New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 15th July 2022
Today's new releases include dance-inspired Chopin from Louis Lortie, the complete Beethoven symphonies from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 and Brett Dean's Testament from the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Vladimir Jurowski, and the world premiere recording of John Frederick Lampe's burlesque-opera The Dragon of Wantley from The Brook Street Band and John Andrews, with a cast including Mary Bevan and John Savournin.
Originally scheduled for April 2020 in celebration of the composer's 250th birthday, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe's new Beethoven cycle (their first on disc since their landmark set with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in the 1990s) was eventually recorded at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden last summer, and uses the New Beethoven Complete Edition - which includes the recently rediscovered contrabassoon part for the Ninth Symphony.
Available Formats: 5 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This live recording captures the first Academy Concert of the 2020/21 season from the Munich Nationaltheater, which was both Vladimir Jurowski’s second concert with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester as designated general music director and one of the first public performances to take place after lockdown. Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 also featured on the programme for the Musikalische Akademie's opening concert in 1811, whilst Dean's 2003 work was inspired by re-reading the composer's Heiligenstadt Testament and incorporates quotations from the first Razumovsky Quartet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Dedicated to Joseph Szigeti and scored for wind orchestra and percussion, Weill's five-movement Violin Concerto pays homage to Busoni (who died just a month after it was completed) as well as alluding to the music of Mahler, Stravinsky, and Berlin cabaret clubs. The Second Symphony dates from a decade later, and was premiered by Bruno Walter and the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This programme of lesser-known violin concertos from the second half of the eighteenth century includes two world premiere recordings: Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges's Violin Concerto in D, and Johann Gottlieb Graun's Violin Concerto in C minor. Also features works by Franz Benda (one of Frederick the Great's court musicians) and Venetian virtuoso Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, plus Mozart’s Rondo in C K373.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Colourise
Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew Staples (tenor), Elena Urioste (violin), London Choral Sinfonia, Michael Waldron
This album is book-ended by two of Vaughan Williams's most popular works: the programme opens with Five Mystical Songs (in the composer's own version for voice, choir, piano and strings, recorded for the first time here) and closes with The Lark Ascending. Also receiving its world premiere recording is Lennox Berkeley's Variations on a Hymn by Orlando Gibbons, first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival almost exactly seventy years ago and described as 'a lovely piece' by Britten.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Following their previous albums Evoke and Revive, the Ferios join forces with the Corvus Consort for a programme of music for sax quartet and voices, including excerpts from Heinrich Schütz's Geistliche Chor-Music, works by Andrea & Giovanni Gabrieli and members of the Bach dynasty, James MacMillan's Christus Vincit, Sarah Rimkus's Mater Dei, Owain Park's Miserere after Allegri, and Roderick Williams's Ave Verum Corpus Re-Imagined.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fauré: Horizons II
Simon Zaoui (piano), Pierre Fouchenneret (violin), Raphaël Merlin (cello), Marie Chilemme (viola), Quatuor Strada
Following their exploration of the composer's piano trio and violin and cello sonatas (which prompted The Guardian to declare that 'these young French musicians clearly have these works deeply ingrained in their musical thinking'), Zaoui, Fouchenneret and Merlin are joined by violist Marie Chilemme for the two piano quartets, and by members of the Strada Quartet for the string quartet and piano quintets.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Taking in the boléro and tarantella as well as the mazurkas and polonaises of the composer's native country, this seventh instalment of Lortie's Chopin survey focuses on works inspired by national dances. Previous volumes in the series have seen Lortie praised for 'the refinement and control of his playing' (International Piano) and hailed as 'a model Chopinist: eloquent but never sentimental' (BBC Music Magazine).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This latest instalment of Albrecht's Bruckner cycle (due for completion in 2024 to mark the composer's bicentenary) was recorded on the organ of the Wiener Konzerthaus - the main event is Thomas Schmögner's transcription of the Fourth Symphony, which is preceded by Abendzauber and Philipp Maintz's Bruckner-inspired Choralvorspiel No. 46 'Morgenglanz der Ewigkeit'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The first volume of Owen's Pachelbel project received four stars in BBC Music Magazine and was described as 'full of sensitive insights' by Gramophone; recorded on a recent instrument by French organ-builder Bernard Aubertin, this second instalment features Pachelbel’s largest set of Magnificat Fugues, the chorale-partita Christus, der ist mein Leben, and Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
John Frederick Lampe: The Dragon of Wantley
Mary Bevan, Catherine Carby, Mark Wilde, John Savournin; The Brook Street Band, John Andrews
Premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1737, The Dragon of Wantley was a roaring success in its day, notching up nearly seventy performances in the course of its original run and remaining an audience favourite for almost half a century; poking gentle fun at his compatriot Handel's Italian operas, Lampe's burlesque tells the story of Yorkshire villagers who enlist a reluctant, drunken knight to slay a child-eating dragon which is terrorising their community.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams Live: Vol. 1
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent
Released to mark the composer's 150th birthday, this collection of vintage recordings (newly remastered by Lani Spahr) opens with a 1957 Proms performance of The Wasps Overture, and also includes a 1964 account of Symphony No. 6 (also from the Proms) and the first-ever performance of the Ninth Symphony, given just four months before the composer’s death.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
