Today's new releases include ballet suites by Manuel de Falla from Domingo Hindoyan and the Liverpool Philharmonic on Onyx, Mozart's Piano Concertos Nos, 5, 14 and 20 from Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Freiburger Barockorchester on Harmonia Mundi, Smetana's 1881 'festival opera' Libuše from Jakub Hrůša (with Czech soprano Kateřina Kněžíková in the title-role and her real-life husband Adam Plachetka as the farmer who wins her heart) on Supraphon, and orchestral works (both new and upcycled) by Hildur Guðnadóttir on Deutsche Grammophon.
Manuel de Falla: El Sombrero de Tres Picos and other works
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Domingo Hindoyan
A year after their terrific album of Spanish-inspired works by French composers, the Liverpool Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor devote an entire programme to one of Spain's most popular composers. As well as the suites from the ballets El Sombrero de Tres Picos and El amor brujo, it includes the Interlude & Dance from La vida breve, the orchestral suite Homenajes (a set of tributes to Arbós, Debussy, Dukas and Felipe Pedrell), and Francisco Coll's new orchestration of the Fantasía Bética (originally composed for Arthur Rubinstein in 1920).
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Mozart: Piano Concertos K. 175, 449 & 466
Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano), Freiburger Barockorchester
Launched in 2012, Bezuidenhout's Mozart series from Freiburg has been praised for his 'brilliance and subtlety' (Sunday Times), 'irrepressible imagination and vitality' (The Guardian), 'superb technical acumen and musical intelligence' (Gramophone), and 'variety of colours' (Financial Times). Bezuidenhout plays a modern copy of a Walter & Sohn fortepiano from c.1805 by Paul McNulty.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Smetana: Libuše
Kateřina Kněžíková (Libuše), Adam Plachetka (Přemysl), Alžběta Poláčková (Krasava), Martin Bárta (Chrudoš), Jan Šťáva (Lutobor), Richard Samek (Šťáhlav), Jiří Brückler (Radovan), Václava Krejčí Housková (Radmila), Czech Philharmonic, Prague Philharmonic Choir, Jakub Hrůša
Premiered to mark the inauguration of the National Theatre in Prague in 1881, Smetana's 'festival opera' is set primarily at the castle of Vyšehrad (which had also inspired the first piece of Má vlast), and centres on a Czech queen who foresees a glorious future for the nation on her wedding day. This recording was made in 2024, from concerts at the Prague Spring International Music Festival and rehearsals for the Smetana Litomyšl Festival; reviewing one of the live performances, BachTrack declared that 'this was an orchestra revelling in music that’s in their blood, let off the leash to produce an unrestrained, monumental sound.'
Available formats: 3 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
This Will Be Us
Hildur Guðnadóttir (cello), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Robert Ames
Twenty years since the release of her debut recording Mount A, award-winning Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir joins forces with Ames and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for orchestral versions of several pieces which she originally recorded whilst 'trying to be a one-person string orchestra' as a young composer. The album also includes two entirely new works: The Song That Never Was and Blind Sarabande.
Available formats: CD & Download (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Mémoire
Alexandre Tharaud (piano)
Tharaud presents 27 miniatures by French composers from the Baroque period to the present day, including Couperin's Les barricades mystérieuses, Lili Boulanger's D’un vieux jardin, Debussy's La fille aux cheveux de lin, and his own transcriptions of 'Le jardin féerique' from Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine and the Act One Valse from Delibes's Coppélia.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Elgar: Violin Concerto
Thomas Bowes (violin), Sinfonia Arcadiana, Nic Fallowfield
In addition to the Violin Concerto (captured at Studio 1 Abbey Road, where the composer himself recorded the piece with the teenage Yehudi Menuhin in 1932), this album includes a handful of shorter pieces: Salut d'amour, Chanson de Matin, Chanson de Nuit, La Capricieuse, and Sospiri (orchestrated by Eleanor Alberga). The album was Classic FM’s Album of the Week earlier this month, whilst Midlands Music Reviews enthused that 'the whole recording breathes a freshness and spontaneity in which star-quality is not an issue'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Debut
HIMARI (violin), Chelsea Wang (piano), Berliner Philharmoniker, Sebastian Weigle
