New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 8th July 2022
Today's new releases include the CD release of this year's Sommernachtskonzert from Vienna (conducted by Andris Nelsons and with Gautier Capuçon as soloist), late Schubert from the Gewandhausorchester and Herbert Blomstedt in celebration of the conductor's imminent 95th birthday, a third helping of Bach harpsichord concertos from Francesco Corti and Il Pomo d'Oro, and a collection of twentieth-century and contemporary choral works from Anna Lapwood and The Pembroke College Girls’ Choir.
This year's outdoor concert from the Schönbrunn Palace Baroque Park in Vienna features Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, Saint-Saëns's Cello Concerto No. 1, Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, the overtures to Rossini's La gazza ladra and Smetana's The Bartered Bride, and works by Arturs Maskats and Mykola Lysenko.
The concert will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray later this month.
Available Format: CD
Released to mark Blomstedt's 95th birthday next week, these recordings were made in Leipzig last November and consitute the veteran conductor's debut on Deutsche Grammophon. Blomstedt served as Gewandhauskapellmeister from 1998 to 2005, and has returned frequently in his capacity of Conductor Laureate over the past fifteen years; he enthuses that 'it was wonderful to explore these two very different but equally great Schubert symphonies with them'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bach: Harpsichord Concertos Part III
Francesco Corti (harpsichord), Andrea Buccarella, Il Pomo d'Oro
The main event on this third volume of Corti's acclaimed Bach series with Il Pomo d'Oro is his own reconstruction of the unfinished Concerto for harpsichord, oboe and strings in D minor BWV1059, which draws on material from the Cantata BWV35 Geist und Seele wird verwirret (look out for our upcoming interview with Corti about the pleasures and challenges of his task next week...). Also includes the three concertos for two keyboards BWV1060-62.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This collection of eight recent orchestral works by the American composer (b.1970) takes its title from a piece commissioned to mark the 95th birthday of Henry Kissinger and the 90th anniversary season of the National Symphony Orchestra; the programme also includes Fanfare for Tomorrow (written for the inauguration of Joe Biden), Rolling River (Sketches on 'Shenandoah'), and Radiance (composed especially for this album).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
As well as excerpts from the 12 Duette for two violins (based on material from the string quartets and piano sonatas), Deuter and Waisman present pint-sized arrangements of music from Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro - all dating from c.1800, when transcriptions of well-known operas and other large-scale works for domestic performance were immensely popular.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Best known for his sacred choral works, priest and composer Lorenzo Perosi was a member of the Giovane Scuola, alongside Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Cilea and Puccini (who observed that 'there is more music in Perosi’s head than in mine and Mascagni’s put together'). The album comprises his first two piano quintets (written in the 1930s, shortly after the death of his beloved brother) and the String Trio No. 2 from 1928.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For their second commercial recording together, Lapwood and her Cambridge choir (which she founded in 2018) present a collection of twentieth-century and contemporary choral pieces including Wayne Marshall's Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis, Lili Boulanger's 'Pie Jesu', Roxana Panufnik's 'Ubi Caritas', Ben Parry's Ely Canticles, and John Dankworth's 'The Light of the World'. Also features new arrangements of Gounod's 'Ave Maria' and music from Mendelssohn's Elijah.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This fourth instalment of The King's Singers's series of popular close-harmony repertoire includes arrangements of Harold Arlen's 'Over the Rainbow', Cy Coleman's 'The Rhythm of Life', Bob Dylan's 'Make You Feel My Love', Freddie Mercury's 'Seaside Rendezvous', Joni Mitchell's 'Sisotowbell Lane', and The Sherman Brothers' 'Hushabye Mountain'.
Please note that this EP has a playing-time of 29 minutes.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer (Blu-ray)
John Lundgren (Dutchman), Asmik Grigorian (Senta), Georg Zeppenfeld (Daland), Eric Cutler (Erik), Marina Prudenskaya (Mary); Bayreuther Festspiele, Oksana Lyniv, Dmitri Tcherniakov
Filmed at Bayreuth last summer, Tcherniakov’s new production relocates the opera to a bleak contemporary town, and adds an additional layer of psychological complexity to the relationship between The Dutchman and Daland (the latter portrayed by Georg Zeppenfeld, who was described by the Financial Times 'the kind of Daland who makes you lean forward and hang on to every word'). Lyniv, making history as the first woman to conduct at Bayreuth, was praised by The New York Times for her 'sharp attention to detail and pacing'.
Available Format: Blu-ray + DVD Video
Verdi: Falstaff (DVD)
Nicola Alaimo (Falstaff), Simone Piazzola (Ford), Matthew Swensen (Fenton), Ailyn Pérez (Alice Ford), Francesca Boncompagni (Nannetta), Sara Mingardo (Mrs. Quickly); Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sven-Eric Bechtolf
Staged at the Teatro del Maggio in Florence at the end of last year, this new production of Falstaff was warmly received in the Italian press, with La Nazione applauding Alaimo's 'variety of phrasing and richness of expressive nuances' in the title-role and Corriere Fiorentino declaring it 'a Falstaff that Verdi would have liked'.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
