New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 17th June 2022
Today's new releases include a musical journey 'in the footsteps of Rumi' from Ghalia Benali, Kiya Tabassian and Constantinople, Chopin & Rachmaninoff cello sonatas from Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov, Mozart & Voříšek symphonies from Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and Strauss lieder (including the Four Last Songs) from German lyric soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Christoph Eschenbach and the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
Eight years on from their set of Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano (applauded by BBC Music Magazine for the 'rare balance between Melnikov's miraculous transparency and Queyras's airy, limpid elegance'), Queyras and Melnikov team up again for sonatas by two great composer-pianists; Melnikov plays an Érard piano from his personal collection for the Chopin, and a Steinway for the Rachmaninoff.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Sinnbild: Strauss Songs
Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (soprano), WDR Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach
Fresh from her debut in the title-role of Arabella in Zurich, the German soprano has also won considerable critical acclaim as Zdenka in the same opera and as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier; her all-Strauss programme here includes ‘Allerseelen’, ‘Morgen’, ‘Ständchen’ and Wolfgang Rihm’s orchestration of the composer’s final song 'Malven', and closes with the Vier letzte Lieder.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart: Symphony No. 38 & Voříšek: Symphony in D Major
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Herbert Blomstedt
Recorded live at Gewandhaus zu Leipzig in September 2020, these concerts formed part of the orchestra's 'musical journey to the Czech Republic' in memory of Václav Neumann, who served as Music Director from 1964 to 1968. The Czech composer Jan Václav Voříšek was born in 1791 (the year of Mozart's death), and his Symphony in D (composed 1821) remained unperformed and unpublished during his short lifetime; it's coupled here with Mozart's 'Prague' Symphony, premiered in the city in 1787.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Jesper Nordin: Vicinities
Fredrik Ekdahl (bassoon), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding; Quatuor Diotima, Ensemble intercontemporain, Lin Liao
The work of the Stockholm-born composer Jesper Nordin (b.1971) fuses traditional Swedish music with rock, electroacoustics and improvisation, and this album features three works written during what he describes as 'a very important five year period in my artistic development': the 2011 bassoon concerto Vicinities (performed here by its dedicatee), 'The View from Within' (the first movement of the string quartet Visual Exformation), and Sculpting the Air – Gestural Exformation from 2015.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Danish String Quartet embarked on their ‘Prism’ project (which sees them presenting one of the late Beethoven quartets alongside a Bach fugue and a related string quartet by a later composer) back in 2016, with BBC Music Magazine describing the project as ‘an exceptionally rewarding venture’. This fourth volume features Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2 in the same key.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Spanning a thousand years of music history, the German violinist’s solo recital features Hildegard von Bingen’s antiphon Spiritus sanctus vivificans vita, Enescu’s Fantaisie concertante, George Benjamin’s Three Miniatures for Solo Violin, Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 5 in G, and JS Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Tehran-born setar virtuoso and composer Kiya Tabassian has been fascinated by the work of Persian poet and mystic Djalaleddine Rumi (1207-73) for many years, and this project took shape after he met Ghalia Benali - a Tunisian singer-songwriter who possesses what he describes as 'a capacity to transform each moment into a state of wonder and each note into a fascinating story'. The programme sets a selection of Rumi's verses, both in Persian and Arabic, with Tabassian's Constantinople ensemble providing percussive accompaniment.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Following their debut recording on Orchid Dialogo (described by Gramophone as ‘a splendidly satisfying recital on all counts’) last summer, Crawford and Asuncion explore music from Latin America, including Manuel Ponce’s Cello Sonata and shorter works by Brouwer, Villa-Lobos, Piazzólla, Guastavino, and Gismonti. Crawford fell in love with this repertoire after travelling to Mexico for the IX International Carlos Prieto Cello Competition in 2019.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
On This Shining Night
Sophie Bevan (soprano), James Gilchrist (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone), Coull Quartet
Taking its title from a James Agee setting by Samuel Barber (heard here in a new arrangement by Roderick Williams), this programme of music for voice and string quartet also includes Barber’s Dover Beach, Sally Beamish’s Tree Carols, eleven songs by Peter Warlock, and Delius’s ‘I-Brasîl’, Twilight Fancies’ and ‘Young Venevil’ (also arranged by Williams).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary
William Vann, Timothy West, Samuel West (speakers), Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan (sopranos), Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia
Albion continue their celebrations of Vaughan Williams’s 150th birthday with this world premiere recording of the incidental music for Ben Jonson’s masque Pan’s Anniversary, which was adapted for the Shakespeare Birthday Celebration at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1905; the score includes four great hymns to Pan by Vaughan Williams, as well as several dance arrangements by his friend Holst. The album also includes Timothy Burke’s new arrangement of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for voices and string octet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Donizetti: La Fille du Régiment (DVD)
Sara Blanch (Marie), John Osborn (Tonio), Paolo Bordogna (Sulpice), Adriana Bignagni Lesca (Marquise de Berkenfield); Orchestra Donizetti Opera, Chorus of Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Michele Spotti, Luis Ernesto Doñas (director)
Filmed at the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo last November, Luis Ernesto Doñas’s production transfers the action from the Tyrol to revolutionary Cuba; BachTrack deemed the singing of the three principals ‘nothing short of excellent’, praising Blanch’s ‘funny, sweet, and engaging’ characterisation of Marie and Osborn’s ‘overwhelmingly brilliant’ account of Tonio’s ‘Ah mes amis!’ (complete with additional high notes above and beyond the notorious string of eight high Cs written by Donizetti).
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
