New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 17th February 2023
Today's new releases include Kitty Whately and Joseph Middleton's striking collection of twentieth-century songs, inspired in part by the impact of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, French song from Mary Bevan and chamber groups 12 Ensemble and the Ruisi Quartet, a double-bill of Mozart concertos from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Gábor Takács-Nagy, and a whopper of a celebratory box-set for what would have been the great Claudio Abbado's ninetieth birthday.
Whately reflects that she and Middleton 'felt drawn to reflect on grief, mortality, and bereavement' when they began to assemble this programme of early twentieth-century songs during the pandemic; as well as Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and a selection of Lieder by Richard Strauss, their programme includes music by Johanna Müller-Hermann (a pupil of Zemlinsky and Franz Schmidt) and Margarete Schweikert (a high-profile music-critic as well as a prolific song-composer).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Released to mark what would have been the Italian conductor's ninetieth birthday, this mammoth collection comprises everything which he recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Philips, and is accompanied by a hardback book including reminiscences by Alfred Brendel, Yuja Wang, Evegeny Kissin & Albrecht Mayer and new essays by James Jolly, Julia Spinola, Jon Tolansky and Clemens Hellsberg. A particular highlight is the DVD premiere of the production Janáček‘s From The House of the Dead which Abbado conducted in Vienna in 1992.
Available Format: 257 CDs + 8 DVDs
This programme of chamber and vocal music composed for the French court at the turn of the seventeenth century includes works by Robert de Visée, Antoine Boesset, Henry de Bailly, Gabriel Bataille, Etienne Mouliné, Michel Lambert and Louis de Caix d'Hervelois.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mary Bevan's third recital-album looks to the French song tradition, with Britten's Rimbaud cycle Les Illuminations juxtaposed with mélodies by Chabrier, Duparc, Fauré, Ravel and Debussy. Augusta Holmès's cycle of five seasonal Sérénades for soprano and string quartet is a particular highlight.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Acclaimed by Gramophone among its Editor's Choices for February 2023, Fabrizio Chiovetta's Robert Schumann album focuses in on a period of the composer's life when, paradoxically, personal troubles gave rise to (or at least did not impede) a period of intense creativity. While still forced to keep his blossoming relationship with Clara secret, Robert dedicated to her the precursor of the Fantaisie Op. 17, which here sits alongside the ever-popular Kinderszenen and Arabeske.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart: Piano Concertos, Volume 7
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano), Manchester Camerata, Gábor Takács-Nagy
Surely one of the most consistently fruitful partnerships in the classical world today, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Gábor Takács-Nagy continue their Manchester Camerata Mozart cycle with works from 1785-6 - the piano concertos Nos. 24 and 25 (with the former's notoriously proto-serialist opening motif), introduced by the overture to Le nozze di Figaro which was also being composed at the same time.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Haydn's enormous output of piano trios poses a challenge to ensembles - how to decide on a complementary selection. The Gaspard Trio, seeing no reason to change the winning formula from their previous volume, have again dipped in and out of the composer's life with a programme of late, middle and early works, and again conclude the album with a related contemporary work. Here, Leonid Gorokhov's For Gaspard plays a musical game of hide-and-seek that Haydn himself would doubtless have approved of.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Who could begrudge Riccardo Chailly's 70th birthday present to himself? From the yearning Va, pensiero, the macho Anvil Chorus and the pageantry of Aida's* Gloria all'Egitto sequence to less often-heard choruses from I Lombardi, Ernani and others, this album places the chorus of the Teatro alla Scala front and centre. Their enjoyment of the music, and maestro Chailly's profound understanding of it, are very much in evidence.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mascagni: L'amico Fritz
Salome Jicia (Suzel), Charles Castronovo (Fritz), Teresa Iervolino (Beppe), Massimo Cavalletti (Davide) Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Riccardo Frizza, Rosetta Cucchi
Far more than merely a useful answer to the question "OK, name another opera by Mascagni", L'amico Fritz was hailed in its day as among the composer's finest works; contemporary accounts cite a jaw-dropping thirty-five curtain calls at the premiere. This updated staging moves the action from 19th-century Alsace to the present day, swapping farms for downtown wine bars and giving the unashamedly sentimental narrative a real sense of immediacy.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
