New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 28th April 2023
Today's new releases include violin sonatas by CPE Bach from Rachel Podger & Kristian Bezuidenhout, symphonic works by Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Domingo Hindoyan, English lute songs from countertenor Alexander Chance & Toby Carr, and Schnittke's Psalms of Repentance from Cappella Amsterdam and Daniel Reuss.
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.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Following their terrific 2021 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).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The American conductor makes her debut on Pentatone with two works which bookend Bartók's career: the rarely-recorded orchestral version of the Four Pieces from 1912 (originally scored for two pianos) and the Concerto for Orchestra, composed whilst Bartók was already suffering from the leukaemia which would claim his life two years later. Canellakis fell in love with Bartók's music in her previous career as a violinist: look out for our interview with her about the project next week...
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This is the second instalment of a trilogy of live recordings made during Jurowski's year-long Stravinsky festival ‘Changing Faces’ in 2018, and features the 1928 ballet Le Baiser de la fée alongside the much less frequently-recorded chamber orchestration of selections from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty which Stravinsky made in 1941 at the request of the American Ballet Theatre. As an eight-year-old, Stravinsky had attended the premiere run of Sleeping Beauty in St. Petersburg, and retained a lifelong affection for the score.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Alex Paxton: Happy Music For Orchestra
Alex Paxton (trombone/conductor), Patrick Terry (countertenor), Matthew Herd (alto saxophone), David Ingamells (drum kit), Beibei Wang (water percussion), Dreammusics Ensemble & Orchestra
Recently described by the Financial Times as 'a magician of sound', the British composer and improvising trombonist Alex Paxton (b.1990) is the winner of this year's Paul Hindemith Prize and Ernst von Siemens Composition Prize, and scooped an Ivor Novello Award in 2021. His debut album on Delphian draws on sources of inspiration including artists Ody Saban, Madge Gill and Grayson Perry, the Roobarb and Custard cartoons, African water-drumming, and his own outreach work with primary-school children.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The British trumpet-player's first album on Chandos takes its cue from Jean-Baptiste Arban's Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet, which includes sets of variations on motifs from Bellini's Norma and Beatrice di Tenda; the programme also includes variations and paraphrases on operatic themes by Rossini, Ricci, Mercadante, Viardot-Garcia and Donizetti. Lloyd won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Brass Final in 2014 and went on to study with Håkan Hardenberger; yesterday she performed this programme at Wigmore Hall.
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 free 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.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Taking its title from a work by William Croft (performed here in Britten's realisation), Davies and Middleton's 'English Songbook' also includes Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad, Adès's The Lover in Winter, Howells's King David, and four world premiere recordings: Nico Muhly's Four Traditional Songs and Old Bones, and Adès's Four Songs After Purcell & Coffee-Spoon Cavatina (adapted from his 2016 opera The Exterminating Angel).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This recital centres on the music of Armenian priest, musicologist and composer Komitas (born Soghomon Soghomonian), whom David Haroutunian describes as 'the voice of the land of Armenia, of its churches and its stones which remained silent for many centuries'; the programme also includes music by the French-Armenian composer Garbis Aprikian (b.1926), who studied with Messiaen and directed the Choeurs Sipan-Komitas de Paris for fifty years.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
In addition to the set of four anthems which Handel composed for the coronation of George II in 1727 (one of which will feature at the coronation of Charles III next month), this album also features the overture to the Occasional Oratorio from 1746, William Croft's The Lord is a Sun and a Shield (written for the coronation of George I in 1714), and John Blow's Chaconne in G.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Composed in 1988 to commemorate the Christianisation of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in 988, Schnittke's Psalms of Repentance sets anonymous sixteenth-century Russian texts on guilt and contrition, and is now widely regarded as one of the most powerful a cappella works of the twentieth century; this recording uses the original manuscript, which differs significantly from the published score. This is Cappella Amsterdam's third project for Pentatone, following a recording of David Lang's The Writings which prompted Fanfare to declare that 'tuning, tone, and technique are all beyond reproach'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Avondano: La Morte d'Abel
Raquel Camarinha (Abel), Ana Vieira Leite (Caino), Valentina Varriale (Eva), Filippo Mineccia (Angelo), Sergio Foresti (Adamo), Divino Sospiro, Massimo Mazzeo
Born in Lisbon to Italian parents in 1714, Pedro António Avondano is perhaps best known today for his 1765 opera Il mondo della luna; this dramatic oratorio on the story of Cain and Abel (with the roles of the two brothers both taken by sopranos) dates from around fifteen years earlier, and sets a libretto by Metastasio. It receives its world premiere recording here from Divino Sospiro (founded in Lisbon in 2004), who devote much of their energies to the revival of Portuguese Baroque repertoire.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Jean-Baptiste Stuck: Polydore
Judith van Wanroij, Helene Guilmette, Cyrille Dubois, Tassis Christoyannis, Thomas Dolie, David Witczak, Chloe Briot; Orfeo Orchestra, Purcell Choir, György Vashegyi
Following their 2019 recording of Charles-Hubert Gervais's Hypermnestre , Vashegyi and the Orfeo orchestra continue their explorations of forgotten French operas from the early eighteenth century with this tragédie en musique, centring on King Priam's youngest son and premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique in 1720. Born in Tuscany in 1680, Stuck spent much of his career in Paris, working as a court composer and cellist during the regency of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Puccini: Tosca (DVD)
Anna Netrebko (Tosca), Francesco Meli (Cavaradossi), Luca Salsi (Scarpia), Carlo Cigni (Angelotti), Alfonso Antoniozzi (Sagrestano), Teatro Alla Scala, Riccardo Chailly, Davide Livermore
Livermore's new production of Tosca opened the 2019 season at La Scala, with Chailly using the original 1900 version of the score (most modern productions incorporate the numerous minor cuts which Puccini made after the premiere). Reviewing the performance, BR Klassik described Meli as 'probably unsurpassable in this role at the moment', whilst the Financial TImes noted that 'by favouring spacious tempi, transparent textures and razor-sharp detail, the conductor shines a torch through the score'.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
