Our editorial team's personal favourites from November's crop of new releases include bracing Brahms from Kirill Petrenko in Berlin, Florence Price organ works from Tom Winpenny, the world premiere recording of Thomas Adès's The Exterminating Angel Symphony, and a compelling pasticcio retelling of the Orpheus myth from Rolando Villazón, L'Arpeggiata and Christina Pluhar.
Presto Team Choices | Updated Monthly
Curated by David Smith
Tracks from the recordings featured in the most recent Team Choices from the Presto Classical team. 2 hours 26 minutes
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko
'The Berliner Philharmoniker and their Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko present a strikingly dramatic reading of Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, including a menacing first movement and a thrilling final movement replete with radiant horns and incisive string playing. By studying historical scores from the Meiningen Court Orchestra which record comments and directions given by Brahms himself, Petrenko is able to sculpt a reading full of flexibility and elasticity. He combines this with a taut, urgent reading of the Tragic Overture, impressive in its determined sense of focus and purpose.' (James Longstaffe)
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Jewish East
Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, Daniel Grossmann, Shachar Lavi
'Somewhere between a time capsule and an epitaph - this album draws together three composers writing in the final decades of the large-scale Jewish presence in Eastern Europe and Russia, before the wholesale obliteration of those communities in the catastrophic latter half of the twentieth century. ‘Yiddishkayt’ is ever-present, with echoes of folksy shtetl musicmaking informing even nominally more ‘serious’ art music - though so too are high Romantic harmonic language from Joel Engel, a Vaughan Williams-like figure deeply interested in preserving and drawing on Yiddish song; touches of Soviet Realism from Weinberg; and even a lyrical kind of serialism in the adventurous works of Józef Koffler.' (David Smith)
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
'There's such a distinctive, quasi-cinematic musical imagination at work in every piece on this album that it seems incredible that this is the first-ever album to be devoted to Coleridge-Taylor's works - other than the dark pastoral Sussex Rhapsody, everything here receives its world premiere recording, and Andrews and the BBC Phil sound completely under the skin of this music. Brilliantly despatched by Ege, the Piano Concerto has a Rachmaninoff-esque scale and sweep without ever sounding like pastiche, and the electrifying Comet Prelude (partially composed on the first commercial flight from Britain to South Africa in 1952) seems to pave the way for John Adams's Short Ride In A Fast Machine. Scintillating stuff, all of it.' (Katherine Cooper)
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Adès: The Exterminating Angel Symphony & Violin Concerto
Leila Josefowicz (violin), Minnesota Orchestra, Thomas Søndergård
'If the title, The Exterminating Angel, sounds familiar, it's because in 2016, Thomas Adès released an operatic adaption of a cult-classic film of the same name. The work presented here, in its world premiere recording, is a symphony of musical ideas from the opera, and it is unfailingly engaging, with the rhythmic and tonal colours typical of Adès's writing ravishingly brought to life by Thomas Søndergård and the Minnesota Orchestra. They are joined by Leila Josefowicz for an electrifying interpretation of the composer's established violin concerto, written for Anthony Marwood in 2005, that left me wanting to press play again, and also wishing I had been there. The whole album was recorded live, and the sound is as vivid as the music and playing.' (Matthew Ash)
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
On Christmas Night
London Choral Sinfonia, Michael Waldron
'From new arrangements by Bob Chilcott and Mack Wilberg of favourite carols including Silent Night, Away in a Manger, and Ding Dong Merrily on High, to premiere recordings commissioned by London Choral Sinfonia and Michael Waldron, this delightful collection is guaranteed to fill you with festive joy and good cheer. Treble Malakai Bayoh joins the ensemble for 'Walking in the Air' from Howard Blake’s The Snowman, whilst soprano Emma Bell contributes to a glorious account of O Holy Night. The perfect stocking filler!' (James Longstaffe)
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Florence Beatrice Price: Organ Works
Tom Winpenny (organ)
'Although in a contemporary market dominated by symphonies and concertos the prevailing popular narratives of Florence Price tend to marginalise and downplay her output for the organ, the instrument was a key part of her life and work as a musician and composer. An unlikely influence on her work for the organ - given her early experience as a silent film organist, and her Presbyterian faith - was the French organist-composer Alexandre Guilmant, whose music she performed in his presence to his great approval. Her first sonata is a tribute to Guilmant, while Adoration - perhaps her best-known organ work - has a sentimental and melodic quality clearly inspired by her experience with light music, as do the two miniatures Hour of Peace and Retrospection - An Elf on a Moonbeam. '(David Smith)
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Orfeo son io
Rolando Villazón (tenor), Christina Pluhar (harp/theorbo), L'Arpeggiata
'This ingenious little pasticcio on the Orpheus myth throws the focus squarely onto the hero (no Euridice or Amor here, though of course their presence is implied); substantial excerpts from Monteverdi's opera do much of the dramatic heavy lifting and suit Villazón's raw theatricality well, the slightly careworn quality of the voice serving as a feature rather than a bug here. Instrumental interludes by Caccini, Brunelli, Cazzatti et al are despatched with bags of flair and atmosphere by Pluhar & Co (with stand-out cameos from cornettist Doron Sherwin), and Luiz Bonfá's 'Black Orpheus' makes for a stylistically unexpected but eminently satisfying coda.' (Katherine Cooper)
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Purcell: Dido & Aeneas
Sonya Yoncheva (Dido), Halidou Nombre (Aeneas), Sarah Charles (Belinda), Attila Varga-Tóth (Sorceress/Sailor); Choeur & Orchestre de l'Opera Royal, Stefan Plewniak
'It is a mark of Sonya Yoncheva's artistry that she is a star in this production of Purcell's most famous work, but one that at no point overtakes the musical or theatrical whole. The flexibility of her voice, and the colours she finds without ever overweighing the vocal line are captivating, yet this Dido & Aeneas is so consistently strong that there is never the feeling of simply waiting for Dido's next appearance. Attila Varga-Toth is a particularly effective sorceress, and both Belinda and Aeneas are well cast. Stefan Plewniak leads excellent playing and singing from the forces of the Opera Royal, and the period approach to instrumentation highlights Purcell's talents for orchestration. The staging and choreography are superb, the movements of all on stage always feeling natural, and both sound and picture quality are first class.' (Matthew Ash)
Available format: Blu-ray + DVD Video
