New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 19th May 2023
Today's new releases include violin concertos by Max Bruch and Florence Price from Itzhak Perlman protégé Randall Goosby, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin on Decca, a snapshot of Mozart's time in Mannheim (including world premiere recordings of works by Vogler and Cannabich) from the Freiburger Barockorchester and Gottfried von der Goltz on Deutsche Grammophon, Liszt orchestral songs from Thomas Hampson, Sunhae Im and friends with the Wiener Akademie on Aparté, and the Bevan Family Consort's debut album of sacred choral music on Signum.
Max Bruch & Florence Price: Violin Concertos
Randall Goosby (violin), Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Two years on from his arresting debut album Roots, the 24-year-old American violinist couples one of the best-known concertos in the repertoire with two works which were only discovered fourteen years ago: composed in 1939 and 1952 respectively, Price's violin concertos were found in manuscript at her abandoned summer home in Illinois in 2009. The recording is the latest instalment of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s planned survey of all her major orchestral works, which began with their Grammy-winning accounts of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 in 2021.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Mozart spent several months in Mannheim in 1778, where he was hugely impressed by Christian Cannabich (then director of the Mannheim court orchestra) and hailed him as 'the best conductor I have ever seen' in a letter to his father. This album features the world premiere recordings of Cannabich’s Symphony No. 55, Christian Danner’s Violin Concerto in F, Carl Joseph Toeschi’s Sextet and Georg Joseph Vogler’s Overture to Der Kaufmann von Smyrna, plus two works which Mozart composed in Mannheim: the concert aria Alcandro, lo confesso and the Symphony in C K208 (using material from Il re pastore).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Liszt: Orchestral Songs
Sunhae Im (soprano), Thomas Hampson (baritone), Orchester Wiener Akademie, Martin Haselböck
As well as Liszt's arrangements of his own 'Die Lorelei' and 'Die drei Zigeuner', this album features the composer's orchestrations of Schubert's 'Die junge Nonne', 'Gretchen am Spinnrade', 'Lied der Mignon' and 'Der Erlkönig'. 'Die Vätergruft', 'Weimars Toten' (Liszt's first original orchestral song), 'Le Juif errant', 'Der Titan' and Schubert's 'Der Doppelgänger' all receive their world premiere recordings in the orchestral versions.
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).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Dutilleux: Tout un monde lointain & Dusapin: Outscape
Victor Julien-Laferrière (cello), Orchestre National de France, David Robertson, Kristiina Poska
This is the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's single-movement cello concerto Outscape, written for Alisa Weilerstein in 2014/15 and praised by its dedicatee for its 'very interesting combination of yearning lyricism and urgent drive'; it's preceded here by Dutilleux's Baudelaire-inspired Tout un monde lointain... (premiered by Rostropovich in 1970), in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the composer's death.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
![Momentum [1]: Walton, Respighi](https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiOTQ3ODQ0OC4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6MjAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE2ODEzMzMwNjF9)
Momentum [1]: Walton, Respighi
Liya Petrova (violin), Adam Laloum (piano), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Duncan Ward
The Bulgarian violinist (who took First Prize at the International Carl Nielsen Violin Competition in 2016) couples the concerto which Walton composed for Jascha Heifetz in 1939 with Respighi's Violin Sonata in B minor from 1917, dedicated to Ernesto Consolo & Arrigo Serato. Reviewing Petrova's recording of the Nielsen concerto shortly after her victory, The Sunday Times noted that she 'makes a gorgeous sound — ripe and silvery, phrasing with majestic breadth'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
An Editor's Choice in the latest edition of Gramophone, the Russian pianist's second album for Naive takes its title from a set of five pieces by Bartók (the fourth of which closes the recital) and also includes Schumann's Waldszenen, Liszt's Transcendental Studies 'Feux Follets' and 'Chasse-neige', Ravel's Miroirs, Felix Draeseke's Petite Histoire, and Adolf Schulz-Evler’s Arabesque on Themes from Strauss's 'The Blue Danube'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Dejan Lazić's own Concerto in Istrian Style (composed in 2014) opens this programme of music with its roots in folk traditions of the Croatian peninsula, which also includes Natko Devčić's Istrian Suite from 1946, Ivan Matetić Ronjgov's Istrian Folk Anthem (''Draga nam je zemlja'), and Lazić's set of orchestral variations on Ronjgov's theme. Born in Zagreb, Lazić studied composition with Peter Eötvös in Salzburg, and wrote the latter work especially for this recording.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This recital of songs themed around 'legends and heroes' comprises Robert Schumann's 'Des Sängers Fluch', Drei Gedichte von Emanuel Geibel & Liederkreis Op. 39, Liszt's 'Die Lorelei', 'Im Rhein, im schönen Strome' & Drei Lieder aus Schillers Wilhelm Tell, and Swedish composer Emil Sjögren's Sechs Lieder aus Julius Wolff's Tannhäuser. (Kohlhepp will appear as soloist in another fantasy-inspired work by Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic next month).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
All of the arias here were written for the German bass Christoph Praun (1696-c.1772), who spent much of his career at the Viennese imperial court and was noted for his wide range and agility; the result of his own research at the Vienna National Library, Baldo's programme includes excerpts from Scipione Africano il maggiore, Mitridate, Cajo Marzio Coriolano, Il Temistocle and La Contesa de’ Numi.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This postscript to Albion's series of recordings commemorating Vaughan Williams's 150th birthday last year features On Wenlock Edge, and takes its title from a new work for the same forces by Ian Venables: Portraits of A Mind sets texts by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti; and Walt Whitman (all poets associated with Vaughan Williams). Vaughan Williams's Four Hymns completes the programme, in a new arrangement for for tenor, piano and string quartet by Iain Farrington.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Released to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the composer's death, this collection of choral music by Kenneth Leighton features world premiere recordings of five works: Laudes Animantium (scored for for double choir, soloists and children’s chorus), the carols 'Sleep, Holy Babe' and 'The seven joys of Mary', the part-song London Town, and Lord, When the Sense of Thy Sweet Grace. Among the other highlights is the setting of John Donne’s Nativity from 1956.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Lully: Acis et Galatée (DVD)
Jean-Francois Lombard (Acis), Elena Harsanyi (Galatée), Luigi de Donato (Poliphème), Guido Loconsolo (Neptune); Orchestra E Coro Del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Federico Maria Sardelli, Benjamin Lazar
This pastorale-héroïque on a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses (which also inspired Handel three decades later) was one of Lully's final major works, and was originally premiered in Paris in 1686 - Christophe Rousset recently observed that 'you have him making the widest and most dramatic use of the orchestra yet - it opens the way to the future'. This production was filmed in Florence last summer, and was described by OperaWire as 'an engrossing staging with plenty of color, marvelous costumes and eye-catching sets'.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
