New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 3rd May 2024
Recorded live at the Wiener Konzerthaus in April 2022, Wang's programme includes Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 3, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18 ('The Hunt'), 'Lavapiés' and 'Malaga' from Albéniz's Iberia, Études by Ligeti and Glass, two of Kapustin's Preludes in Jazz Style, and Márquez's Danzón No. 2. Reviewing her performance of a similar programme in London a few days earlier, The Guardian remarked that 'technically everything was dazzling, every detail crisp and perfectly articulated, with chords exactly weighted and precisely placed...It was all thoroughly musical, too, never heartless or mechanical.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French pianist shares the keyboard with a different partner on each of this album's 22 tracks, with highlights including the Berceuse from Fauré's Dolly Suite with the late Nicholas Angelich, 'Le jardin féerique' from Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye with Bertrand Chamayou, Rachmaninoff's transcription of 'The Spell' from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty with Alexander Melnikov, and Piazzólla's Libertango with Beatrice Rana. His guests also include three artists who are not primarily pianists: the chanteuse Juliette, countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, and cellist Gautier Capuçon.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor sits at the heart of the 27-year-old German pianist's debut recital on Deutsche Grammophon, which also includes a selection of his etudes and preludes, six sonatas by Scarlatti, and two improvisatory Transitions by Asal himself. Explaining the inspiration behind this rather unorthodox pairing, Asal writes: 'I sensed some sort of inner distance in both composers’ work, perhaps coming from the fact that each wrote so many expressive miniatures for keyboard.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Elder's previous accounts of these two symphonies were among the first recordings released on the Hallé's own label, which was launched in 2003. Issued to mark the end of his tenure as Music Director, these new performances were recorded at Bridgewater Hall in 2021 (No. 1) and 2018 (No. 2), and the release is MusicWeb International's April Recording of the Month: reviewer John Quinn remarks that 'The earlier recordings of both symphonies were very good, but I think that these later versions surpass them artistically because the relationship between conductor and orchestra – and their collective understanding of Elgar’s music – has audibly matured'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
John Pickard: Symphonies 2 & 6; Verlaine Songs
Emma Tring (soprano), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martyn Brabbins
Seven years on from their Gramophone Award-nominated recording of 16 Sunrises & Symphony No. 5, Brabbins and BBCNOW return to the music of the British composer with Symphony No. 2 (completed when Pickard was 23 and inspired in part by John Hersey’s 1946 book Hiroshima) and Symphony No. 6 (composed during the lockdowns of 202/2021 and dedicated to BIS's founder Robert von Bahr). The Six Verlaine Songs were composed especially for Tring, and include settings of 'Chanson d'automne', 'Spleen', and 'L'heure exquise'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This ninth volume of Alard's acclaimed Bach series focuses on the five-year period which the composer spent in the employment of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen (directly before taking up the position of Thomaskantor in 1723). The programme includes the Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor BWV903, the English Suites Nos. 3, 5 and 6, the cantata Amore traditore (with baritone Marc Mauillon), and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 (for which Alard is joined by Anne Pekkala, Paul Monteiro, Samantha Montgomery, Ronan Kernoa, and Sien Huybrechts).
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni & Concerti d'Il Cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione
Alfia Bakieva (violin), Les Musiciennes du Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall
As Vivaldi did during his time at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, Savall conducts an all-female orchestra on this recording, which includes two versions of Le Quattro Stagioni: one which includes the sonnets which inspired each concerto, and one which presents the music alone. A graduate of the Salzburg Mozarteum, Novosibirsk-born musician Alfia Bakieva performs regularly on folk fiddle, kyl-kobiz and ghizzhak as well being an acclaimed baroque violinist: for this recording she plays a Francesco Ruggeri violin, made in Cremona in 1680.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Pahud first became captivated by the music of Mozart (with whom he shares a birthday) at the age of five, describing him as 'the reason why I became a musician'; reviewing his performance of the Flute Concerto back in 2000, the Baltimore Sun praised his 'astonishing array of subtly moulded sounds, superb breath control, flawless articulation and, above all, consistently eloquent phrasing'. His programme here comprises arrangements of the Violin Sonatas Nos. 17, 21 26 and 27.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The first instalment of Mullova and Beatson's Beethoven survey (released on Onyx in 2021) received five stars in BBC Music Magazine thanks to their 'dramatic rethinking of texture, balance, articulation and expression', whilst Gramophone declared that 'among recent recordings of such extremely familiar repertoire, this one must surely rank among the finest.' For this sequel on Signum, Beatson once again plays a copy of an 1805 Walter fortepiano by Paul McNulty, with Mullova using gut strings.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following acclaimed recordings of Scriabin's mazurkas and Shostakovich's 24 Preludes & Fugues, Gugnin presents the original solo piano version of From Holberg’s Time (more commonly heard in the composer's own arrangement for string orchestra), the 1840 Ballade based on a Norwegian mountain-tune, and Books Three & Seven of the Lyric Pieces. Gugnin's Shostakovich recording won the Instrumental Prize at the 2020 BBC Music Magazine Awards, when he was hailed as 'a ferocious new talent who can also accomplish the introspection'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
As well as paying homage to Italian female composers of the seventeenth century (including Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Isabella Leonarda and Antonia Bembo), this album also celebrates colourful depictions of heroines, saints and witches in the traditional music of Italy and Latin America. L'Arpeggiata are joined by four guest-singers to bring them all to life: soprano Céline Scheen, mezzos Luciana Mancini and Benedetta Mazzucato, and alto Vincenzo Capezzuto.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Havergal Brian: The Cenci
Helen Field (soprano), Ingveldur Yr Jonsdóttir (contralto), Stuart Kale, Justin Lavender (tenors), David Wilson-Johnson (bass-baritone); Millennium Sinfonia, James Kelleher
Completed in 1952, Brian's opera in eight scenes is based on an 1820 verse-drama by Shelley, which tells a grim tale of incest and parricide in Renaissance Italy; this live recording captures the work's very belated premiere at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1997. In an interview with The Independent shortly before the performance, Kelleher noted that 'Brian employs his customary largish, but not massive, orchestra, but there's nothing congested or thickly scored about the textures and much of the vocal writing is expertly handled'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
