Today's new releases include a recital exploring Handel's relationships with celebrated Italian castrati from Carlo Vistoli, Le Concert d'Astrée and Emmanuelle Haïm on Harmonia Mundi, Janáček's weird and wonderful opera 1920 opera The Excursions of Mr Brouček from the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle (with Peter Hoare in the title-role) on the orchestra's own label, Lassus from Vox Luminis and Lionel Meunier on Ricercar, and Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers from I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth.
Janáček: The Excursions of Mr Brouček
Peter Hoare (Mr Brouček), Lucy Crowe, Aleš Briscein, Gyula Orendt, Lukas Zeman, Doubravka Novotná, Linard Vrielink, Stephan Rügamer, Arttu Kataja, London Symphony Orchestra, Tenebrae, Simon Rattle
This recording of Janáček's satirical opera about a drunken Czech landlord who journeys first to the moon and then to rebellion-torn fifteenth-century Prague was captured in concert at the Barbican last May, when The Guardian praised Hoare's 'perfectly judged' interpretation of the title-role and The Arts Desk applauded Rattle's ability to balance the 'sensuousness, fire and comedy' of the score.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Monteverdi: 1610 Vespers
I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth
I Fagiolini celebrate their fortieth birthday with this one-per-part recording of Monteverdi's masterwork; Hollingworth writes that the aim was to 'combine the full-on dramatic treatment that the music demands, with a lifetime’s experience of drawing out every dissonance, every semiquaver - every little trick of Monteverdi’s.' The group's recent performance of the work at King's Place was widely acclaimed, with The Arts Desk hailing it as 'off-the-charts brilliant...utterly enthralling' and Gramophone observing that 'in such sure hands (and throats) as these, Monteverdi’s psalm-settings reach their fullest capacity to enchant and astonish'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Handel's Italians
Carlo Vistoli (countertenor), Giulia Semenzato (soprano), Le Concert d'Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm
The Italian countertenor presents a programme of arias from Handel oratorios which were premiered by or revised for his compatriots, including Esther and Deborah (Senesino), Theodora, the 1750 revision of Messiah and the 1751 version of Belshazzar (Gaetano Guadagni), Athalia (Giovanni Carestini), and Saul (the composer transposed and translated the role of David for Giovanni Battista Andreoni in 1741). Semenzato joins Vistoli for duets from Esther and Theodora.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Roland de Lassus: Requiem
Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
The Gramophone Award-winning Belgian early music vocal ensemble present two versions of Lassus's Missa pro defunctis: the four-part edition which was published in Paris in 1577, and a transposed revision for male voices which includes a Dies Irae that does not appear in the Paris edition. The latter version was discovered in the library of an abbey in Augsburg, and was published five years before the composer's death.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
British Music for Strings Vol. 5
Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Douglas Bostock
Described by Classical CD Choice as 'extremely civilised music played with great sympathy, this final volume of Bostock's British Music for Strings series comprises Imogen Holst's The Unfortunate Traveller, Gordon Jacob's Variations on an Air of Henry Purcell, Dorothy Howell's Two Pieces for Muted Strings, Eugene Goossens's Miniature Fantasy, Henry Balfour Gardiner's Movement for Strings in C minor (arr. Percy Grainger), and William Mathias's Prelude, Aria & Finale.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Kaija Saariaho: Saarikoski Songs, Vista, Three Preludes
Anu Komsi (soprano), Marzi Nyman, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo
This trilogy of world premiere recordings of works by the Finnish composer (1952–2023) opens with her final orchestral piece Vista, which was inspired by a drive down the Interstate 5 highway from Los Angeles to San Diego after the premiere of her harp concerto Trans in 2019. The five songs on texts by Pentti Saarikoski (1937–1983) were written for Komsi and originally scored for voice and piano; Saariaho completed the orchestration days before being diagnosed with the brain cancer which claimed her life. The Three Preludes for soprano and organ (composed in 1981) are Saariaho's only responses to Biblical material, drawing on text from the Psalms and the Book of Isaiah.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Beethoven: String Quartets, Vol. 3
Doric String Quartet
The Doric began their survey of the complete Beethoven string quartets back in 2023, with The Strad hailing the first volume as 'intelligent, spontaneous-sounding, technically immaculate' and Gramophone praising their 'unanimity of approach and intonation' as well as the ' innate conversational quality of their playing'. As with previous instalments, this third chapter mixes early, middle and late quartets, comprising Nos. 2, 5, 8 and 13; the latter is presented in its original version including the Große Fuge which Beethoven was persuaded to replace by his publishers, with the revised finale included as an appendix.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
The Source
Justus Eichhorn (piano)
The young German pianist-composer makes his Yellow Label debut with a programme of music by composers who were closely associated with his birth city, Weimar. The repertoire includes Bach's Italian Concerto, excerpts from Czerny's Die Kunst der Fingerfertigkeit, Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and transcription of Schubert's Ständchen, Reger's arrangement of Strauss's Morgen!, Hindemith's In einer Nacht, and three of Eichhorn's own compositions: Silent Fields, Intermission, and Aurelian.
