Today's new releases include Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius from Edward Gardner and the LPO (with Allan Clayton in the title-role and Jamie Barton as The Angel), Brahms's Symphony No. 1 from Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker on the orchestra's own label, a portrait of Avril Coleridge-Taylor from Samantha Ege, John Andrews and the BBC Philharmonic on Resonus, and four-hand Schubert from Leif Ove Andsnes & Bertrand Chamayou on Erato.
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius
Allan Clayton (Gerontius), Jamie Barton (Angel), James Platt (Priest/Angel of the Agony); London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, Hallé Choir, Edward Gardner
This live recording of Elgar's best-known oratorio was made at the BBC Proms in August 2022, with The Guardian describing the concert as 'a performance suggesting that Clayton is now the definitive interpreter of the role in British music today'. BachTrack, meanwhile, noted that the LPO 'played for its music director like a band possessed', and Opera Today observed that 'Gardner made Gerontius’s dream a true drama'.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 and Tragic Overture
Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko
Brahms occupies a special place in Kirill Petrenko's repertoire - not least because he spent three years as General Music Director in Meiningen, where Brahms had been a regular visitor and premiered his Symphony No. 4 in 1885. For this interpretation of Symphony No. 1 (recorded at the orchestra's home in September), he takes his cue from the markings which Meiningen court conductor Fritz Steinbach made in the score in response to feedback from Brahms himself.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Avril Coleridge-Taylor: Piano Concerto & Orchestral Works
Samantha Ege (piano), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Andrews
This is the first album to be devoted to the music of Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-98), who studied composition with Gordon Jacob and conducting with Sir Henry Wood and Albert Coates. All of the works here receive their world premiere recordings, other than Sussex Landscape which was recorded by Chineke! in 2022; the programme includes the Piano Concerto (with movements dedicated to Elgar and to Coleridge-Taylor's father Samuel), In Memoriam - To the R.A.F. (composed in 1945), the Longfellow-inspired From The Hills, and the Comet Prelude which she began writing whilst travelling on the first commercial flight from Britain to South Africa in 1952.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Schubert: Four Hands
Bertrand Chamayou (piano), Leif Ove Andsnes (piano)
The seeds for this programme of late Schubert were sown almost a decade ago at Andsnes's Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, when he and Chamayou came together for the first time to perform the great Fantasia in F minor (which opens the album). The programme also includes the Allegro in A minor (posthumously published by Anton Diabelli as 'Lebensstürme'), the Fugue in E minor D952, and the Rondo D951; Andsnes loves the latter work in particular for its Mozartian beauty, likening it to 'a flower blooming in spring'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Violin Café
Nicola Benedetti (violin)
Released to coincide with Benedetti's first solo tour in over a decade, this album of favourite pieces and encores includes new chamber arrangements of Maxwell Davies’s Farewell to Stromness, Wieniawski’s Polonaise de Concert, Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy and Navarra, Ponce's Estrellita, and Debussy's Beau Soir. Benedetti is joined by Brìghde Chaimbeul on smallpipes for three traditional Scottish pieces: the 'Hacky Honey Reel', 'The Skye Boat Song', and 'A' Choille Ghruamach'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Orfeo son io
Rolando Villazón (tenor), L'Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar (harp/theorbo)
The Mexican tenor's first collaboration with L'Arpeggiata was a concert performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo in 2016, when he made his debut in the title-role; now they come together for a project which (in Pluhar's words) 'lets Orpheus tell his own story, without any help from Eurydice, the Messenger, Charon, and so on'. As well as excerpts from Monteverdi's opera, the programme includes music by Brunelli, Caccini, Cazzati, Gluck, Peri and Gardel, and closes with Luiz Bonfá's 'Black Orpheus' (which featured in the Oscar-winning 1959 film Orfeu Negro).
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Beethoven: The Late Piano Sonatas
Paul Wee (piano)
The commercial barrister and pianist was hailed as 'a sensation - there's no other word' by Fanfare in the wake of his debut recording of Alkan's Concerto and Symphony for Solo Piano back in 2019. Three years on from his Gramophone Award-nominated recording of Liszt's transcription of the 'Eroica' Symphony (which Limelight praised for his 'unerring feeling for the work’s architecture'), he turns his attention to Beethoven's last five piano sonatas, with an eloquent booklet-essay supplied by fellow barrister Jonathan Gaisman.
Available format: 2 SACDs
Throwback to Dance
Ivana Gavrić (piano)
Gavrić's programme was inspired by reading about an encounter between Grieg and Ravel in Montparnasse in 1894: Grieg advised Ravel that his interpretation of the Norwegian Dances sounded too urbane, and proceeded to demonstrate an 'authentic peasant dance' to the younger composer's bewildered delight. Grieg's Holberg Suite opens proceedings, and is followed by Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and shorter dance-inspired works by Dora Pejačević, Cécile Chaminade and Cheryl Frances-Hoad.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Beethoven & Brahms: Violin Concertos
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti
The Australian Chamber Orchestra gave its first concert fifty years ago today at the Sydney Opera House, and to mark the occasion ABC Classics releases a new live recording of the Brahms concerto (made earlier this year) and a 2018 account of the Beethoven concerto with Richard Tognetti, who has served as the orchestra's Artistic Director since 1990. Reviewing the concert in February, BachTrack noted that he play-directed the Brahms concerto 'with great imagination and more than a nod to a historical performing style' and noted that he was 'supremely confident in both his technique and artistic concept'.
Available format: Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Lachenmann: Works for String Quartet
Quatuor Diotima
Following their acclaimed recording of Boulez's Livre Pour Quatuor earlier this year, Quatuor Diotima shift their focus to another composer with whom they have enjoyed a long relationship: they first worked with Helmut Lachenmann in 1998, and were instantly 'won over by his sharp humor, his rugged charm, and his irresistible anecdotes'. Released in anticipation of his ninetieth birthday next year, the album comprises all three string quartets: 'Gran Torso' (1971/2), 'Reigen seliger Geister' (1989), and 'Grido' (2001/2).
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Au salon de Joséphine
Coline Dutilleul, Aline Zylberajch, Pernelle Marzorati
Subtitled 'Romances and Opera Arias from the time of the First French Empire', this recital presents repertoire which might have been heard at the weekly concerts organised by Empress Josephine at her Chateau de Malmaison. The programme includes chamber arrangements of arias from Méhul's L’Irato, ou l’Emporté, Grétry's Le Huron and Spontini's La Vestale, and music by Krumpholz, Pleyel, Martini and Paisiello.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1-15
London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda
Recorded at the Barbican over the course of nine years, Noseda's Shostakovich cycle has been praised for the 'razor-sharp clarity of texture and dazzling precision of ensemble' on display (BBC Music Magazine on Nos. 9 and 10) and 'magnificent orchestral sound' (Gramophone on No. 13). The Italian conductor spoke to Presto midway through the series in 2019, when he reflected on the special relationship which British orchestras and their audiences have with Shostakovich's music.
Available formats: 10 SACDs, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
