New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 15th September 2023
Both conductor and soloist have impressive form when it comes to Bartók's music: Aimard recorded the Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion & Orchestra with his former partner Tamara Stefanovich and the late Pierre Boulez in 2008, whilst Salonen won a Grammy for his recording of the three piano concertos with Yefim Bronfman back in 1996. Reviewing their live performances together earlier this year, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that 'this is hugely challenging music (for the soloist, and even for the listener), and there’s a wonderful candor in rendering it with all the dynamism it demands. That was Aimard’s path, and the results were all the more thrilling for it.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Florence Price: Symphony No. 4 & William Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Following their Grammy-winning accounts of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Nézet-Séguin continue their survey of Price's orchestral music with Symphony No. 4 - composed in 1945 and never performed during the composer's lifetime, the score was one of the manuscripts discovered at her abandoned summer home in Illinois in 2009. It's coupled with William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, which was premiered by the orchestra under Stokowski in 1934.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Spanning almost a century of cinematic history, this collection of songs from classic movies includes the serenade from The Student Prince, the Cavatina from The Deer Hunter, 'Por Una Cabeza' from Scent of a Woman, 'Bring Him Home' from Les Misérables, 'The Loveliest Night of the Year' from The Great Caruso and 'Where do I begin?' from Love Story. Kaufmann is joined by guitarist Miloš Karadaglić for 'Moon River', 'Edelweiss' and 'What Is A Youth?' from the 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A prolific composer in his youth, Hough 'returned to composition with a passion' in his early forties after a twenty-year hiatus. The mainstay of this programme is his Missa Mirabilis from 2006, commissioned by Martin Baker for the Choir of Westminster Cathedral; the work's title refers to the fact that Hough survived a serious car-crash whilst composing the work. The album also features his 'Londinium' Magnificat & Nunc dimittis, Three Marian Hymns, O soft self-wounding pelican, and December (which includes settings of 'Silent Night' and 'Hark, the Herald Angels Sing').
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This is the world premiere recording of Jóhannsson's most ambitious orchestral work, commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and performed just once, in February 2012; inspired by the writings of American historian Henry Adams and by the field recordings which Jóhannsson made at Iceland’s Elliðaár power plant, the piece was described as a 'lost symphony' by composer Matthew Patton. The album also includes suites compiled from Jóhannsson's Oscar-nominated scores for The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Haydn: Paris Symphonies & Violin Concerto No. 1
Théotime Langlois de Swarte (violin), Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
Commissioned by the Count D'Ogny, Grandmaster of the Masonic Loge Olympique, Haydn's six 'Paris' symphonies were premiered at the Tuileries in 1786, under the direction of composer, violinist and conductor Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Christie and his ensemble here present Nos. 84-87. Théotime Langlois de Swarte (who recently joined forces with Christie for an album of sonatas by Senaillé & Leclair) directs the Violin Concerto No. 1, composed in the 1760s for Italian violinist Luigi Tomasini.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Grammy-nominated American piano trio present an all-Spanish programme centring on two full-scale works from the first half of the twentieth century: Joaquín Turina's Piano Trio No. 2 in B minor (composed after the death of his daughter in 1932/33) and composer-cellist Gaspar Cassadó's Piano Trio in C from the mid-1920s. The programme also includes Mariano Perelló's Tres Impresiones para violín, violoncello y piano, and three short pieces by the violinist, composer and conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós (who studied with Albéniz and orchestrated his Iberia).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Culminating in the original string sextet version of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, this programme of music from turn-of-the-century Vienna includes Zemlinsky's Maiblumen blühten überall (setting a text by Richard Dehmel, who also wrote the poem which inspired Schoenberg), Webern's single-movement Quintet for strings and piano from 1907, and four songs by Alma Mahler in new arrangements by Tom Poster: 'Die stille Stadt', 'Laue Sommernacht', 'Bei dir ist es traut', and 'Erntelied'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This seventh instalment of the German conductor and organist's series marking the upcoming bicentenary of Bruckner's birth features Erwin Horn's transcription of Symphony No. 7, recorded on the recently-reconfigured Schuke Organ of the Gewandhaus Leipzig. It's preceded by the 'Perger Prelude' from 1884 and Philipp Maintz's Te Deum (Window on Brucknerʼs 7th Symphony, Choralvorspiel XL). Reviewing Vol. 5, Choir & Organ declared that 'One cannot help admiring the consummate ease with which Hansjörg Albrecht communicates these vast symphonies'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
In Handel's Shadow: Vocal Music by his Rivals in Eighteenth-Century London
Robert Crowe, Annette Fischer (sopranos), Julia Nilsen-Savage (cello), Sigrun Richter (lute), Michael Eberth (harpsichord); Lux et Umbrae
The most substantial work here is Johann Ernst Galliard's Hymn of Adam and Eve (setting part of Milton's Paradise Lost); other highlights include the polymath Elisabetta de Gambarini's Behold, and listen, Maurice Greene's Orpheus with his Lute, Henry Carey's cantata I go to the Elisian Shade (a Mad Song), Jeremiah Clarke's setting of Psalm 13 'How long wilt Thou forget me?'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Currently an ensemble-member at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf-Duisburg, the Stuttgart-born baritone took First Prize at the Richard Strauss Competition in Munich back in 1997; his programme here includes the complete Opp. 29, 46 and 47 sets, plus favourites such as 'Morgen!', 'Allerseelen' and 'Zueignung'. Reviewing the album in the latest edition of Gramophone, Hugo Shirley described the pair as 'a song duo of rare refinement and taste', noting that 'Louis rattles off Strauss’s many notes without ever risking overpowering her partner, and there’s never a hint of strain'.
Available Format: CD
Mendelssohn: Elias
Dame Margaret Price (soprano), Brigitte Fassbaender (mezzo-soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone); Chor des Städtischen Musikvereins zu Düsseldorf, Bayerisches Staatsorchester
This first archive release on the Gramophone Award-winning Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings label captures a landmark performance of Mendelssohn's oratorio which opened both the 1984 Münchner Opernfestspiele (Munich Opera Festival) and the 88th German Katholikentag (Catholic Convention).
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
