Today's new releases include Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and more from Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández on Sony, Ginastera's complete string quartets from the Miró Quartet and soprano Kiera Duffy on Pentatone, a triptych of orchestral works by Australian composer Liza Lim on musica viva, and a nature-themed album from Venezuelan male soprano Samuel Mariño on Decca.
Moonlight Variations
Pablo Ferrández (cello), Julien Quentin (piano), Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Martin Fröst
This album of popular miniatures and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations was the Chamber Choice in BBC Music Magazine this month, with Jo Talbot noting that 'to play these pieces convincingly, you need real artistry, to have a wide palette of colours and techniques in your armoury and know at what point in a phrase to deploy them'. The shorter works include Debussy's 'Beau Soir', Ponce's 'Estrellita', Schubert's 'Nacht und Träume', and the Mélodie from Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un lieu cher.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Ginastera: String Quartets
Miró Quartet, Kiera Duffy (soprano)
The American quartet celebrates its thirtieth birthday with this recording of the three string quartets by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, composed in 1948, 1958 and 1973 respectively; American soprano Kiera Duffy joins for String Quartet No. 3, which sets poetry by Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti and Juan Ramón Jiménez. Reviewing the quartet's performance of this programme at Lincoln Center in Ginastera's centenary year, The New York Times praised their 'fiercely intense accounts' of all three works and Duffy's 'rich sound and gripping expressivity'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
musica viva, vol. 47: Liza Lim
Nicolas Altstaedt (cello), Carin Levine (flute), William Barton (didgeridoo), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner, Christoph Poppen
This trio of orchestral works by the Perth-born composer Liza Lim is made up of the cello concerto A Sutured World (captured at its world premiere in Munich last October), Mary - Transcendence After Trauma (the second part of Lim's Annunciation Triptych), and The Compass for flute, didgeridoo and orchestra. Currently Professor of Composition and Australian Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Lim was crowned Composer of the Year at last year's Opus Klassik Awards.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Lumina
Samuel Mariño (soprano), Covent Garden Sinfonia, Ben Palmer, Jonathan Ware
The theme of nature and the four elements runs through this second Decca album from the Venezuelan male soprano, which includes the 'Song to the Moon' from Dvořák's Rusalka, 'The Last Rose of Summer', the 'Baïlèro' from Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne, and 'Ombra mai fu' from Handel's Xerxes. The programme also features songs by Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Hahn, Richard Strauss and Édith Piaf.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Marschner: Overtures & Stage Music, Vol. 3
Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Dario Salvi
This third instalment of Salvi's Marschner series comprises the incidental music for the Faustian drama Das Schloss am Aetna (‘The Castle at Etna’) by German theatre director EAF Klingemann, orchestral excerpts from the operas Lukretia (1827) and Der Bäbu (1838), and music from the vaudeville Der Verlobung vor der Trommel, oder Der Mutter Ungedenken (for which Marschner adapted an overture by Adolphe Adam).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Händel - Mendelssohn
Niklas Liepe (violin), Nils Liepe (piano & harpsichord), Florian Christl (piano), NDR Radiophilharmonie, Joseph Bastian
The German violinist prefaces Mendelssohn's evergreen concerto with a selection of new variations on some of Handel's best-known melodies, including Russian composer Aleksey Igudesman's four-movement Peace-acaglia (a response to Handel's Passacaglia HWV 432) and reworkings of Zadok the Priest and ‘Lascia ch'io pianga’ from Rinaldo by pianist and arranger Tim Allhoff.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 7: Lost In Russia
The Brahms Trio
Following releases featuring Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Dyck, Constantin von Sternberg and Sergey Youferov, this seventh volume in the series focuses on two works which were written around the turn of the twentieth century: Czech-born cellist Vladislav Aloiz's Piano Trio from 1898 and pianist Alexander Winkler's Brahms-influenced work from 1912. The next instalment, which is due for release in September, will spotlight Nikolai Lopatnikoff and Paul Juon - both of whom lived and worked in Berlin.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Echoes of the Orient
Katie Yao Morgan (piano), Xiao Wang (erhu)
This collection of compositions for piano and erhu by Malaysia composer and piano teacher Angeline Bell includes Grandfather's Grocery Store, Blue Lotus, Little Brook, Butterfly Lovers and Market Havoc. Morgan was just four years old when she began studying with Bell, whom she describes as 'the person who started my musical journey', and makes her commercial recording debut here.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Fields of Wonder
Cantus
This fifth Signum release from American low-voice ensemble Cantus takes its title from a cycle by Margaret Bonds, setting texts by American activist and poet Langston Hughes. The programme also includes Gavin Bryars's Edwin Morgan Sonnets, Vol. 2, Jean Cras's Dans la Montagne, Melissa Dunphy's N-400 Erasure Songs (the texts of which are created by erasing words from the N-400 US naturalisation form), and Griffin Candey's PROTOCOL (composed for Cantus in 2020).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Mirella Freni (Madama Butterfly), Luciano Pavarotti (B.F. Pinkerton), Christa Ludwig (Suzuki), Robert Kerns (Sharpless); Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Herbert von Karajan
Released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the recording's release, this set presents Karajan's celebrated Butterfly in high definition 24-bit 192 kHz transfers from the original 1975 master tapes, supported by a hardback book including three specially-commissioned essays (one by British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso), recently unearthed archive photographs from the original sessions, and the complete libretto with English and German translations.
Available Format: 2 SACDs
MacMillan Celebrated (Blu-ray)
Isabella Gasparini, Giacomo Rovero, Sae Maeda, Valentino Zucchetti, Ashley Dean, Marcelino Sambé, Francesca Hayward, Sarah Lamb, William Bracewell, Melissa Hamilton, Joseph Sissens, Mariko Sasaki, Koen Kessels
This tribute to the British choreographer Kenneth MacMillan (1929–92) brings together three of his full-length works: Danses concertantes (to music by Stravinsky), Different Drummer (to music by Webern and Schoenberg), and a ballet on Fauré's Requiem (conceived in memory of MacMillan's friend and colleague John Cranko, who had died three years earlier).
Available Format: Blu-ray