The fifteen-year-old Japanese violinist Himari Yoshimura makes her debut on Decca with a programme which is bookended by two substantial works by Wieniawski: the Violin Concerto No. 1 and the Fantasia on Themes from Gounod's 'Faust' (in the version for violin and piano). The album also includes transcriptions of Chopin nocturnes by Jascha Heifetz and Nathan Milstein, and short pieces by Godowsky and Sibelius. Her many competition victories include the Grand Prix at the Lipinski & Wieniawski International Violin Competition in 2021.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 16 bit)
Chopin: The Complete Études
Aaron Pilsan (piano)
A pupil of the late Lars Vogt, Austrian pianist Aaron Pilsan was named as a BBC Music Magazine Rising Star in 2024, thanks in part to a widely-praised recording of Book One of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 2 followed in April 2025). Pilsan remarks that 'by playing Bach, I have sharpened my awareness of the multiple inner voices in Chopin, especially the left hand as a harmonic and rhythmic foundation, transforming Chopin into something architecturally rich'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Toward the Sea
Emi Ferguson (flute), Michael Poll (guitar)
Guitarist Michael Poll and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient Emi Ferguson began collaborating online during the lockdowns of 2020/21, and have since performed regularly together across the US; their debut recording explores the themes of memory, place and transformation, and takes its title from a Moby Dick-inspired piece by Tōru Takemitsu (commissioned by Greenpeace in the 1980s for their Save The Whales campaign). The programme also includes Astor Piazzolla's Histoire du Tango and the duo's own arrangement of Elizabeth Ogonek's Altair.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Addio Amore
Jeanine De Bique (soprano), Terry Wey (countertenor), Kammerorchester Basel
The soprano and countertenor's debut recital on Pentatone explores 'the fragile threshold between love and loss in eighteenth-century opera', with repertoire including duets from Albinoni's L'Eraclea, Giacomelli's Gianguir, Porpora's Meride e Selinunte and Handel's Rodelinda, plus arias from Porpora's Orfeo, Handel's Rinaldo, and Hasse's Attalo re di Bitinia. The album also includes two violin concertos by Torelli, with concertmaster Julia Schröder as soloist.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Finzi: The Dance Continued
Nick Pritchard (tenor), Ian Tindale (piano)
To mark the seventieth anniversary of Finzi's death (which falls this coming Sunday), Pritchard and Tindale present world premiere recordings of five unpublished songs held in the Bodleian Library: 'Days Too Short', 'A Cradle Song', 'The Terrible Robber Men', 'Rondel', and 'English Hills'. The album also includes Till Earth Outwears, A Young Man’s Exhortation, and Oh Fair to See. The pair will perform songs from the album at St Clement Danes Church on The Strand this evening, and at the Finzi Gala Day in London on Sunday.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Mentor and Muse
Kitty Whately (mezzo), William Vann (piano)
Mentor and Muse explores the relationships between Ralph Vaughan Williams and two composers who studied with him at the Royal College of Music and became his close friends: Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams. Vaughan Williams is represented by the Four Poems by Fredegond Shove and the Four Last Songs from the mid-1950s, and Maconchy by a selection of Shakespeare settings plus standalone songs such as 'The Exequy' and 'The Woodspurge'; the centrepiece of the album is the world premiere recording of Williams's recently-published Billows of the Sea, commissioned in 1969 by the Guild for the Promotion of Welsh Music.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Eduard Tubin: Requiem For Fallen Soldiers
Estonian National Male Choir, Mikk Uleoja
Born in Torila in 1905, Estonian composer Eduard Tubin fled his homeland after the Soviet invasion of 1944 and settled in Sweden, where he soon became conductor of the Stockholm Estonian Male Choir and began work on his Requiem For Fallen Soldiers; conceived as an elegy for the dead of World War Two, the piece was eventually completed in 1979. The album also includes Taganejate sodurite laul ('The Retreating Soldiers' Song') and a number of shorter pieces for male voice choir.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Neeme Järvi conducts Shostakovich
Lydia Mordkovitch (violin), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi
Including Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4-10, the two violin concertos and four Ballet Suites, this set brings together the Shostakovich recordings which Järvi Senior made between between 1984 and 1988 (during his tenure as Principal Conductor of the RSNO). The recording of the violin concertos won a Gramophone Award in 1990 thanks to the 'purposeful, warmly expressive playing', whilst the account of Symphony No. 10 has twice featured as Top Choice for the work on Radio 3's Building A Library.
Available formats: 8 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 44.1 kHz, 16 bit)
