Today's new releases include Mahler's Symphony No. 2 from the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Paavo Järvi on Alpha, the final version of Puccini's La rondine (conducted by Carlo Rizzi and starring Ermonela Jaho in the title-role) on Opera Rara, Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko on Harmonia Mundi, and contemporary harpischord concertos from Mahan Esfahani, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze on Rubicon.
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 'Resurrection'
Mari Eriksmoen (soprano), Anna Lucia Richter (mezzo), Zürcher Sing-Akademie, Florian Helgath, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi
This fourth instalment in Paavo Järvi's acclaimed Mahler series from Zürich was recorded at the orchestra's home last November. Previous recordings in the cycle have been welcomed for their combination of 'subtlety and grandeur' (BBC Music Magazine on Symphony No. 1), the Estonian conductor's 'acute understanding of the musical language' (Gramophone on No. 7), and 'the freshness of the orchestra’s playing' (The Arts Fuse on No. 5).
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Puccini: La rondine (Final 1921 Version)
Ermonela Jaho (Magda de Civry), Iván Ayón-Rivas (Ruggero Lastouc), Juan Francisco Gatell (Prunier), Ellie Neate (Lisette), Nicola Alaimo (Rambaldo Fernandez), BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Carlo Rizzi
Premiered in Monte Carlo in 1917, Puccini's late opera about a Parisian courtesan who falls in love with a naive younger man is most commonly performed in its original version (which sees the heroine ending their affair on her own terms), but the composer's two subsequent revisions portray the breakdown of the relationship in a rather different light. Opera Rara presents Puccini's final edition of the score complete, with substantial excerpts from the 1919 revision included as an appendix.
Read our interview with Ermonela Jaho about the three different incarnations of Magda.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit)
Strauss: An Alpine Symphony
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko
Hot on the heels of Petrenko's live recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 from the Royal Albert Hall, Harmonia Mundi presents Strauss's tone-poem, captured at the same venue last May as part of the orchestra's Lights in the Dark series; The Times noted that the musicians 'play with palpable hunger' for their Music Director, and observed that Petrenko 'pulled off fine contrasts in dynamics as well as building terrific climaxes'.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Mondrian - 21st-Century Harpsichord Concerti
Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord), Ensemble 10/10, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze
This triptych of 21st-century harpsichord concertos takes its title from Gary Carpenter's 2018 work for harpsichord and ensemble, commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society for Ensemble 10/10 and premiered by these artists at St. George's Hall in Liverpool. It's flanked here by Caroline Shaw's Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings (2022) and Gavin Bryars's Busoni's Chickering, which was written for Esfahani in 2022/3 and inspired by a rare instrument owned by the Italian composer-pianist.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Diptyque
Sonya Yoncheva (soprano), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Domingo Hindoyan
The husband-and-wife duo make their joint recording debut with a programme of orchestral songs by Joseph Canteloube and Giuseppe Martucci. Best known for his Chants d'Auvergne, Canteloube is represented here by his 1914 song cycle Triptyque (dedicated to English soprano Maggie Teyte) and the symphonic poem Vers la princesse lointaine; the album opens with Martucci's Brahms-inflected La canzone dei ricordi ('The Song of Memories') from the late 1880s.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé & Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Rafael Payare
Payare's fifth recording with his Canadian orchestra presents two landmark works composed for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Reviewing the live performance of the Stravinsky in Montréal this April, BachTrack observed that 'the OSM fully exploited Stravinsky's revolutionary use of tone colours, thereby attaining a level of transparency rarely achieved in the countless other performances of this masterpiece.' The Ravel was received with similar warmth by Classical Music Daily, who noted that '[Payare's] sense of colour, and control of the pace and dynamics is what really makes this performance stand out, and the balance and work of the choral forces are impressive.'
