New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 11th August 2023
Mozart: The Piano Quartets
Francesca Dego (violin), Timothy Ridout (viola), Laura van der Heijden (cello), Federico Colli (piano)
This first recorded collaboration between four of Chandos's brightest stars (two of whom have superb individual Mozart projects underway on the label) received four stars in The Times this week, with Geoff Brown describing the album as 'a splendid showcase for the musicians’ substantial gifts and for Mozart’s never-ending genius'. As they explain in the latest edition of BBC Music Magazine, the four musicians initially came together at Colli's home on the shores of Lake Garda, and toured Italy with the programme shortly before the recording-sessions.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their widely-praised sets of the complete Beethoven and Brahms symphonies (the first of which won Recording of the Year at the International Classical Music Awards), Fischer and his Danish orchestra turn their attention to late Haydn - beginning with the first three of the twelve ‘London’ symphonies (Nos. 93-95), which were written during the composer's first visit to the city in 1791 and received their premieres at the Hanover Rooms.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
The title-work here is a new concerto by the American violinist and composer Earl Maneein (b.1976), which was premiered by Barton Pine in 2017 and fuses three distinct elements: Western classical traditions, heavy metal, and the composer's own Buddhist practice. It's coupled with Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, which Barton Pine (herself a heavy metal enthusiast since her student days) considers to be 'one of the most “metal” of all violin concertos'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Higdon: Duo Duel & Concerto for Orchestra
Matthew Strauss & Svet Stoyanov (percussion); Houston Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano
'Don’t blink – you might miss something!'. That's Pulitzer and GRAMMY-winning composer Jennifer Higdon's advice to listeners regarding Duo Duel, a double concerto for percussion which was written for Strauss & Stoyanov and premiered in Houston last May; the work was inspired in part by the latter's breakneck performance of Higdon's Percussion Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra a few years ago. The companion-piece is the Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and premiered under Wolfgang Sawallisch in 2002.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Maltworms and Milkmaids: Warlock and the Orchestra
Nadine Benjamin (soprano), Ben McAteer (baritone), BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, David Hill
Featuring seventeen world premiere recordings, this album brings together Warlock's small body of orchestral music as well as orchestrations of his songs by other hands (most of which were only available in manuscript until this project got underway). The programme includes well-known songs such as 'Captain Stratton's Fancy', 'Yarmouth Fair' and 'Adam lay ybounden' as well as relative rarities like the two songs referenced in the title; purely orchestral works include the Serenade (to Frederick Delius on his sixtieth birthday) and the popular Capriol Suite.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Enescu: Early Chamber Music
Fine Arts Quartet, Gisele & Fabio Witkowski (piano), Alexander Bickard (double bass)
The mainstay of this album is the Piano Quintet from 1940, which was dedicated to Enescu's patron Princess Elena Bibescu and remained unperformed during his lifetime, receiving its premiere in Bucharest in 1964. It's followed here by the Prélude et Gavotte for violin, cello and two pianos, the string trio Aubade, the Pastorale, Menuet triste et Nocturne for violin and piano four hands, and an arrangement of the popular Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 for piano and string quintet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
This second instalment of the Greek pianist's Farrenc survey focuses on variations, including sets on motifs from Rossini's La cenerentola and George Onslow's Le Colporteur, a theme by her husband Aristide Farrenc (an accomplished flautist and music-publisher), 'Ô ma tendre Musette' and a Swiss folk-song. Volume One was described by BBC Music Magazine as 'two discs packed with beguiling piano music, confirming once again that Farrenc has been unjustly neglected as a composer'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Currently principal clarinet of the Danish Chamber Orchestra under Ádám Fischer, Jonas Frølund makes his solo recording debut here with a programme of unaccompanied works written within the last 100 years: the repertoire includes Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet, Bent Sørensen's Lontanamente, Mette Nielsen's Alone, Gunnar Berg's Pour clarinette seule I, and Simon Steen-Andersen's De Profundis (where Frølund multitasks on a range of percussion instruments as well as bass clarinet!).
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Moniuszko: Paria
Dominik Sutowicz (Idamor), Iwona Sobotka (Neala), Piotr Friebe (Ratef), Rafał Korpik (Akebar), Aleksandra Kiedrowska (Priestess), Stanisław Kuflyuk (Jares); Poznań Opera House Chorus, Jacek Kaspszyk
Based on the same source as Donizetti's opera of 1828 (which received its first studio recording from Opera Rara and Sir Mark Elder in 2021), Paria was Moniuszko's final completed opera, written in 1869; the work centres on the pariah-warrior Idamore's love for Neala, daughter of a Brahmin high priest. This recording was made live in Poznań, in the course of a revival which won the Rediscovered Work prize at the International Opera Awards in 2021.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Humperdinck: Königskinder (Blu-ray)
Daniel Behle (Königssohn), Olga Kulchynska (Gänsemagd), Doris Soffel (Hexe), Josef Wagner (Spielmann), Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Chorus of Dutch National Opera, Nieuw Amsterdams Kinderkoor, Marc Albrecht, Christof Loy
Premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910, Humperdinck's dark fairy-tale opera about a doomed love-affair between a goose-girl and a prince has long been overshadowed by the popularity of his earlier Hänsel und Gretel, but has enjoyed a resurgence of interest over the past couple of decades. This production was filmed in Amsterdam last October, and was described by BachTrack as 'a visually stylish affair' which 'benefits from a complete cast who all act as well as they sing'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
