New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 27th January 2023
Todays new releases include Schubert's Schwanengesang and Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte from Mark Padmore & Mitsuko Uchida on Decca, a selection of Marin Marais's Pièces de viole from Jean-Guihen Queyras & Alexandre Tharaud on Harmonia Mundi, French ballet music from Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth on Bru Zane, and Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 from Paavo Järvi & the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich on Alpha.
This thirteenth volume in Antonini's mammoth Haydn 2032 project features three works which acknowledge the Esterházy princes’ love of hunting and, by association, the horn: the 'Horn Signal' from 1765, the 'Maria Theresia' symphony (where the horns function as 'replacement trumpets'), and Symphony No. 59 (dubbed the 'Fire' Symphony by an anonymous copyist). An effective coda is provided by Telemann's Concerto for Recorder, Horn & Basso Continuo, TWV 42:F14.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Subtitled 'Dance Music from the Folies Bergère to the Opéra', this collection of waltzes, polkas and quadrilles includes music from Massenet's ballet Le Carillon, Gounod's Faust, Saint-Saëns's Le Timbre d’argent, and Hervé's Paris Exhibition & Sports in England, plus Waldteufel's 'Grande Vitesse' and 'Valse des patineurs', Isaac Strauss's 'Hébé-Polka', and Philippe Musard's 'Ouistiti-Polka'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schubert: Schwanengesang & Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte
Mark Padmore (tenor), Mitsuko Uchida (piano)
Captured live at Wigmore Hall in May, this recital was praised in Opera Today for Padmore's 'exemplary attentiveness to verbal sound, intellectual engagement with textual meaning, and vocal embodiment of the latter'; when the duo performed the same programme at Zankel Hall two months earlier, The New York Times declared that 'It’s difficult to avoid superlatives...As a pairing, Uchida and Padmore are wellsprings of wisdom and sensitivity, a truly equal partnership'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Marin Marais: Folies d'Espagne, La Rêveuse & Other Works
Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Alexandre Tharaud (piano)
Two decades on from his acclaimed recordings of keyboard music by Rameau and Couperin on a modern piano (the latter of which will be re-released on CD in April), Tharaud teams up with his regular recital-partner Queyras to explore Marais's works for viola da gamba and harpsichord, including 'Le badinage', 'La Rêveuse', and 'Le Tableau de L'opération de la Taille' (a weird but wonderful musical depiction of bladder surgery!).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The first performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 at the Zurich Tonhalle took place on 14th January 1924, to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth; this account is the first of three recordings planned to commemorate his bicentenary next year, with Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 set to follow over the next eighteen months. Reviewing the recording last week, The Guardian's Fiona Maddocks declared that it 'shows the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in peak condition...Colours are rich, tenderness offsetting majesty'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Alsop's recordings of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 in Mahler's re-orchestrations were warmly received last October, with Gramophone observing that 'It’s fascinating to hear these works as it were from Mahler’s inner ear' and BBC Music Magazine noting that 'the results, when played with such passion and precision as here, are hugely rewarding'; now she completes the set with the Rhenish and Symphony No. 4 (where Mahler reinstates some features of the original 1841 version).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Berlioz himself doesn't actually feature on this recital of early French Romantic music for oboe and piano (nor did the ten-keyed French oboe by Guillaume Adler which Palameta plays here belong to him) - the spotlight is instead on his lesser-known contemporaries, including Henri Brod, Sigismond Thalberg, Stanislas Verroust, Gustave Vogt, and Johann Peter Pixis. All works receive their world premiere recordings here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The main event on this programme of works from the first half of the twentieth century is the world premiere recording of the sole String Quartet by Irish composer Ina Boyle (1889-1967), who spent most of her life in her native County Wicklow. Also included are Moeran's folksong-inspired String Quartet No. 2 (discovered among his papers after his death in 1950), Vaughan Williams's Household Music on Welsh hymn tunes, and Ireland’s own arrangement of his song 'The Holy Boy'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The British violist's debut solo recording showcases works for unaccompanied viola composed between 1930 and 2020, including Grażyna Bacewicz's Kaprys polski No. 1, Lillian Fuchs's Sonata Pastorale, Elizabeth Maconchy's Five Sketches, Elisabeth Lutyens's Echo of the Wind, Sally Beamish's Penillion, Imogen Holst's Suite, and Thea Musgrave's Light at the End of the Tunnel (commissioned by the BBC during lockdown).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Although the British countertenor has a distinguished discography to his name (including appearances on Raphaël Pichon's award-winning St Matthew Passion), Christian Curnyn's superb recent Amadigi, and Arcangelo's excellent recording of Bach's Mass in B minor), this is his first solo album; the all-Vivaldi programme features the Nisi Dominus and Salve Regina, plus the secular cantatas Cessate, omai cessate and Amor, hai vinto.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Taking its title from a song from Mahler's Lieder und Gesänge aus der Jugendzeit, the Austrian bass's recital with Martineau also includes songs from the same composer's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Strauss's 'Zueignung', 'Allerseelen', 'Heimliche Aufforderung' and 'Breit' über mein Haupt', and Hans Rott's 'Wandrer’s Nachtlied', 'Geistesgruß', and 'Der Sänger'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart in Milan
Robin Johannsen (soprano), Carlo Vistoli (countertenor), Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, Schola Gregoriana Ghislieri, Giulio Prandi
Built around Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate (which the composed wrote for the soprano castrato Venanzio Rauzzini during a stay in Milan in 1773), this programme of sacred works also includes JC Bach's Dixit Dominus and Magnificat in C, Melchiorre Chiesa's Caelo tonanti, and Giovanni Antonio Fioroni's O sacrum convivium.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This year the Austrian conductor presided over the New Year's Day festivities for the third time, conducting a programme which included the overture to Suppè's operetta Isabella, Josef Strauss's 'Heldengedichte' and 'Aquarellen' Waltzes, Eduard Strauss's Polka 'Wer tanzt mit?', Carl Michael Ziehrer's 'In lauschiger Nacht', the 'Glocken-Polka mit Galopp' from Josef Hellmesberger Jr.'s ballet Excelsior, and of course Johann Strauss II's 'An der schönen blauen Donau'.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
