New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 4th February 2022
Today's new releases include late Beethoven sonatas from Angela Hewitt, Bach's solo violin sonatas and partitas from Leonidas Kavakos, Handel's Apollo e Dafne and Armida abbandonata from Il Pomo d'Oro, and John Williams from the Berliner Philharmoniker (with the composer himself at the helm).
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano), Elisabeth Höngen (alto), Hans Hopf (tenor), Otto Edelmann (bass); Festspielorchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Wilhelm Furtwängler
This performance of the Ninth took place on 29th July 1951, to mark the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival after seven years of silence following the Second World War; the concert was broadcast by Bavarian Radio and transmitted across the world. This recording uses Swedish Radio's digitisation of the original analogue mono tape, and reproduces the broadcast as it would have been heard by listeners at the time - including audience noise, the welcome announcement, applause, and closing remarks.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Released to mark Williams's 90th birthday next week, this recording was made over the course of a series of sold-out concerts in Berlin last October, when the great film-music composer and conductor made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker. The programme opens with the Olympic Fanfare and Theme (written for the 1984 Olympic Games), and also includes the Elegy for Cello and Orchestra, suites from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Far and Away, and excerpts from Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Formed in 1964 (the year before Birtwistle's breakthrough work Tragoedia was premiered), the Nash Ensemble has enjoyed a close relationship with the composer for decades, and this album features two works which they commissioned: the closing two movements of the Oboe Quartet (premiered in stages between 2009 and 2011), and the Duet for Eight Strings from 2018, which Birtwistle describes as ‘a string quartet for two players'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ondřej Adámek: Follow Me; Where Are You?
Isabelle Faust (violin), Magdalena Kožená (mezzo), Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Peter Rundel, Sir Simon Rattle
Born in Prague in 1979, Adámek has worked closely with Ensemble Intercontemporain and the late Pierre Boulez, Klangforum Wien, and the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra. Both works here were commissioned by musica viva: the violin concerto Follow me was premiered (with Faust as soloist) in 2017, whilst the song-cycle Where Are You? (which draws on sources as diverse as the Bhagavad Gita, Moravian folksong, Sevillian chant and the Bible) received its first performance last year.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Hewitt concludes her Beethoven sonatas cycle (which she embarked upon in 2006) with two works which she added to her repertoire only recently; reviewing the results in the latest issue of Gramophone, Jed Distler declared that 'it appears that she has also saved her best for last, interpretatively speaking', praising her 'rapt concentration, hypnotic continuity and sustaining power'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Hope's all-American programme includes Price's Adoration, excerpts from Copland's Rodeo and Old American Songs, 'Come Sunday' from Ellington's Black, Brown & Beige Suite, new suites on West Side Story and songs by Weill and Gershwin, and Sam Cooke's 'A Change is Gonna Come' (with guest vocalist Joy Denalane). Paul Bateman's new arrangements are scored for solo violin plus a variety of forces, including piano, jazz trio, and string/chamber orchestra.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Greek violinist plays the 1734 ‘Willemotte’ Stradivarius on his first recording of these works, made in Berlin in December 2020; reviewing the set last month, The Guardian hailed his 'intense, silken, mercurial' sound and combination of 'fire and grace', whilst Gramophone noted that 'every line seems sharply etched, and Kavakos takes unusual care to balance the voices'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Bach: Cantatas Nos 35 & 169
Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor), Carolyn Sampson (soprano), John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Neal Davies (bass); Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
As well as the cantatas Gott soll allein mein Herze haben and Geist und Seele wird verwirret (which bookend the programme), this recording includes Buxtehude's Klag-Lied (a postlude to Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfarth, performed at the composer's father’s funeral) and Schütz's Erbarm dich mein, O Herre Gott, written during his time as Kapellmeister at the royal court in Dresden.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Handel: Apollo e Dafne & Armida abbandonata
Kathryn Lewek (soprano), John Chest (baritone), Il Pomo d'Oro, Francesco Corti
Following their widely acclaimed recording of Agrippina in 2020, Il Pomo d'Oro present two secular cantatas which were also inspired by Handel's three-year stint in Italy in the 1700s: Apollo e Dafne (based on a story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and completed in Hannover in 1710), and Armida abbandonata, thought to have been premiered in Italy by Margherita Durastanti (who would later create the title-roles in Agrippina and Radamisto).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Grimaldi and Bushakevitz's recital features songs by nine women composers whose lives span the years 1821–1964: Cécile Chaminade, Pauline Viardot, Augusta Holmès, Mel Bonis, Juliette Folville, Armande de Polignac, Gabrielle Ferrari, Hélène-Frédérique de Faye-Jozin, and Marguerite Béclard d'Harcourt. A former pupil of Teresa Berganza, Grimaldi specialises in chansons and mélodies of the Belle Époque, and has also enjoyed considerable success in French baroque opera.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
