New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 25th March 2022
Today's new releases include Fanny Hensel & Felix Mendelssohn from Chen Reiss, the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich and Daniel Grossman, live recordings of three Stravinsky ballets from Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, the complete Sibelius symphonies from the Oslo Philharmonic and their new Music Director Klaus Mäkelä, and the final volume of Gesualdo madrigals by Le Compagnia del Madrigale (formerly known as La Venexiana).
This is the debut recording of the 26-year-old Finnish conductor, who succeeded Vasily Petrenko as Music Director of the Oslo Philharmonic in September 2020; reviewing a concert given to mark the 155th anniversary of the composer's birth, BachTrack declared that 'Sibelius’s music is in Mäkelä’s DNA and it was exciting to watch him bring a fresh perspective to the work'. The set also includes Tapiola and fragments of the Eighth Symphony, which were long believed to have been destroyed by Sibelius.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
These accounts of The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring were recorded at the Barbican in September 2017 as part of the LSO's This is Rattle Festival, when Rattle conducted all three works back-to-back and from memory; Financial Times awarded five stars to the live performances, noting that Rattle 'heightened every orchestral colour', whilst BachTrack described the concert as 'an astonishing supersized, superhuman event' and praised 'the security in every part and at every moment'.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fanny Hensel & Felix Mendelssohn: Arias, Lieder, Overtures
Chen Reiss (soprano), Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, Daniel Grossmann
Released digitally earlier in the month, the Israeli soprano's first recording project with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich features Hensel's dramatic scena Hero und Leander, an aria from her Lobgesang (which predates her brother's by nearly a decade) and a selection of her songs in new orchestrations by Tal-Haim Samnon, plus Felix's concert-aria Infelice and his Hebrides Overture.
Read our interview with Chen about Hensel's life & work and her gifts as an orchestrator here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
CPE Bach: Sonatas for Flute and Fortepiano
François Lazarevitch (flute), Justin Taylor (harpsichord)
Following fine recordings of music by Van Eyck, Vivaldi and JS Bach, Lazarevitch pairs up with label-mate Justin Taylor to explore works by the latter' son; most of the works here date from the period when the composer was in the employ of Frederick the Great, himself a fine flautist. Each artist also contributes a solo work: Taylor the Fantasia in F-Sharp Minor Wq. 67 and Lazarevitch the Sonata in A minor for unaccompanied flute Wq. 132.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
In addition to works by Paganini, Bacewicz, Kreisler, Tom Coult and Freya Waley-Cohen, Humphreys's celebration of the caprice form includes new commissions by Seonaid Aitken, Laurence Osborn and Oliver Leith, and a set of variations on Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, with contributors including Sally Beamish, James Joslin, Alexandra Harwood and Stuart MacRae.
Read our interview with Fenella about the genesis of the project here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works For Keyboard, Vol. 6
Benjamin Alard (harpsichord/clavichord)
After five volumes focusing on the early part of Bach's career, Alard tackles Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier, performed on a Hieronymus Albrecht Hass (Hamburg, 1740) and with the preludes and fugues in a new order. It's preceded by the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, for which Alard plays a Johann Adolf Hass clavichord from the 1760s.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The South-African countertenor and the Brussels-based early music ensemble team up for four motets by leading composers from the Neapolitan School (two of which receive their world premiere recordings here): Hasse's Hostes averni & Alma Redemptoris Mater and Porpora's Salve Regina & Nisi Dominus. The album also includes Vivaldi's Concertos for Strings RV 154 and 136.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This album brings La Compagnia del Madrigale's Gesualdo series (which they began under the name of La Venexiana over twenty years ago) to a close; their recording of Book Four was nominated for a Gramophone Award in 2002, whilst its successor was named Building A Library's top recommendation for these pieces a decade later.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Korngold: Die tote Stadt
Camilla Nylund (Marietta), Klaus Florian Vogt (Paul), Markus Eiche (Frank / Fritz), Sari Nordqvist (Brigitta); Finnish National Opera, Mikko Franck
Released on DVD in 2013, this 2010 Helsinki performance of Korngold's brilliantly precocious early opera was awarded five stars by The Guardian, who observed that 'Franck's conducting is to die for', whilst Gramophone noted that 'the orchestra encompass this far from easy (and, surely, unfamiliar) score with great panache for their chief' and also praised Nylund's 'untiring, concentrated, rapturous' singing as Marie/Marietta.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Handel: Saul (DVD)
Florian Boesch (Saul), Jake Arditti (David), Anna Prohaska (Merab), Giulia Semenzato (Michal), Rupert Charlesworth (Jonathan), Rafał Tomkiewicz (Witch of Endor), Andrew Morstein (Amalekite); Freiburger Barockorchester, Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Christopher Moulds, Claus Guth
This strongly-cast production of Handel's oratorio was filmed at the empty Theater an der Wien last April, and won acclaim from OperaWire for Semenzato's 'visually appealing and vocally impressive' Michal and Boesch's 'Academy Award material' portrayal of the unravelling monarch; BachTrack was similarly enthusiastic, praising Arditti's 'convincing depiction of [David's] transformative journey' and Polish countertenor Tomkiewicz’s 'bone-chilling' Witch of Endor.
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
