New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 3rd February 2023
Today's new releases include Clara & Robert Schumann's piano concertos from Beatrice Rana, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Mompou's Música callada from Stephen Hough, the first instalment of a Mozart symphonies cycle from Il Pomo d'Oro & Maxim Emelyanychev, and harpsichord concertos by Martinů, Krása & Kalabis from Mahan Esfahani, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra & Alexander Liebreich.
Clara & Robert Schumann: Piano Concertos
Beatrice Rana (piano), Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
For her second concerto recording, the Italian pianist couples two works premiered by Clara Wieck-Schumann: the piano concerto which she composed in her teens and first performed at the Gewandhaus (with Mendelssohn conducting) in 1835, and her husband Robert's concerto from a decade later, expanded from an earlier one-movement draft at Clara's instigation. The programme is rounded off by Liszt's transcription of Robert's song 'Widmung' ['Dedication'], composed shortly before their marriage.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Twenty-five years on from his Gramophone Award-winning disc of the Catalan composer's Canción y Danzas, Préludes and other works, Hough returns to what he describes as ‘the music of evaporation’ with a complete recording of the Música callada - a set of 28 miniatures, published in four volumes between 1959 and 1967 and inspired by the poet St John of the Cross as well as carrying faint whispers of Fauré and Satie.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Stravinsky: The Soldier's Tale
Richard Katz (Narrator), Martins Imhangbe (Soldier), Mark Lockyer (Devil); Hallé Orchestra, Sir Mark Elder
In 2021, the Hallé commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Stravinsky's death with a compelling film of The Soldier's Tale, shot on location in Manchester and using a new English translation by Jeremy Sams; the film was broadcast on BBC4 on Remembrance Day last year, and was described as 'intelligently conceived and brilliantly executed' by BachTrack. This audio-only release has been specially remastered.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Shostakovich: Works Unveiled
Ekaterina Bakanova (soprano), Alexandros Stavrakakis (bass), Nicolas Stavy (piano), Florent Jodelet (percussion), Sueye Park (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano)
The fruits of research by the French pianist Nicolas Stavy, this album features two world premiere recordings: Shostakovich's own arrangement of his Symphony No. 14 for soprano, bass, string orchestra and percussion, and a fragment of his transcription of Mahler's Symphony No. 10 for piano four hands. The programme also includes four short piano pieces (the Funeral March in Memory of Victims of the Revolution, Toska, In the Forest & a Bagatelle), and the substantial fragment of a sonata for violin and piano dated 1945.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart: the symphonies - the beginning & the end
Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev (fortepiano/director)
This is the first instalment of a projected cycle of the complete Mozart symphonies from Il Pomo d'Oro and Emelyanychev (who was appointed as their chief conductor in 2016); each release will couple an early symphony with a mature one, as well as featuring a guest soloist in a bonus work. Accordingly, this inaugural volume pairs the Symphony No. 1 in E flat, K. 16 (composed when Mozart was just eight) with the 'Jupiter' Symphony from 1778; in between, Emelyanychev directs the Piano Concerto No. 23 from the fortepiano.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Martinů, Krása & Kalabis: Harpsichord Concertos
Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Liebreich
One work on this trio of concertos by Czech composers has a particular personal significance for Esfahani: Viktor Kalabis’s 1975 Koncert pro cembalo a smyčcový orchestr was composed for the Iranian harpsichordist's beloved teacher, Zuzana Růžičková, who died in 2017 and credited her husband Kalabis with helping her to heal from the trauma sustained in the concentration-camps of World War II. Hans Krása (who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944) composed his Kammermusik for harpsichord and seven instruments in 1936, six years before his internment at Theresienstadt.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schubert: Works for Piano Trio & Arpeggione Sonata
Christian Tetzlaff (violin), Tanja Tetzlaff (cello), Lars Vogt (piano)
The late Lars Vogt collaborated regularly with the Tetzlaff siblings throughout the final decade of his life, and these accounts of Schubert's two Piano Trios and Arpeggione Sonata proved to be their final project together in the studio: the majority of these recordings were made in February 2021, shortly before Vogt was diagnosed with the cancer which took his life last September. Tanja Tetzlaff notes that 'what again and again was heard from him was this ‘Now we’ve done it, recorded these trios; now I could go too.’'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
The winner of the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition makes his first foray into Baroque repertoire with three of Handel's Keyboard Suites, plus Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a theme from the Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B flat. Cho writes that he has largely avoided the use of the sustaining pedal 'in order to ensure greater clarity', but has modified some of the dynamics to exploit the possibilities of a modern concert grand.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following his acclaimed recordings of the complete piano concertos, piano sonatas and Preludes, Lugansky marks the composer's 150th birthday with this recording of the two sets of Études-Tableaux, Opp. 33 & 39, plus the Fragments, Oriental Sketch and Prelude in D minor (all written in 1917, not long before Rachmaninov emigrated to the United States). The Russian pianist's Harmonia Mundi recording of the Preludes in 2018 was particularly well-received, with international Piano deeming it 'a disc to treasure' and BBC Music Magazine observing that 'he demonstrates a balance of power and poise that mark him out as a notable Rachmaninov interpreter'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Swiss soprano's first solo recording on Glossa pays tribute to Anna Maria Strada (aka 'La Stradina'), who created the title-role in Handel's Alcina and also sang in the premieres of his Arminio and Lotario; as well as excerpts from these three operas, her programme also includes arias from Vivaldi's La Verità in cimento, Sarro's Tito Sempronio Gracco, Vinci's Eraclea, Leo's Achille in Sciro, Porpora's Tiridate, and Galuppi's Adriano in Siria.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This collection brings together the Hungarian conductor's complete Decca recordings with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (of which he was Music Director from 1977–1981), with highlights including the first-ever studio recording of Strauss's Die Ägyptische Helena, benchmark accounts of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and The Firebird (among Decca's earliest digital recordings), and recordings of Bartók’s Suite No. 1, The Miraculous Mandarin and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta which prompted Robert Layton to declare that 'Bartók was in his blood-stream'.
Available Format: 18 CDs
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
