Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni
Théotime Langlois de Swarte (violin), Julie Roset (soprano), Le Consort
A year on from Vivaldi: Concerti Per Una Vita (which received five stars in BBC Music Magazine and was nominated for an International Classical Music Award), the French violinist turns to the 'Red Priest''s best-known work. As well as The Four Seasons, the programme includes the motet Nulla in mundo pax sincera, the violin concertos RV292, 264 and 155, and excerpts from Gregorio Lambranzi's Danze da Nuova e curiosa scuola de' balli teatrali (given here in new arrangements for duo and trio by Langlois de Swarte & Oliver Fourés).
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo), Andrew Staples, Alessandro Fisher (tenors), Ross Ramgobin (baritone), Florian Boesch (bass-baritone), London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle
This recording of Weill's satirical 'sung ballet' was made live at the Barbican in April 2022, when the Evening Standard praised Kožená's combination of 'impassioned allure' and 'fiery indignation' as Anna and Opera Today applauded her 'self-knowing directness and sometimes painful honesty'. The album also includes 'Lonely House' from Street Scene, two of Weill's Walt Whitman settings, the 1927 cantata Vom Tod in Wald ('Death in the Forest'), and Little Threepenny Music (a suite for winds on music from The Threepenny Opera).
Available formats: SACD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
The Golden Renaissance: Palestrina
Stile Antico
Following albums centring on Byrd and Josquin, the final instalment in Stile Antico's 'Golden Renaissance' trilogy celebrates the 500th anniversary of Palestrina's birth; the programme is based around the famous Missa Papae Marcelli (supposedly written in response to anxieties raised at the Council of Trent about the appropriateness of polyphonic music in worship), and also includes the motets 'Exultate Deo', 'Tu es Petrus', 'Sicut cervus' and 'Assumpta est Maria'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Rufus Wainwright: Dream Requiem
Meryl Streep (narrator), Anna Prohaska (soprano), Orchestre Philharmonique et Choeur de Radio France, Mikko Franck
Composed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wainwright's Dream Requiem combines text from the Latin Mass for the Dead with Lord Byron's end-of-days poem Darkness (which was written in the 'Year Without a Summer' 1816, following the eruption of Mount Tambora). The work is dedicated to Verdi (whose Requiem had a profound impact on Wainwright as a young teenager) and Puccini - not the composer, but Wainwright's dog who died in 2020.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
New Year's Concert 2025
Wiener Philharmoniker, Riccardo Muti
Muti made his seventh New Year's Day appearance in Vienna this year, conducting a programme which featured Constanze Geiger's 'Ferdinandus-Walzer' (orchestrated by Wolfgang Dörner), alongside the usual favourites by the Strauss Family and Josef Hellmesberger. The DVD and Blu-ray of the concert will be released on 24th January.
Available format: Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Dreamcatcher
James McVinnie (organ/piano)
Recorded on the organ of St Albans Cathedral and a Steinway Model D at Studio Richter Mahr, McVinnie's debut album on Pentatone takes its title from a piece by Brazilian composer Marcos Balter (b. 1974), which was written in response to the family separation crisis at the US-Mexico border in 2018; the programme also features works by Nico Muhly, Meredith Monk, Laurie Spiegel, John Adams, inti figgis-vizueta, Gabriella Smith, Giles Swayne, and Bryce Dessner. The album received four stars in The Times this week, with Geoff Brown noting that 'McVinnie and his magnificent organ easily rise to every challenge'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Johann Friedrich Agricola: Achille in Sciro
Angelo Giordano (Achille), Julia Gromball (Deidamia), Joel Vuik (Ulisse), Jasper Sung (Licomede); Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir of the Theater Altenburg Gera, Gerd Amelung
A pupil of JS Bach and Quantz, Agricola originally studied law in Leipzig before moving to Berlin and being appointed as court composer to Frederick the Great. Premiered in 1765, his second festive opera Achille in Sciro sets a libretto by Pietro Metastasio which tells of the time which Achilles spent in hiding (disguised as a girl) on the isle of Skyros after an oracle had predicted his death in the Trojan War; after impregnating the king's daughter Deidamia, he is eventually tracked down by Odysseus who persuades him to abandon her and sail to Troy.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
José de Nebra: Venus y Adonis
Los Elementos, Alberto Miguélez Rouco
Born in Zaragoza in 1702, José de Nebra was one of the most pioneering and prolific composers of the Spanish Baroque, despite spending years under house-arrest after being named in correspondence regarding a plot to depose Philip V. This is the world premiere recording of his pastoral melodrama Venus y Adonis (1729), which blends Italian operatic style with elements of zarzuela, flamenco and zarambeque. Formed in 2018, Los Elementos has previously recorded Nebra's zarzuelas Donde hay violencia, no hay culpa and Vendado es amor, no es ciego; Fanfare described the latter as 'filled with joy and verve, as if this were presented in Madrid in Nebra’s time.'
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Getty: Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Nathan Granner (Chips), Melody Moore (Kathie/Linford), Lester Lynch (Merrivale), Michael Jankosky (Faulkner), Bruce Rameker (West), Kevin Short (Ralston/Rivers), Barbary Coast Orchestra, San Francisco Boys Chorus, Dennis Doubin
This is the fourth opera by American composer and businessman Gordon Getty (b.1933), following Plump Jack (2012), Usher House (2013) and The Canterville Ghost (2015). Based on a 1934 novella by James Hilton (which also inspired an enormously popular film starring Robert Donat, Greer Garson and John Mills), the plot centres on a beloved teacher at an English boarding-school who is widowed at a young age. Originally conceived as a fully-staged opera, the work was reimagined for the screen during the COVID-19 lockdowns and received its world premiere on film in 2021.
Available formats: 2 SACDs, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Bruckner From the Archives, Vol. 6
Hilde Ceska (soprano), Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Wiener Symphoniker, Vienna Akademie Kammerchor, Eugen Jochum, Henry Swoboda, Wolfgang Sawallisch
This final volume of SOMM's series celebrating last year's Bruckner bicentenary comprises Symphony No. 8 (recorded live in 1957 by the Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Eugen Jochum, who had made the first commercial recording of the work two decades earlier), Symphony No. 9 (recorded by the Wiener Symphoniker under Wolfgang Sawallisch in May 1966), and a 1950 recording of Psalm 150 from Vienna (conducted by Henry Swoboda). All three recordings have been recently remastered by Lani Spahr.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 24 bit)
