New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 12th May 2023
Today's new releases include Legrenzi motets from Concerto Italiano and Rinaldo Alessandrini, Nielsen's Violin Concerto (with James Ehnes as soloist) and Symphony No. 4 from Edward Gardner in Bergen, live recordings of Beethoven's complete piano concertos from Garrick Ohlsson & Donald Runnicles at the Grand Teton Music Festival, and orchestral works & Lieder by Franz Schreker from Christoph Eschenbach, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and soloists Chen Reiss & Matthias Goerne.
Der ferne Klang: Orchestral Works & Songs by Franz Schreker
Chen Reiss (soprano), Matthias Goerne (baritone); Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Christoph Eschenbach
Though Schreker was primarily known as an opera composer, Eschenbach argues that he also 'took Mahler’s symphonic writing to a whole new level'. Released digitally in March, this collection includes the 'Nachtstück' from the 1912 opera Der ferne Klang (itself premiered three years before the complete work was staged), the Chamber Symphony from 1916, the Zwei Lyrische Gesänge on texts by Walt Whitman, and the early Romantische Suite.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nielsen: Violin Concerto & Symphony No. 4
James Ehnes (violin), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Nielsen was staying in Bergen (as a guest of Grieg's widow and cousin Nina) when he began work on his Violin Concerto in the summer of 1911, so it's fitting that this recording was made in the city's Grieghallen. It's coupled here with the Symphony No. 4 (subtitled 'The Inextinguishable') from five years later, which Gardner has already conducted to great acclaim elsewhere; reviewing a performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2018, the Chicago Tribune observed that 'Gardner brought a dramatic arc to a work that can seem disjointed in lesser hands'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Piano Concerto Nos. 1-5
Garrick Ohlsson (piano), Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Sir Donald Runnicles
These recordings were captured last summer at the Grand Teton Music Festival, which takes place each July and August at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Reviewing the set this month, Gramophone observed that 'the deeply grounded partnership between Ohlsson and Runnicles results in performances powered by a bracing, dynamic complementarity' and declared the cycle to be 'in a class of its own'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
A student of Beethoven, Czerny composed over 1000 works (predominantly for piano), many of which remain unrecorded; these world premiere recordings were made in London last year, not long after Bonynge's 91st birthday. The first Concertino here dates from 1824 (shortly after Czerny began teaching the young Franz Liszt), whilst the second was written in 1841; the programme also includes the early Fantaisie et Variations brillantes sur une Romance de Blangini in its original version for piano and orchestra.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Lalo & Casals: Cello Concertos
Jan Vogler (cello), Moritzburg Festival Orchester, Josep Caballé-Domenech
The Spanish violinist, conductor and composer Enrique Casals composed his Cello Concerto for his brother Pablo in 1946, incorporating elements of the Catalan folk music with which the pair had grown up; reviewing this recording, The Strad noted that 'Vogler captures its broad melodic sweep and easy charm, and negotiates its more technically demanding passages with aplomb'. In recognition of the composer's bicentenary this year, it's coupled here with Lalo's Cello Concerto from 1876, a work which also featured prominently in Casals's repertoire.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The seed for the Russian pianist's debut recording on Pentatone was planted when the family of Władysław Szpilman (the subject of Roman Polanski's 2002 film The Pianist) invited her to perform on his house piano in 2020. Szpilman's Mazurka and 1932 suite The Life of the Machines open the programme, which also includes Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 1, Weinberg's Piano Sonata No. 4, and Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8 - all works which Avdeeva describes as 'providing various ways of overcoming the darkness' through which their composers lived.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nigl is passionate about taking an historically-informed approach to Lieder, and on this recital of ballads by Schubert, Schumann, Loewe and Wolf he draws inspiration from the 'unknown sounds and sometimes unheard-of colours' of two period instruments: an 1826 Christoph Kern fortepiano after Conrad Graf and a Steinway & Sons concert grand piano (New York, 1875). The programme opens with Schubert's seldom-recorded fifteen-minute Lied Viola, based on a poem by Franz von Schober.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart: Requiem
Rachel Redmond (soprano), Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo-soprano), Mingjie Lei (tenor), Manuel Walser (bass); Le Concert Des Nations, La Cappela Nacional de Catalunya, Jordi Savall
This recording was made at the Castell de Cardona (in Savall's native Catalonia) last May, not long after a performance by the same forces at the Mozart Week Festival in Salzburg: reviewing the live concert (which followed a very different interpretation of the same work by the Wiener Philharmoniker & Wiener Singverein), the Süddeutsche Zeitung observed that 'while traditional conductors perform this music with Bruckner and Wagner in mind, Jordi Savall intimately knows the history preceding Mozart. It dramatically changes the perspective'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Born near Bergamo in 1626, Giovanni Legrenzi began his career as a church organist and took Holy Orders in 1651 before settling in Venice, where he narrowly missed out on succeeding Cavalli as maestro di cappella at St. Mark's; his pupils there included Lotti, Caldara and Vivaldi. This collection of sacred motets for 2-5 voices includes settings of the Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina coelorum, and Salve regina.
Available Format: CD
Offenbach: La Périchole
Stéphanie d'Oustrac (La Périchole), Philippe Talbot (Piquillo), Tassis Christoyannis (Don Andrès de Ribeira), Eric Huchet (Don Miguel de Panatellas), Lionel Peintre (Don Pedro de Hinoyosa); Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Choir Les élémens, Julien Leroy, Valérie Lesort
Filmed at the Opéra Comique last May, Valérie Lesort's production of Offenbach's 1868 opéra bouffe about a pair of impoverished Peruvian street-singers and their struggles to afford a marriage-licence was praised by BachTrack for its fidelity to the original setting - and for d'Oustrac's 'humor, warmth and liveliness' in the title-role.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
