New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 22nd November 2024
Bill & Friends
William Christie (harpsichord), Justin Taylor (harpsichord), Gwendoline Blondeel (soprano), Juliette Mey (mezzo), Myriam Rignol (viol), Théotime Langlois de Swarte (violin), Emmanuel Resche-Caserta (violin)
To celebrate his upcoming eightieth birthday (which falls on 19th December), the American-French conductor and harpsichordist joins forces with a host of young artists whom he has mentored and befriended for a programme of Baroque music. Highlights include violin sonatas by Jean-Baptiste Senaillé and Jacquet de la Guerre (with Théotime Langlois de Swarte and Emmanuel Resche-Caserta respectively), pieces from the Kraków Manuscript, and keyboard duets by Handel, Purcell and Couperin with Justin Taylor.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
The mainstay of this programme of works by the American composer (1860-1908) is the Piano Concerto No. 1, which shows the influence of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann & Grieg and was written in 1885. The album also includes the 1888 symphonic poem Lancelot and Elaine (inspired by Tennyson's Idylls of the King), the Keats-inspired Lamia (1908), 'The Lovely Alda' from the Two Fragments after the Song of Roland, and Victor Herbert's string orchestra arrangement of MacDowell's best-known work - 'To a Wild Rose' from the Ten Woodland Sketches.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Following their acclaimed survey of the complete Beethoven violin sonatas (described as 'vital and compelling' by the Sunday Times), Ehnes and Armstrong team up for Schumann's set of musical fairy-tales Märchenbilder and Brahms's own arrangements of the two sonatas which he originally composed for clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. Ehnes plays the 1696 'Achinto' Stradivari viola, on loan for this project from the Royal College of Music; his previous recordings as a violist include the Bartók and Walton concertos, and a 'ravishingly beautiful' (The Guardian) account of Berlioz's Harold en Italie.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Massenet: Hérodiade
Clémentine Margaine (Hérodiade), Nicole Car (Salomé), Étienne Dupuis (Hérode), Matthew Polenzani (Jean), Marko Mimica (Phanuel); Deutsche Oper Berlin, Enrique Mazzola
Premiered in Brussels twenty-four years before Strauss's Salome, Massenet's Hérodiade offers a far more lyrical treatment of the story, in which Herodias (rather than Salome) demands the head of John the Baptist and Salome ends her own life in despair at his execution. Using the 1884 revision of the score which Massenet prepared for the Paris premiere, this recording was made live from concert performances at the Deutsche Oper last June.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
This is the first instalment of a new cycle of Dvořák symphonies from Melbourne, recorded live at Hamer Hall in 2023; reviewing the first concert, ClassikON's Alan Holley reflected that 'Martín approached the Dvorak’s Fifth Symphony as if engaging in a conversation with an old friend. He shaped the sumptuous melodic lines and warm, rich harmonies with ease allowing space for his wonderful orchestral colleagues to weave elegant solos or rumbustious interruptions.' Speaking to Presto's James Longstaffe earlier this year, the Spanish conductor remarked that these two symphonies 'might not be the most familiar ones, but I absolutely love both of them!'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
The lion's share of this seventh volume in Salvi's Auber series is given over to music from the 1835 'fairy-opera' Le Cheval de bronze - set in China and premiered at Covent Garden, the piece was one of Auber's most popular works during his lifetime. The album also includes music from the 1839 grand opera Le Lac des fées (based on a German folk-ballad), the picaresque Marco Spada from 1852, and the overture to the London-based comic opera Jenny Bell.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
The Art of Obligato
Davina Clarke (violin), Tom Foster (harpsichord), Nick Pritchard (tenor), Hugh Cutting (countertenor), Kati Debretzeni (violin)
Davina Clarke writes: 'As a violinist with a lifelong love for singing, the desire to explore the interplay between vocal and instrumental lines, particularly through the use of obligato, became a driving force for me.' The album includes tenor arias from the cantatas Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal in das Reich Gottes eingehen and Es ist euch gut, daß ich hingehe (with Nick Pritchard, the Evangelist on John Eliot Gardiner's most recent Christmas Oratorio) and countertenor arias from Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn and Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren (with Kathleen Ferrier Award-winner Hugh Cutting), plus two sonatas for violin and keyboard.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Tom Coult: Pieces That Disappear
