New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 21st January 2022
Today's new releases include a celebration of 'the art of French song' from Roderick Williams and Roger Vignoles, the CD release of the 2022 New Year's Day Concert from Vienna with Daniel Barenboim, Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin from Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton, and Bob Chilcott's cradle-to-grave choral work Circlesong, setting indigenous poetry from North America.
Barenboim's third New Year's Day Concert opens with two works which were chosen to celebrate the return of a live audience, following last year's broadcast from an empty Musikverein: Josef Strauss's Phönix-Marsch and Johann Strauss II's Phönix-Schwingen Waltz. DVD and Blu-ray editions will follow next Friday.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Havergal Brian: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 17
New Philharmonia Orchestra; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Stanley Pope
Newly remastered from the original broadcast tapes, these BBC recordings capture the premieres of these two symphonies, given in 1974 and 1976 respectively; the Third Symphony was completed in 1932, and the Seventeenth in 1961. Both recordings receive their first commercial release here, supplemented with extensive notes by Havergal Brian scholar John Pickard.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Sir William Walton: A Centenary Celebration
Roderick Williams (baritone), Tamsin Dalley (mezzo), Kevin Whately (narrator), Orchestra of the Swan, Bruce O'Neil
This album marks the 100th anniversary of the first private performance of Walton and Sitwell’s Façade, which took place at Sitwell's London home on 24th January 1922 (the public premiere followed a year later, at the Aeolian Hall); it's followed here by Edward Watson’s chamber version of the music for Henry V, with Inspector Morse and Lewis star Kevin Whately stepping into the shoes of Sir Laurence Olivier.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
It's still relatively unusual to hear this voice-type in Schubert's song-cycle: Davies himself recounted meeting with resistance to the idea from concert-promoters when we spoke back in 2017. But over the past couple of years he's been programming the work with great success: reviewing a performance at Middle Temple Hall shortly after that interview, Opera Today observed that 'the clear tone and freshness of Davies’ countertenor bestowed some dramatic advantages...and even "weaknesses" could be used to advantage in his interpretation'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This celebration of 'the Art of French Song' features Fauré's Mirages, Caplet's Cinq Ballades Françaises, Honegger's Petit Cours de Morale, Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, Honegger's Saluste du Bartas and Poulenc's Deux poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire, as well as the world premiere recording of Williams's own song-cycle Les ténèbres de l'amour (on texts by Verlaine).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This third and final volume of Gilchrist and Williamson's acclaimed British Song series includes Peter Dickinson's Four W.H. Auden Songs, Madeleine Dring's Five Betjeman Songs, Geoffrey Poole's The Eye of the Blackbird, John Woolrich's The Unlit Suburbs, and Williamson's The Little That Was Once A Man, which was written specially for Gilchrist and sets poems by Bryan Heiser.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chilcott: Circlesong
Houston Chamber Choir, Treble Choir of Houston, Marianna Parnas-Simpson, Robert Simpson
Based on poetry from the Chinook, Comanche, Dakota, Eskimo, Iroquois, Kwakiutl, Navajo, Ojibwa, Pueblo, Seminole, Sioux and Yaqui traditions, this thirteen-movement work charts seven stages of life - from birth and childhood to adulthood, middle age and death. The album also includes four shorter works: Like a Rainbow, All Things Pass, Circles of Motion, and Walking the Red Road.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Fidelio
Lise Davidsen (Leonore), David Butt Philip (Florestan), Georg Zeppenfeld (Rocco), Simon Neal (Don Pizarro), Amanda Forsythe (Marzelline), Robin Tritschler (Jaquino), Egils Siliņš (Don Fernando); Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Antonio Pappano, Tobias Kratzer
Filmed at Covent Garden last March shortly before theatres went dark (British tenor David Butt Philip replaced a COVID-stricken Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan for this performance), Kratzer's production was very much a game of two halves, with a broadly traditional first act giving way to something more postmodern in the second. Praise for Davidsen in her stage debut as Leonore was near-unanimous, with The Guardian applauding her 'superbly controlled and beautifully equalised' singing and The Telegraph declaring that her performance alone 'justifie[d] the price of any ticket'.
Available Format: DVD Video
Verdi: Rigoletto
Luca Salsi (Rigoletto), Javier Camarena (Il Duca di Mantova), Enkeleda Kamani (Gilda), Alessio Cacciamani (Sparafucile), Caterina Piva (Maddalena); Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Riccardo Frizza, Davide Livermore
This DVD captures a performance in Florence last February, given without a live audience due to COVID restrictions; the British Theatre Guide described Albanian soprano Kamani's Gilda as 'the most significant triumph of the production', whilst also noting that 'there have been many fine Rigolettos of recent memory. Salsi is among the best'.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
