New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 17th May 2024
Schuen and Heide complete their trilogy of Schubert's major song-cycles with this account of Winterreise, recorded in Hohenems in 2019; their recording of Schwanengesang won an Opus Klassik Award and was a finalist at the 2022 Gramophone Awards, after the magazine praised his 'fresh, beautifully contoured baritone' and the 'illuminating sense of long-term musical direction' which he brought to the work as a whole. Schuen describes Winterreise as 'the first work that comes to mind when you talk about song', noting that it contains 'images in which time seems to stand still completely'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
As well as the eponymous cycle of songs on poems by Paul Verlaine (composed in the early 1890s), this all-Fauré recital includes L'Horizon chimérique from 1921, Mirages from 1919 (setting texts by Renée de Brimont) and Le jardin clos, which Fauré began working on just as World War One broke out. The programme also features the fifteen-minute Ballade in F sharp major for solo piano, with Planès performing on an 1892 Pleyel piano.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 & Arvo Pärt: De Profundis
Albert Dohmen (bass-baritone), Estonian National Male Choir, BBC Philharmonic, John Storgårds
Storgårds continues his acclaimed Shostakovich series (which began in 2020) with this account of Symphony No. 13, nicknamed 'Babi Yar' and composed in 1962. Setting poetry by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the work generated much controversy in the lead-up to its premiere due to its implicit indictment of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, with Nikita Khrushchev attempting to suppress it; however, the work was greeted by a lengthy ovation at its first performance under Kirill Kondrashin in Moscow.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded on a Steinway model D concert grand at Potton Hall in Suffolk, this recital opens with the first two books of Albéniz's Iberia - highlights include 'Fête-dieu à Séville' (a vivid description of a Corpus Christi Day procession), 'Triana' (evoking the Gypsy Quarter of the same city), and a musical portrait of El Puerto de Santa María in Cádiz. The second half of the programme is given over to Granados's Goyescas: subtitled 'Los majos enamorados' ('The Gallants in Love'), the suite was inspired by the work of Spanish artist Francisco Goya, and is widely regarded as the composer's masterpiece.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ensemble Diderot continues its exploration of the style of the Berlin School with a collection of harpsichord concertos by composers from the court of Frederick II: Carl Heinrich Graun, Christoph Nichelmann, Christoph Schaffrath, and Ernst Wilhelm Wolf. The group's 2020 album of trio sonatas (including works by Anna Amalia of Prussia, Franz Benda and Johann Gottlieb Graun) from Berlin received four stars in BBC Music Magazine, and was applauded in Gramophone for the 'multicoloured finesse' of the performances.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This tribute to the British cellist Beatrice Harrison (1892-1965) marks the 100th anniversary of the 'Nightingale Broadcast', which captured her playing in the garden of her family home in Oxted and was one of the BBC's first broadcasts from a remote location. The programme centres on works by the composers of the 'Frankfurt Gang', whose music Harrison championed, including pieces by Roger Quilter, Cyril Scott and Percy Grainger: all three composers studied under Iwan Knorr in Frankfurt, and remained close friends after their student days.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The French lutenist, guitarist and theorbist Robert de Visée spent much of his career at the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV, and published numerous collections of pieces for his instruments; this programme includes the Suites in A Minor and D major, a selection of dances and character-pieces, plus arrangements of works Lully, Couperin and Purcell and his own version of 'Les Folies d’Espagne'. Lindberg writes: ‘I can’t help but be seduced by the grace of the instrument’s lines, the resonance of its sonorities, and by the unmistakably French elegance of this remarkable composer'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mozart & Poulenc Double & Triple Piano Concertos
Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, Karin Kei Nagano (piano), Orchestre de La Suisse Romande, Kent Nagano
Kent Nagano joins forces with his wife (Mari Kodama), his daughter (Karin Kei Nagano) and his sister-in-law (Momo Kodama) for Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 7 for Three Pianos & Piano Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos, followed by Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos (dedicated to the Princess de Polignac aka Winnaretta Singer, and premiered by the composer and his friend Jacques Février in 1932). The family aspect of the project echoes Mozart's own practice of performing his music with his father Leopold, his sister Nannerl, his wife Constanze, and his sister-in-laws Aloysia and Josepha.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Geoffrey Gordon: Mythologies and Mad Songs
Dimitri Mestdag (cor anglais), Laurent Ben Slimane (bass clarinet), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins
This portrait of the American-born composer Geoffrey Gordon (b.1968) comprises the overture PUCK - fleeing from the dawn, the cor anglais concerto Mad Song, ICE - aut inveniam viam aut faciam, and the Kafka-inspired bass clarinet concerto Prometheus. Gordon's music has been described as 'complex and richly-satisfying' (BBC Music Magazine), 'luminous and ecstatic' (Gramophone), and 'darkly seductive' (The New York Times); a former winner of the Aaron Copland Award, he currently divides his time between the US and the UK.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Days before his death in 2021, Payne met with NMC's founder Colin Matthews to discuss plans for this album of his previously unrecorded orchestral works; the recording now also stands as a tribute to the late Andrew Davis, who conducted the title-work (premiered in 2002 and inspired in part by Payne's holiday journeys to the Isles of Scilly with his wife, the soprano Jane Manning). The album also includes The Seeds Long Hidden (a set of orchestral variations from the early 1990s) and the 1987 tone-poem Half-Heard in the Stillness.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
