New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 1st July 2022
Today's new releases include playful Haydn from the Kammerorchester Basel & Giovanni Antonini, Mouton's Missa Faulte d’argent and motets from the Brabant Ensemble and Stephen Rice, French trumpet concertos from Håkan Hardenberger and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and the world premiere recording of a powerful new song-cycle for tenor and string quartet by Nico Muhly.
The twelfth volume of Antonini's acclaimed HAYDN2032 project - which is due for completion in time for the composer's tercentenary - centres on the theme of ‘games and pleasures': the three Haydn symphonies here (Nos. 61, 66 and 69) were composed for the daily theatrical performances held at Eszterháza Palace in spring 1776, whilst the little 'Toy Symphony' (variously attributed to Haydn, his younger brother Michael, and Leopold Mozart) is now thought to be the work of Benedictine monk Edmund Angerer.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Born in Bavaria in 1788, Schmitt spent much of his career in Frankfurt and acquired a fine reputation as a teacher, with pupils including Ferdinand Hiller; Chopin described him as 'a very competent person', but noted that his success as a composer-pianist was perhaps hampered by his fondness for writing 'eighty-year-old music'. This album features the first two of his four piano concertos (dates of composition uncertain) and the Rondeau brillant from 1839, which impressed Robert Schumann thanks to Schmitt's 'correctness, clearness, [and] flow in writing'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This is the world premiere recording of the Missa Faulte d’argent, which makes use of a chanson which also found its way into Jean Richafort's Requiem; a selection of Mouton's motets (including 'Gaude virgo Katherina', 'Benedicam Dominum', 'Illuminare, illuminare, Jerusalem' and 'O quam fulges in aetheris') also receive their first recordings. The Brabant's 2012 recording of Mouton's Missa Tu es Petrus received five stars in BBC Music Magazine and was described by The Observer as 'polished, flexible, lean and – exactly what you want here – transcendent'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Messiaen - Ravel - Schoenberg
Francesco Piemontesi (piano), Orchestre de La Suisse Romande, Jonathan Nott
Continuing their series of twentieth-century masterpieces, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and its Music and Artistic Director are joined by fellow Pentatone artist Francesco Piemontesi for Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques, Schoenberg's Piano Concerto and Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. Reviewing the Nott and the OSR's previous recording (featuring music by Schoenberg and Debussy), Gramophone observed that 'it’s wonderful to hear the orchestra in such good shape under Nott', whilst BBC Music Magazine applauded the 'consistent loveliness' of the playing.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
A pupil of Carl Loewe (who declared to her that 'such a God-given talent as yours has not been bestowed upon any other person I know'), Mayer devoted herself to composition relatively late in life, and also served as co-director of the Opera Academy in Berlin. The two symphonies here were premiered in 1850 (No. 3, subtitled the 'Military') and 1853 (No. 6), shortly after Mayer moved to Berlin to study with Adolph Bernhard Marx and Wilhelm Wieprecht.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Complete Works for Violin & Piano
Midori Komachi (violin), Simon Callaghan (piano)
In addition to the original violin and piano version of The Lark Ascending, Komachi and Callaghan's recital includes the early Romance & Pastorale, the Six Studies in English Folk Song (originally written for cello and piano), and the composer's last major instrumental work - the Violin Sonata from 1952, dedicated to Frederick Grinke who was one of Vaughan Williams's favourite interpreters of The Lark.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
French Trumpet Concertos
Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet), Roland Pöntinen (piano), Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Fabien Gabel
Hardenberger and Fabien Gabel (who also began his career as a trumpet-player) present five mid-twentieth-century French works for trumpet and orchestra: Henri Tomasi’s Concerto from 1948 (recorded here for the first time with its original, longer ending), André Jolivet’s Concertino for Trumpet, Piano & Orchestra (also 1948) and Trumpet Concerto (1954), the orchestral version of Florent Schmitt’s Suite for Trumpet & Piano (1955), and Betsy Jolas's Onze Lieder (written for Pierre Thibaud, who taught both conductor and soloist on this recording).
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Taking its title from the final song of the song-cycle Deità silvane (which opens the album), Fallon and Bushakevitz's programme also includes the Four Scottish Songs, the Cinque canti all'Antica (setting poems by Giovanni Boccaccio and Enzo, King of Sardinia), the early song 'L’ultima ebbrezza', and favourites such as 'Nebbie' and 'Stornellatrice'. The duo's debut album of Liszt, released in 2017, was praised in Gramophone for Fallon's 'combination of strength, refinement and care' and Bushakevitz's 'nuanced control'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Stranger: Works For Tenor By Nico Muhly
Nicholas Phan (tenor), Reginald Mobley (countertenor), Brooklyn Rider, The Knights, Lisa Kaplan, Colin Jacobsen, Eric Jacobsen
Exploring themes of identity and immigration and setting fragments from letters, oral histories and interviews, the title-work was commissioned by Phan in 2020 and receives its world premiere recording here. The album also includes Lorne ys my likinge (a setting of the nineteenth Chester Mystery Play, inspired in part by Britten's canticle Abraham and Isaac), and the Cavafy triptych Impossible Things, scored for tenor, violin and string orchestra and premiered by the Britten Sinfonia, Pekka Kuusisto and Mark Padmore in 2010.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This collection of world premiere recordings of music by the British composer (b.1978) takes its title from a 2016 work for solo flute, and also includes Give Him His Hat (for piano two hands), Man Shoots Strangers from Skyscraper, Three Caves, and Faraway Cannons.
You can browse the complete bastille musique catalogue (including today's new releases of music by Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Johannes Schöllhorn) here.
Available Format: CD
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
