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New Release Round-up, New Release Round-Up - 24th January 2025

Cover of Carmina Burana (featuring the title and conductor's name in red on a black background), Exile (a blurry black and white photo of a figure ascending a staircase), Busoni piano works (a caricature of the composer), and The Passenger (a photo from the Liceu production, showing passengers on two decks of an ocean-liner)Today's new releases include Orff's Carmina Burana from Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, a programme of music by refugee composers from Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Camerata Bern, Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica from Peter Donohoe and Karl Lutchmayer, and Weinberg's 1968 opera The Passenger from Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and a cast including Amanda Majeski, Daveda Karanas and Gyula Orendt at the Teatro Real de Madrid.

Alina Wunderlin (soprano), Max Emanuel Cencic (countertenor), Russell Braun (baritone); Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Zürcher Sing-Akademie, Zürcher Sängerknaben, Paavo Järvi

This recording was made at a concert at the orchestra's home in 2022, which was only the third time that Carmina Burana had been performed at the Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zürich; Paavo Järvi, however, is a long-term lover of the piece, describing it as 'one of the most original and powerful choral works of the twentieth century'. The cameo role of roasted swan, usually assigned to a high tenor, is taken here by countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic.

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Amanda Majeski (Marta), Daveda Karanas (Lisa), Nikolai Schukoff (Walter), Gyula Orendt/Stephen Waarts (Tadeusz), Orquesta del Teatro Real de Madrid, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Based on a novel by Polish resistance-fighter and concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz, Weinberg's 1968 opera received its first full staging only in 2010; set primarily on an ocean liner in the late 1950s, the action centres on a German diplomat's wife and erstwhile SS guard who recognises another passenger on the ship as a former prisoner at Auschwitz. The recording is released to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Peter Donohoe (piano), Karl Lutchmayer (piano)

Donohoe's first album of Busoni was shortlisted for a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2022, whilst Gramophone noted that 'his performances here exhibit a seasoned intimacy with this repertory'. The centrepiece of this sequel is the Bach-influenced Fantasia contrappuntistica, originally conceived as a solo piano work and given here in the composer's own version for two pianos from 1921; the programme also includes the Variations and Fugue in Free Form (after Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 10) and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (after JS Bach's BWV 565).

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Thomas Kaufmann (cello), Camerata Bern

This programme of works by composers who were compelled to leave their homelands includes Alfred Schnittke's Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1, Andrzey Panufnik's Concerto for Violin and Strings, Eugène Ysaÿe's 'Poème Symphonique' Exil! and Ivan Wyschnegradsky's String Quartet No. 2, plus two folksongs: 'Cucuşor cu pană sură' ('Cuckoo, why do you always sing a sad song?') and 'Kugikly' (originally for violin and Ukrainian & Russian Panpipes, but arranged here for string ensemble by Jonathan Keren).

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

This third volume of the New York-based quartet's Beethoven cycle comprises the first six string quartets, composed between 1798 and 1800 for the Bohemian nobleman Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz (who was also the dedicatee of An die ferne Geliebte and Symphonies Nos. 3, 5 & 6). The Calidore's set of the late quartets won the Chamber Prize at last year's BBC Music Magazine Awards, thanks to the 'quite remarkable technical accomplishment' on display.

Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Marek Štilec

The main event on this eight instalment of the Austrian composer's orchestral works is the Grande sinfonie caractéristique pour la paix avec la République françoise, composed in 1797 in the wake of the Peace of Leoben; the planned premiere that December was cancelled by Emperor Francis II after peace-negotiations eventually broke down. The album also includes the 'Jagd-Sinfonie' and the Symphony in D, P17.

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Alexander Shelley

Initiated by Alexander Shelley, this new project from Ottawa sees contemporary Canadian composers responding to works by Richard Strauss: the first instalment presents Don Juan alongside Kelly‑Marie Murphy's Dark Night, Bright Stars, Vast Universe, and Tod und Verklärung alongside Kevin Lau's The Infinite Reaches. Future volumes will feature new works by Ian Cussons, Alexina Louie and John Estacio, plus a yet-to-be-commissioned response to Ein Heldenleben.

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Can Çakmur (piano)

The Turkish pianist began his Schubert+ series back in 2023, with a first volume setting Schubert's music alongside works by Schoenberg; following instalments which drew parallels with Brahms and Krenek, this latest recital adds Chopin, Scriabin and the Czech composer and lawyer Jan Václav Voříšek into the mix. Çakmur's Schubert has been praised by Gramophone for his 'natural instinct for elegant phrasing and sensitive voicing'.

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Francesco Corti (harpsichord), Il Pomo d'Oro

Following albums dedicated to JS Bach, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, Corti turns his attention to concerti and solo works by three composers who embody the 'Empfindsamer Stil' ('sentimental style') of the late eighteenth century: WF Bach, CPE Bach, and Georg Benda. The programme also includes WF Bach's Sinfonia in D Minor, believed to have been written for liturgical use in Dresden.

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Vannina Santoni (Grisélidis), Julien Dran (Alain), Thomas Dolié (Le Marquis), Tassis Christoyannis (Le Diable), Adèle Charvet (Bertrade); Opéra national Montpellier Occitanie, Jean-Marie Zeitouni

Premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1901, Massenet's 'conte lyrique' tells the story of 'patient Griselda', a figure who had also attracted Chaucer, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Perrault, Vivaldi and Alessandro Scarlatti. In Massenet's version, she is a fourteenth-century Provençal shepherdess who marries a Marquis and staunchly resists The Devil's attempts to seduce or trick her into infidelity whilst her husband is away on a Crusade.

Available Formats: CD + Book, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Véronique Gens (soloist), Olivia Doray, David Witczak (soloist), Reinoud Van Mechelen (tenor), Thomas Dolié (soloist) et al; Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet

Predating Gluck's opera of the same name by almost a century, this recently rediscovered score is the work of two composers: Henri Desmarest sketched the outline in 1695, with André Campra being enlisted to finish the job after Desmarest was banished by Louis XIV for eloping with one of his young singing-students. The opera was eventually premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in 1704, and received revivals across Europe over the next seven years.

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli (Adelaide), Carlo Vistoli (Lotario), Rafał Tomkiewicz (Idelbert), Krystian Adam (Berengario), Anna Bonitatibus (Matilde), Ki-Hyun Park (Clodomiro); Händelfestspielorchester Halle, Attilio Cremonesi

Premiered in London in 1729, Lotario presents a heavily fictionalised depiction of events in the life of Adelaide of Italy (who became Holy Roman Empress after her marriage to Otto the Great in 962). Although the work received only ten performances, Handel later recycled material from the score for revivals of Ottone and Il pastor fido. This performance was recorded live at the Händel-Festspiele in Halle in June 2023.

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV