced in Con Brio).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Adriatic Voyage
The Illyria Consort, Rory McCleery, Bojan Čičić (violin) Marian Consort, Gawain Glenton
Two of Delphian’s most acclaimed ensembles (plus two star soloists) join forces for a programme of sacred and secular music by composers working along the Dalmatian coast in the seventeenth century, including Ivan Lukačić, Tomaso Cecchino, Vinko Jelić, Francesco and Gabriele Usper, Julije Skjavetić (aka ‘Giulio Schiavetto’), and Bartolomeo Sorte.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Born out of the couple’s #UriPosteJukeBox project (which saw them produce a daily video of their at-home performances together during lockdown), The JukeBox Album includes music by Mark Simpson, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Huw Watkins, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Lili Boulanger, and Cécile Chaminade. Look out for David’s interview with the pair next week…
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Born in Łódź in 1929, Magin enjoyed enormous success as a pianist until the injuries sustained in a car accident in the early 1960s derailed his performing career and led him to channel his energies into composition; this album features his Piano Concerto and Stabat Mater, plus the world premiere recordings of his Violin Concerto, Vocalises, and Andante for Violin and Piano.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Francesco Gasparini: Alto Arias
Filippo Mineccia (countertenor), Orchestra Nazionale Barocca dei Conservatori Italiani, Paolo Perrone
Three years on from his survey of castrato arias by Paisiello (praised in Opera Magazine for his ‘well-placed and rounded’ sound and ‘keen awareness for textural nuance’), the Florentine countertenor explores the sacred and secular works of Francesco Gasparini (1668-1727), including arias from the oratorio Santa Maria Egiziaca and the operas Engelberta, Eumene, Antioco, Ambleto, Bajazet, and Tartaro nella Cina.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fleur de mon âme
Karen Cargill (mezzo), Simon Lepper (piano), Royal Scottish National Orchestra Soloists
Following a 'breathtaking' (The Herald) recital of lieder by Gustav and Alma Mahler, Cargill and Lepper present a programme of fin de siècle song by Francophone composers, which opens with Reynaldo Hahn's À Chloris and also includes Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, Chausson's Sérénade italienne, and mélodies by Duparc. Soloists from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra join them for Chausson's Chanson perpétuelle and Joseph Jongen's Calmes, aux quais déserts.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs Volume 3
Mary Bevan (soprano), Nicky Spence (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone), William Vann (piano)
The mainstay of this third instalment of Albion’s Vaughan Williams series (described by American Record Guide as ‘one of the finest testaments to his life’) is the set of Folk Songs from the Eastern Counties, which the composer collected in Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire and published in 1908. The programme also includes the Twelve Traditional Country Dances (arranged for the pianist Maud Karpeles in 1931), and songs from The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs and The Motherland Song Book.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bellini: Il Pirata
Javier Camarena (Gualtiero), Marina Rebeka (Imogene), Franco Vassallo (Ernesto), Orchestra E Coro Del Teatro Massimo Bellini Di Catania & Fabrizio Maria Carminati
Recorded in the composer’s native Catania, this uncut version of Bellini’s 1827 opera includes all of the original cadenzas and variations written by the singers, as well as the rarely performed finaletto. Rebeka, a celebrated exponent of the title-role in Bellini’s later masterpiece Norma, included Imogene’s scena on her 2019 solo album Spirito, which prompted BBC Music Magazine to compare her favourably with Callas.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
