Coming Soon,
Michael Spyres's Contra-Tenor and other forthcoming highlights
The sequel to Baritenor sees the American singer exploring the Baroque tradition of the 'tenor assoluto', with other late spring highlights including Shostakovich's Symphonies Nos. 8, 9 and 10 from the Berliner Philharmoniker & Kirill Petrenko, CPE Bach sonatas from Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout, a programme of sacred choral works from the Bevan Family Consort, countertenor Alexander Chance's debut solo recording of English lute songs, and an all-Mozart programme centring on Exsultate, jubilate from Franco Fagioli and the Kammerorchester Basel.
The sequel to Spyres's Gramophone Award-winning Baritenor sees the versatile American singer continuing his exploration of 'the absolute extremes of the human voice' by focusing on the Baroque and early Classical periods, including scenes and arias from Rameau's Naïs, Lully's Persée, Vinci's Catone in Utica, Porpora's Germanico in Germania, Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice and Mozart's Mitridate. Arias by Hasse, Galuppi and Latilla receive their world premiere recordings.
Released 21st April.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Following their terrific album of works by Debussy, Dukas & Roussel (which was Hindoyan's debut recording), the Liverpool Philharmonic and their Chief Conductor delve into the music of Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra (b. 1953), a Latin Grammy winner and former student of György Ligeti. The programme includes his Sinfonietta for String Orchestra (the premiere of which Hindoyan conducted in 2021), the Dos Piezas para Orquesta (2017), and Sinfonía No. 6 (2021).
Released 28th April.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
These live recordings were made between October 2020 and October 2021 (Symphony No. 8 was performed to an empty hall, and No. 9 to a half-capacity, socially-distanced audience): Petrenko observed that '[being] able to make music together only under highly restrictive conditions, I found a closer connection with Shostakovich’s music than ever before, and it resulted in our playing his works more frequently and with special intensity'. This hardcover edition also includes a Blu-ray video of the concerts plus a 22-minute film-interview with Kirill Petrenko.
Released 14th April.
Available Format: 2 CDs + Blu-ray
Hot on the heels of the DVD and Blu-ray release of Wayne McGregor's The Dante Project (based on La Divina Commedia and hailed by The Guardian as 'bold, beautiful, emotional and utterly engaging'), Nonesuch presents the first audio recording of Adès's score, which the composer describes as 'a grateful tribute to Franz Liszt, the composer of hell and demonic music'. The New York Times opined that the work 'belongs alongside the great dance music of Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky that thrives on the concert stage', whilst The Los Angeles Times declared that 'there is not a second in its 88 minutes that doesn’t delight'.
Released 21st April.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Spanish conductor and the Freiburger Barockorchester made their first joint appearance on Harmonia Mundi in 2013 with accounts of Schubert's Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 which were praised in The Sunday Times for their 'pristine, transparent and characterful sound' and in Gramophone for the 'lithe, brilliantly articulated strings, crystal-clear woodwind detail and inexhaustible rhythmic verve' on display. Ten years on, they return to the composer's music with equally ear-opening accounts of the Mozartian Symphony No. 5 and the 'Unfinished'.
Released 2nd June.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Five years on from his award-winning Four Pieces - Four Pianos, Melnikov ups the stakes still further with this programme of fantasias by JS & CPE Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Busoni and Schnittke - performed respectively on harpsichord, tangent piano, Graf and Walther fortepianos, an Érard, a Bechstein and a Steinway.
Released 28th April.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Podger and Bezuidenhout team up for the first time on record to celebrate a composer whom the violinist describes as 'full of surprises and unpredictable turns'; the first two sonatas on the programme date from the 1730s and show the influence of Carl Philipp Emanuel's father Johann Sebastian, whilst the others (composed thirty to fifty years afterwards) epitomise the Empfindsamer Stil which he explored in later life.
Released 28th April.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Two close friends who share a love of eclectic programming come together for an album ranging across ten centuries of music to explore the figures of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene: the repertoire includes new arrangements of Dufay's Ave maris stella, Victoria's Ave Maria, Eisler's Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe and Lili Boulanger's Pie Jesu (all by Michi Wiancko), plus excerpts from Kurtág's Kafka-Fragmente, Haydn's Seven Last Words, and Crumb's Black Angels.
Released 14th April.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Argentinian countertenor makes his debut on Pentatone with an all-Mozart programme including Exsultate, jubilate (written for the star soprano castrato Venanzio Rauzzini) and arias from Davidde penitente, La finta giardiniera, Lucio Silla and La Clemenza di Tito. Mozart's music has played a significant role in Fagioli's life since childhood: as a boy soprano he sang the role of First Boy in Die Zauberflöte, and notes that 'at that moment, my need to study music was born'.
Released 14th April.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The young British countertenor (who won the International Handel Singing Competition last year and featured on John Eliot Gardiner's most recent recording of the St John Passion) dedicates his debut solo album to English lute songs dealing in melancholy, including music by Dowland, Campion, Danyel, and Purcell. (Presto will be hosting a launch-event for the recording, featuring a short Q&A session and performances from the artists, at our base in Leamington Spa on Saturday 20th May).
Released 28th April.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The first incarnation of the Bevan Family Choir was set up in 1975, and this second-generation line-up (established in 2013) includes the sopranos Sophie and Mary, both of whom enjoy highly successful solo careers. Taking its title from a mass by Victoria, this programme of sacred music also includes Palestrina's Sicut cervus, Lobo's Versa est in luctum, Tallis's O sacrum convivium, Holst's Nunc dimittis and Ave Maria, Stanford's Beati quorum via, and the Magnificat Septimi Toni by David Bevan (who directed the consort for some years and to whose memory the album is dedicated).
Released 19th May.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Stanford: Requiem
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo), James Way (tenor), Ross Ramgobin (baritone); City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, University of Birmingham Voices, Martyn Brabbins
Stanford composed his large-scale Requiem in 1896 in memory of the painter and sculptor Frederic Leighton, who became a close friend after meeting during Stanford's first trip to London aged ten. The work was premiered at Birmingham Town Hall (as part of the Triennial Festival) the following year, and this recording was made down the road at Symphony Hall last year to mark the event's 125th anniversary, prompting The Spectator to remark that the piece 'has never sounded more beautiful'.
Released 5th May.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mercadante: Il Proscritto
Ramón Vargas (Giorgio Argyll), Irene Roberts (Malvina Douglas), Elizabeth DeShong (Odoardo Douglas), Sally Matthews (Anna Ruthven), Iván Ayón-Rivas (Rodrigo), Goderdzi Janelidze (Guglielmo Ruthven); Britten Sinfonia, Opera Rara Chorus, Carlo Rizzi
Set in Edinburgh during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, Mercadante's Il Proscritto ('The Outlaw') was premiered in Naples in 1842 but thereafter languished unperformed for almost two centuries until this revival by Opera Rara last year; highlights include a barnstorming opening chorus of wedding-guests, a bravura extended scene for Odoardo (a mezzo trouser-role, taken superbly by DeShong here), and a thrilling face-off for the tenor rivals Giorgio and Arturo.
Released 14th April.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