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Ravel Transcriptions
François-Xavier Poizat (piano)
Two years on from his 150th anniversary survey of Ravel's complete solo piano works (which was Gramophone's Recording of the Month in November 2024), Poizat casts the net further afield with a programme which includes the composer's own arrangements of Shéhérazade for voice, flute and piano, the 'Danse légère et gracieuse de Daphnis' for solo piano, and the Rapsodie espagnole for two pianos (with additional percussion by Till Lingenberg). The album also features Vyacheslav Gryaznov's transcription of the Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 for two pianos.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Vaughan Williams, Butterworth & Moeran
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult
The mainstay of this latest instalment in ica's series of Boult's BBC archive recordings is Vaughan Williams's London Symphony, which he first conducted in 1918 (winning the composer's approval in the process); deemed 'quietly authoritative' by The Daily Telegraph, this performance was captured at the BBC Proms in 1971. The symphony is followed here by Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad - Rhapsody from the same year, and Moeran's Sinfonietta (recorded in 1963).
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Blu-ray)
Georg Zeppenfeld (Sachs), Michael Spyres (Walther), Christina Nilsson (Eva), Michael Nagy (Beckmesser), Jongmin Park (Pogner), Matthias Stier (David), Christa Mayer (Magdalene), Bayreuther Festspiele, Daniele Gatti, Matthias Davids
Filmed at Bayreuth last summer, Matthias Davids's new staging of Meistersinger leans heavily into the comic elements of the work, in stark contrast for Barrie Kosky's dark metatheatrical production a few years ago; Opera Today noted the 'myriad sight-gags' in evidence and described the overall effect as a 'grandiose crescendo of spectacular scenic and staging prerogatives', whilst praising Spyres and Nilsson for delivering 'total performances in glorious voice'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Donizetti: Maria Stuarda (Blu-ray)
Lisette Oropesa (Maria), Kate Lindsey (Elisabetta), Bekhzod Davronov (Leicester), Aleksei Kulagin (Talbot), Thomas Lehman (Cecil), Nino Gotoshia (Anna), Wiener Philharmoniker, Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, Antonello Manacorda, Ulrich Rasche
Hot on the heels of the DVD/Blu-ray issue of the same opera with Oropesa and Aigul Akhmetshina as the rival queens (in a production by David McVicar), C Major presents Ulrich Rasche's rather more radical staging from last year's Salzburg Festival, which makes liberal use of video and of performers from the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Resound: Music by British Composers | Carwithen - Maconchy - Alwyn - Gipps
Alexandra Dariescu (piano), Alex Mitchell (viola), Rachael Clegg (cor anglais), Manchester Camerata, John Andrews
The first in Resonus Classics' new Unheard Heritage series, focusing on bringing overlooked music back into the spotlight, features concertante works for piano, viola and cor anglais from four British composers who have often fallen down the cracks between the 'pastoral' camp and the more modernist one.
Digital version to follow shortly
Available Format: CD
