New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 6th May 2022
Today's new releases include a 7-CD Strauss set from Andris Nelsons and his Boston & Leipzig orchestras, Vivaldi & Bach from Concerto Italiano and Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rachmaninov's Piano Sonata No. 1 & Moments musicaux from Scottish pianist Steven Osborne, and Schoenberg from the Gringolts Quartet.
Nelsons describes this project as 'a dream come true: some of my absolute favorite music...with my two beloved orchestras': highlights include Eine Alpensinfonie, Tod und Verklärung, Ein Heldenleben and the Symphonia Domestica from Boston, and Don Juan, Also sprach Zarathustra and Till Eulenspiegel from Leipzig, plus Don Quixote with Yo-Yo Ma and the Burleske with Yuja Wang. The two orchestras come together on the final disc for the Festliches Präludium, written in 1913 for the opening of the Wiener Konzerthaus.
Available Formats: 7 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Having recorded several Shostakovich symphonies with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Litton explores the composer's lighter side, beginning with the Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 (which he directs from the piano). The album also includes the suites from the ballets The Age of Gold and The Limpid Stream, the Variety Suite which Shostakovich compiled in the 1950s from three film scores, and Tahiti Trot (an orchestration of Vincent Youmans’ hit 'Tea for Two').
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
An Editor's Choice in the April edition of Gramophone, this recording of Vivaldi's 12 Concerti Op. 3 and six adaptations for keyboard by JS Bach was described as 'so good that it feels like the only set a person would ever need'; the performances were also praised in BBC Music Magazine for Alessandrini's 'vibrant sense of theatre'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
As well as Antheil's own Violin Sonata No. 1 from 1923, Kopatchinskaja and Ahonen's programme includes Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor (the violinist describes the composer as 'Antheil's lifelong hero') and shorter pieces by Morton Feldman and John Cage, whom Antheil met during his time in the United States in the 1930s.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
In a five-star review of the Gringolts' recording of Schoenberg's String Quartets Nos. 2 & 4, Classical Ear declared that 'the great virtue of this disc is in the way Ilya Gringolts and his colleagues make Schoenberg’s sometimes taxing language seem so utterly natural'; five years on, they couple the single-movement, tonal Quartet No. 1 from 1905 with the twelve-tone Quartet No. 3 from 1927, partly modelled on Schubert's String Quartet in A minor.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Scottish pianist already has an impressive Rachmaninov discography under his belt: his 2014 account of the Piano Sonata No. 2 was described by MusicWeb International as 'a fantastically thrilling and ultimately enjoyable version of which one feels that Rachmaninov would have thoroughly approved', whilst his set of the Preludes was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2009. This album also includes the Oriental sketch, Oskolki ('Fragments'), and the composer's own piano version of the Nunc dimittis from the Vespers.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The first of several releases marking the pianist and conductor's eightieth birthday this November, this collection of Barenboim's favourite encores was recorded at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin in spring 2020 and includes excerpts from Schumann's Fantasiestücke and Kinderszenen, a selection of Chopin Études, 'Clair de lune' from Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, and the Tango from Albéniz's España.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The seventeen-year-old pianist makes his debut on Warner with a programme of works by four composers who helped to raise money to pay for the statue of Beethoven which was unveiled at the inaugural Bonn Beethovenfest in 1845: Liszt's Sonata in B minor & Grande Étude on Paganini's La Campanella, Schumann's Fantaisie in C major & Mendelssohn's Variations sérieuses (both written especially for the fundraising effort), and Chopin's Prelude in C sharp minor, No. 25.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The final instalment of the Russian pianist's Prokofiev series features the Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 3 and 5 and the Visions Fugitives (premiered in 1918, the same year as the Piano Sonata No. 3); Sonata No. 5 is given here in the revised version which the composer made in 1953. The previous volume in the series was nominated for an International Classical Music Award in 2019, whilst the first prompted BBC Music Magazine to declare Melnikov 'one of the top pianists of our time'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Almost a decade on from their live recording of Winterreise from Wigmore Hall (described as 'a formidable experience' by The Guardian and praised for its 'naked intensity' by the Financial Times), Coote and Drake team up once again for a programme of favourite lieder, including 'Der Tod und das Mädchen', 'Der Musensohn', 'Ganymed', 'Litanei auf das Fest Allerseelen', 'Der Zwerg', and 'Erlkönig'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Those last three songs also feature on the German baritone's all-Schubert programme, which focuses on the composer's depictions of nature, night-time, parting, absence and death, and also includes 'Totengräbers Heimwehe', 'Der blinde Knabe', 'Des Fischers Liebesglück' and 'Abschied von der Erde'. Hasselhorn's 2020 Schumann album Stille Liebe was hailed by Gramophone as 'a compelling debut recital from a young baritone who is clearly one of the most gifted and natural lieder singers of his generation'.
Available Format: CD
Barber: The Complete Songs
Dylan Perez (piano), Samantha Clarke, Soraya Mafi, Louise Kemény, Mary Bevan (sopranos), Fleur Barron (mezzo), Jess Dandy (contralto), Nicky Spence (tenor), Dominic Sedgewick, Julien Van Mellaerts (baritones), William Thomas (bass); Navarra String Quartet
The American pianist's survey of Barber's vocal music includes the posthumously-published songs which the young composer wrote for his aunt Louise Homer, the Mélodies passagères (written for Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc), and Barber's own voice-and-piano version of Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (sung here by the tenor Nicky Spence).
Read our interview with Dylan about the project here.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
On her first solo album, the Italian soprano explores the female protagonists of Ludovico Ariosto, the 'Angelica' of the title being the pagan princess who entrances the hero of his epic poem Orlando furioso. The programme includes Nicola Porpora’s serenata Angelica, plus arias from Luigi Rossi's Il Palazzo incantato, Bernardo Sabadini’s Angelica nel Catai, and Handel's Orlando, Alcina, Ariodante and Amadigi di Gaula.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
These period-instrument performances were filmed live in the restored Hall of Mirrors at Köthen Castle (where Bach was employed whilst working on the Brandenburg Concertos) to mark the 300th anniversary of the works' presentation to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