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Phantoms - French Symphonic Poems
Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Pierre Dumoussaud
Conceived by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this programme explores the idea of 'le fantastique' in French symphonic music between 1850 and 1914, and includes world premiere recordings of Augusta Holmès's Héro et Léandre and Marie Jaëll's Ossiane, plus Ernest Guiraud's Chasse fantastique, Florent Schmitt's Le palais hanté, Gaston Carraud's La chevauchée de la chimère, and orchestral excerpts from two rare French operas: Charles Silver's La belle au bois dormant and Gounod's La nonne sanglante.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Weber & The Clarinet: Complete Works
Pierre Génisson (clarinet), Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Quartet 212, Frank Braley (piano)
Released to mark the bicentenary of Weber's death, this collection brings together all of his works for the clarinet as a solo and chamber instrument: the two concertos and concertino (all written for the celebrated virtuoso Heinrich Baermann), the Grand Duo Concertant and the Variations on a theme from 'Silvana', and the Clarinet Quintet. The recording of the latter work was released separately in 2017, and was described by The Times as 'chamber playing of the highest order, exhibiting wit and brilliance as well as pathos and soul'.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Pages of a Biography
Gidon Kremer (violin), Geneva Lewis (violin), Andrei Pushkarev (vibraphone), Kremerata Baltica
This album of contemporary Baltic music takes its title from a concerto for violin, vibraphone and chamber orchestra by Latvian composer Georgs Pelēcis (b.1947), which was written for Kremer in 2007 and draws on memories of their youth together in Riga; the programme also includes Arvo Pärt's Passacaglia and Darf ich…, and Andrius Žlabys's Kaleidoscope of Lost Time. The album is released in anticipation of two milestones in 2027: Kremer's eightieth birthday and the thirtieth anniversary of Kremerata Baltica's foundation.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Daniel Kidane: Fast/Slow
Manchester Camerata, BBC Singers, Andrew Gourlay, Pekka Kuusisto, Sir Simon Rattle, Owain Park, BBC Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra
This first portrait album of British composer Daniel Kidane (b.1986) brings together six works written between 2016 and 2025: the string elegy Be Still, Winged for electric guitar and strings, the Manchester nightlife-inspired Sirens, Sun Poem (a response to a text by Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite), The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash (setting a poem by Simon Armitage and commissioned by the Huddersfield Choral Society), and the Four Tableaux for string quartet.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 48 kHz, 24 bit)
Schubert: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2
Martin Helmchen (piano)
Set for completion in 2028 to mark the bicentenary of the composer's death, Helmchen's Schubert series was recorded at the Kronberg Academy on a Bösendorfer piano and has been described as 'technically brilliant, unfailingly sensitive, thoughtful and completely at the music’s service' (The Times). This second instalment comprises Sonatas Nos. 8, 11, 16 and 18; the fragmentary first movement of No. 16 is presented in a completion by Paul Badura-Skoda and Helmchen himself.
Read our interview with Martin Helmchen about the project.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
The Witch Trials
Kantos Chamber Choir, Ellie Slorach
Interspersed with spoken testimonies from the seventeenth-century Pendle trials in Lancashire, this programme sets music by Hildegard von Bingen, Barbara Strozzi, Palestrina, Byrd, Gesualdo and Allegri alongside Camden Reeves's Spells, Remedies & Potions (premiered in 2018 and scored for a 'coven of soprano voices') and two new commissions: Anna Disley-Simpson's Double, Double Toil and Trouble, Rory Wainwright Johnston's Ave Maria.
Available formats: CD, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek: The Listeners
Nicole Heaston (Claire Devon), Kyle Ketelsen (Howard), Jasmine Habersham (Ashley), Daniela Mack (Angela), Jonas Hacker (Kyle), Zachary Nelson (Paul), John Moore (Dillon); Lyric Opera of Chicago, Enrique Mazzola
As Mazzoli and Vavrek's latest collaboration Lincoln in the Bardo takes the Metropolitan Opera by storm this month, Pentatone releases the world premiere of their 2022 opera The Listeners, based on story by Canadian writer Jordan Tannahill about a high school maths teacher who is plagued by auditory hallucinations and is drawn into a cult as she seeks support. Reviewing the US premiere of the work for The New Yorker, Alex Ross described Mazzoli as 'a once-in-a-generation magician of the orchestra'.
Available formats: 2 CDs, Download & Streaming (up to 96 kHz, 24 bit)