Tom Coult, Anna Dennis (soprano), Daniel Pioro (violin), Elena Schwarz, BBC Philharmonic, Martyn Brabbins, Andrew Gourlay
This is the debut album from British composer Tom Coult (b.1988), whose credits to date include the opera Violet (described by The Telegraph as 'the best new British opera in years'), the BBC Proms commission St John's Dance and residencies at the Aldeburgh and Oxford Lieder Festivals. The title-work was written for the BBC Philharmonic and was inspired by what Coult describes as 'a vague, loosely connected set of ideas about music being remembered, forgotten, misremembered, imagined or deteriorating'; the album also includes the violin concerto Pleasure Garden, Beautiful Caged Thing for soprano and orchestra, and After Lassus (which reworks a series of duets from Novae aliquot).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV
William Walton: Complete Songbook
Siân Dicker (soprano), Krystal Tunnicliffe (piano), Saki Kato (guitar)
'Everything WW does is impressive - why the devil doesn't he write more songs?' - this was the verdict of the great collaborative pianist Gerald Moore, who gave the world premiere of A Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf at the City of London Festival in 1962. Indeed the composer's entire song output fits on this single disc: highlights include the Three ‘Façade’ Settings on texts by Edith Sitwell, the song-cycle Anon in Love (commissioned by Peter Pears and Julian Bream) for voice and guitar, and the Four Early Songs on texts by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Crimson Roses
Erinn Sensenig (soprano), Frederica von Stade (mezzo), Musica Viva NY Orchestra & Choir, Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez
This triptych of new American choral works comprises Joseph Turrin’s cantata And Crimson Roses Once Again Be Fair (written to mark the centenary of the First World War Armistice and setting texts by Charlotte Mew, Bruno Frank, Siegfried Sassoon, Alfred Lichtenstein, Wilfred Owen, Albert-Paul Granier & Vera Brittain), Richard Einhorn's The Luminous Ground (drawing on the ideas of Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna), and Gilda Lyons's Momotombo (inspired by the volcanic landscape of Nicaragua).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Puccini: La bohème (vinyl)
Mirella Freni (Mimi), Luciano Pavarotti (Rodolfo), Nicolai Ghiaurov (Colline), Elizabeth Harwood (Musetta), Rolando Panerai (Marcello), Gianni Maffeo (Schaunard), Michel Sénéchal (Alcindoro/Benoit), Gernot Pietsch (Parpignol); Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
To mark the centenary of Puccini's death, Decca presents Karajan's legendary 1972 Bohème on vinyl and SACD, using a new 24-bit 192 kHz high-definition transfer from the original master tapes; the accompanying hardback book includesa full libretto (with translation), an extended new essay, facsimiles from the original booklet, features about the main artists, and original session photographs. The Gramophone Classical Music Guide described Pavarotti's Rodolfo as 'perhaps the best thing he has ever done', and hailed Karajan as 'a great Puccini conductor who can linger over the beauties of orchestration without losing his grip on the drama or relaxing his support of the singers.'
Available Format: 2 Vinyl Records
Mozart: Mitridate, re di Ponto (Blu-ray)
Pene Pati (Mitridate), Ana Maria Labin (Aspasia), Angela Brower (Sifare), Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian (Farnace), Sarah Aristidou (Ismene); Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Satoshi Miyagi
Directed by Satoshi Miyagi (supported by a Japanese production-team), this staging of Mozart's very early opera draws on the tradition of kabuki theatre and was filmed at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in December 2022; reviewing the live performance, BachTrack observed that 'In Miyagi’s hands, the conflict passes over details and assumes continental, cultural proportions, Mitridate’s Asia fighting against Marzio’s Europe.' There was also praise for Pati's 'malleable tenor' in the taxing title-role, Labin's 'impeccable coloratura' as the queen Aspasia, and Brower's 'rich-toned mezzo and captivating stage presence' as Mitridate's son Sifare.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
