New Release Round-up,
New Releases from late November and early December 2021
As it's a relatively quiet time of year for new releases, this week we've decided to round up a few of our most popular titles from the past month or so which slipped under the radar the first time around, including live recordings of this year's International Chopin Piano Competition-winner Bruce Liu, songs and solo instrumental pieces by JS Bach and Leo Brouwer from Andreas Scholl and lutenist Edin Karamazov, Madama Butterfly (with US soprano Melody Moore in the title-role) from Lawrence Foster and the Gulbenkian Orchestra, and a red-in-tooth-and-claw Creation from Jordi Savall, Le Concert des Nations and La Capella Reial de Catalunya.
In addition to the 1874, 1880 and 1888 versions of the complete symphony (from new editions by Benjamin Korstvedt), this set includes numerous short excerpts from early drafts and the alternate 'Volksfest' finale to the second version; the recording has been nominated for an International Classical Music Award, and prompted The Bruckner Journal to declare that 'Hrůša’s grip on the shape and structure of the music is utterly secure'.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Canadian pianist took first prize at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition earlier this year, and these live recordings were made during various stages of the contest at Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, with repertoire including the solo version of the Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise, the Variations on Mozart's 'La ci darem la mano', and a selection of mazurkas and études. Gramophone recently described the album as 'one of the most distinguished Chopin recitals of recent years, full of maturity, character and purpose'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following acclaimed recordings of the Goldberg Variations (hailed in BBC Music Magazine for its 'pleasing blend of intellectual rigour, robust declamation and leisurely reflection') and the Keyboard Concertos (a Building A Library Choice in 2018), Staier approaches The Well-Tempered Clavier 'from the north face', with Book I to follow at an as-yet unspecified date...Staier plays a 2004 Paris copy of an instrument by Hieronymus Albrecht Hass, itself dating from the mid-1730s.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Almost three decades on from his first recording of the Lute Suites on BIS, Lindberg revisits No. 4 in the company of the Rauwolf Lute, built as a seven- or eight-course instrument in Augsburg around 1590 and upgraded to eleven courses during Bach's lifetime; reviewing his previous recording on the instrument, BBC Music Magazine observed that 'Rauwolf highlights the variegated colours of the music (far more than a modern lute could), and its lower courses have a plangent resonance'. The programme also includes Lindberg's own arrangements of the Cello Suite No. 1 and Sonata No. 1 for solo violin.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This recital of solo and chamber music by Ruth Gipps takes its title from a piano piece written towards the end of her life in 1989, and also includes the Theme and Variations Op. 57a (a transcription of the third movement of her Symphony No. 3), The Fairy Shoemaker (1929), the Scherzo and Adagio for Unaccompanied Cello (1987), and The Ox and the Ass - an 'Introduction and Carol' for double bass and chamber orchestra (given here in the version for double bass and piano).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
1 2 3 11
Barnaby Robson (clarinet), Fiona Harris (piano), Simon Chamberlain (piano), Rebecca Chamber (viola)
This programme of twentieth- and twenty-first-century works for clarinet opens with Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint (a collaboration with sound-designer Martin Cantwell), and features world premiere recordings of the 1946 version of Herbert Howells's Clarinet Sonata, George Fenton’s Snow Leopard (originally written for the BBC series Planet Earth), Roderick Williams's Red Herring Blues, and Graham Fitkin’s Cusp for solo clarinet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Conceived as 'an encounter between contemporary Cuba and baroque Germany', Scholl and Karamazov's programme includes Brouwer's An Idea (Passacaglia for Eli), excerpts from the Canciones Amatorias and Omaggio a Szymanowski, Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 and Jesu, bleibet meine Freude, and three of Brouwer's arrangements of English folk-songs: I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger, Down by the Salley Gardens, and O Waly, Waly.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Haydn: Die Schöpfung
Yeree Suh (soprano), Tilman Lichdi (tenor), Matthias Winckhler (baritone); La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall
Recorded in Catalonia in May and released in mid-November, Savall's period-instrument account of Die Schöpfung was Record of the Week on Record Review last month, and was described by Early Music Review as ' the product of the cumulative experience of one of the great musicians of our day'; The Times's Geoff Brown, meanwhile, praised the orchestral playing to the skies, declaring that 'the first chord almost made me jump from my chair, though since this represented the world in chaos, who could expect a trim pianissimo?'.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Tree
The Choir of St John's College Cambridge, Yale Schola Cantorum, Andrew Nethsingha, Christopher Robinson
This tribute to former St John's directors Christopher Robinson and David Hill (released to mark their 85th and 65th birthdays respectively) sees the choir augmented by singers from Yale as well as previous members and friends, with nearly 500 voices taking part in the recording; the programme includes works by three St John's alumni (Herbert Howells, Jonathan Harvey, and Robinson himself), music by Hildegard von Bingen, Elgar, Stanford and Parry, and James Long's Sicut Aquilae (commissioned specially for this project).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Melody Moore (Butterfly), Stefano Secco (Pinkerton), Elisabeth Kulman (Suzuki), Lester Lynch (Sharpless); Coro & Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lawrence Foster
After collaborating on Verdi's Otello (2017) and Puccini's La fanciulla del West (released earlier this year), American soprano Melody Moore, baritone Lester Lynch and Lawrence Foster join forces again for a studio recording of one of Puccini's most popular operas. Moore has also recently recorded the title-role in Tosca for Pentatone, as well as a tribute to Renata Tebaldi (marking the 100th anniversary of the great Italian soprano's birth next year): more news on both of these projects coming soon!
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Weinberg: Die Passagierin
Dshamilja Kaiser (Lisa), Nadja Stefanoff (Marta), Will Hartmann (Walter), Markus Butter (Tadeusz), Chor Der Oper Graz, Grazer Philharmoniker, Roland Kluttig
Written in 1968 but premiered only in 2006 (in a concert-version in Moscow), Weinberg's opera receives its first commercial audio recording here; set on an ocean-liner headed for Brazil, the work centres on a former concentration-camp guard who thinks she recognises a fellow passenger as an inmate whom she manipulated and tormented, although her suspicions regarding the woman's identity are never explicitly confirmed...
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This production of Zender's 1993 'composed interpretation' of Schubert's song-cycle was filmed in Zürich this February, two years after Spuck's staging was awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse; reviewing the live-stream, BachTrack observed that 'Spuck’s dances build a continuing and absorbing momentum in ever-changing permutations' and praised Swiss tenor Mauro Peter's 'outstanding' vocal performance.
Available Format: DVD Video
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
