New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 14th April 2023
Today's new releases include Mercadante's 1842 opera Il Proscritto from Carlo Rizzi & Opera Rara (starring Ramón Vargas, Elizabeth DeShong and Irene Roberts), a German Baroque Requiem from Vox Luminis & Lionel Meunier, an eclectic Marian-themed recital from Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Anna Prohaska, and the original version of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 from François-Xavier Roth in Cologne.
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 London 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.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Several of the texts which Brahms used in his Deutsches Requiem had previously been set by his predecessors, including 'Selig sind die Toten' and 'Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen', which appear here in settings by Johann Philipp Förtsch and Johann Hermann Schein. Meunier's 'German Baroque Requiem' also includes music by Thomas Selle, Christian Geist, Andreas Scharmann, Tobias Michael, Heinrich Schwemmer, Wolfgang Carl Briegel, and Andreas Hammerschmidt.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Gardner and the CBSO embarked on their 'Schubert in Birmingham' series (recorded in the city's Town Hall) in 2019, with accounts of Symphonies Nos. 3 & 5 which prompted BBC Music Magazine to declare that the British conductor is 'very much on his way to Beechamesque status, though with very clear ideas of his own' and Classical Ear to praise his 'unimpeachable control of instrumental balance and texture'. This third volume also includes the overture to the 1823 opera Fierrabras.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following an account of Symphony No. 7 which was nominated for an International Classical Music Award this year, Roth and the Gürzenich-Orchester continue their Bruckner cycle (launched in anticipation of the composer's bicentenary in 2024) with Symphony No. 4, given here in its original 1874 incarnation which remained unperformed and unpublished during Bruckner's lifetime.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res 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 Petrenko.
Available Format: 2 CDs + Blu-ray
This is the final volume of the Danish String Quartet's Beethoven series, which juxtaposes one of his late quartets with a related fugue by JS Bach and a work by a nineteenth- or twentieth-century composer; the first instalment was nominated for a Grammy in 2019, and was described as 'thought-provoking, and often startlingly beautiful' by Gramophone. This fifth chapter features Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16 in F major Op. 135, Bach's Chorale Prelude 'Vor deinen Thron tret' ich' & Contrapunctus XIV from The Art of Fugue, and Webern's early String Quartet from 1905 (based on a tone-row which uses the BACH motif).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This is the world premiere recording of Widmann's Clarinet Quintet, which received its first performance from the composer and the Hagens in Madrid in 2017, and draws thematic inspiration from works in the same genre by Mozart and Brahms; El Pais described it as showing Widmann's 'most intimate and melancholic side', whilst BachTrack observed that 'the score alternates between sporadic melodies and the sound of rustling leaves'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This collection of chamber music by Garth Knox includes his two string quartets Satellites (written for the Kronos Quartet in 2015) and Four Into Twenty, which is dedicated the the Ragazze Quartet and receives its first recording here. Also included are the shorter works One Finger, Ten Fingers, Microtonal Blues and Rick O'Shea, and the Quartet for One - String Quartet for Viola (performed here by the composer, a former member of the Arditti Quartet and Ensemble Intercontemporain).
Available Formats: CD, 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.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Israeli-born, Berlin-based mezzo's debut solo recording explores her relationships with her own heritage and her adopted city; the programme includes Ravel's Deux mélodies hébraïques, excerpts from Korngold's Einfache Lieder and Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, songs by Eyal Bat, Sasha Argov and Joel Engel, and David Sonnenschein's Elei Tashuv (dedicated to Goldman's grandmother).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Venice's Teatro Sant’Angelo opened in 1677, and saw the premieres of numerous operas by Vivaldi, who became the theatre's impresario in 1715; Charvet's programme includes arias from his Andromeda liberata, La Verità in cimento and L'Olimpiade, as well as from Giovanni Alberto Ristori's Cleonice, Temistocle and Arianna, Fortunato Chelleri's Amalasunta, and Michelangelo Gasparini's Rodomonte sdegnato.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Conceived in part as a celebration of Whitacre's first three decades as a composer, this album includes his first-ever work Sing Gently, as well as the Walt Whitman setting All Seems Beautiful To Me, the hugely popular Seal Lullaby and Go, Lovely Rose (written for Whitacre’s Virtual Choir in lockdown). But the major work here is the 2019 cantata The Sacred Veil, which sets texts by the composer's friend and regular collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri and commemorates the death of the poet’s wife Julie from ovarian cancer in 2005.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Younger brother of Alessandro and uncle to Domenico, Francesco Scarlatti was born in Palermo and spent parts of his career in Naples, London and Dublin; Monks and the Armonico Consort gave both of these works their world premiere recordings on Deux-Elles back in 2004 (when the Evening Standard noted that 'there is plenty of fine music here and some that is truly ravishing'), and now revisit them in new editions prepared solely from the autograph scores.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Puccini: Messa di Gloria & Orchestral Works
Charles Castronovo (tenor), Ludovic Tézier (baritone), Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Gustavo Gimeno
Composed as a graduation-piece for the Pacini School of Music in his native Lucca in 1880, Puccini's Messa di Gloria pre-dates his first opera Le Villi by three years; the composer would go on to rework material from the score in Edgar and Manon Lescaut. It's complemented here by two other early works (the Scherzo per archi and Capriccio sinfonico), and Crisantemi - written in 1890 as an elegy for his friend the Duke of Aosta and originally scored for string quartet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Puccini: Tosca (DVD)
Malin Byström (Tosca), Joshua Guerrero (Cavaradossi), Gevorg Hakobyan (Scarpia), Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Chorus of Dutch National Opera, Lorenzo Viotti, Barrie Kosky
Filmed in Amsterdam last spring, Kosky's blood-drenched contemporary production of Tosca was described by BachTrack as 'very respectful of the plot, albeit with a modern twist', whilst the British Theatre Guide hailed the Australian director's staging of the Te Deum as 'one of the most stunning conceits I’ve ever seen in opera' with Armenian baritone Gevorg Hakobyan 'utterly commanding' as Scarpia.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
