New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 30th November 2018
Fabio Biondi presents Verdi’s original version of Macbeth from 1847 with the period instruments of Europa Galante, Riccardo Chailly conducts the collaborative requiem mass written in memoriam of Rossini by thirteen Italian composers, Sol Gabetta applies a light touch to Schumann’s Cello Concerto, and a fairy-tale opera which opened when its composer was yet to enter her teens has its premiere on DVD and Blu-ray.
Several years before Roth and his period-instrument orchestra embarked on their acclaimed ongoing Ravel series (Daphnis et Chloé won the Orchestral Category at this year’s Gramophone Awards), they recorded historically-aware accounts of La mer and the little-known Première Suite on Actes Sud; now they return to Debussy’s music as part of Harmonia Mundi’s outstanding celebration of the composer’s centenary.
Available Formats: CD + DVD Video, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Used in Disney’s Nutcracker and the Four Realms (now on general release, starring Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman as well as dancers Sergei Polunin and Misty Copeland), this recording was made in Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2013 and marked the start of Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic’s relationship with Deutsche Grammophon.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Verdi: Macbeth (Firenze, 1847)
Giovanni Meoni (Macbeth), Nadja Michael (Lady Macbeth), Fabrizio Beggi (Banco), Giuseppe Valentino Buzza (Macduff); Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi
Verdi isn’t perhaps the first composer you’d associate with Fabio Biondi or Europa Galante (the Italian violinist and conductor is more often to be found performing Vivaldi and Handel with the ensemble), but this is a Macbeth with a difference: directing from the violin, Biondi presents the opera in its original 1847 version for Florence's Teatro della Pergola rather than the vastly more common Paris revision from nearly two decades later.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony & The Lark Ascending
Sarah Fox (soprano), Mark Stone (baritone), James Ehnes (violin), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze
This is the penultimate instalment of Manze’s Vaughan Williams cycle, a series which has attracted admiration for its ‘poetry, raw splendour and poignancy’ (The Observer on Nos. 3 & 4), ‘clarity of orchestral sound’ (Gramophone on Nos. 5 & 6) and ‘expressive and atmospheric playing, rarely heard since Boult’ (BBC Music Magazine on Nos. 2 & 8).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Alongside the Études, Muraro presents the world premiere recording of Fauvettes de l’Hérault, which he reconstructed from sketches which Olivier Messiaen made for a projected concerto in Debussy’s memory. The French pianist’s discography includes a Catalogue d’Oiseaux which ‘demonstrates both formidable pianism and an outstandingly imaginative response to Messiaen's imaginative world’ (Gramophone), as well as Turangalîla and Des Canyons aux Étoiles.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following his superb account of the Cello Sonata with Jean-Guihen Queyras on one of our recent Recordings of the Week, the Spanish pianist offers his own solo contribution to Harmonia Mundi’s commemoration of the centenary of Debussy’s death; his 2013 album of Debussy and Chopin won praise for his ‘poet’s touch’ (The Observer), ‘range of colour and nuance’ (BBC Music Magazine) and bright cantabile’ (International Record Review).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette
Sasha Cooke (mezzo), Nicholas Phan (tenor), Luca Pisaroni (bass-baritone), San Francisco Symphony & Chorus, Michael Tilson Thomas
Recorded live in concert last summer (shortly before Tilson Thomas announced his intention to retire as music director in 2020), this account of Berlioz’s Shakespearian ‘symphonie dramatique’ was described by the San Francisco Examiner as ‘a large-scale reading full of thrilling details’, with special praise for Luca Pisaroni’s ‘dramatic authority and weighty, dark-hued vocalism’ as Friar Laurence.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Released in anticipation of the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death next year, this 16-disc set brings together all of the recordings which Davis made with the London Symphony Orchestra, including the Grammy-winning account of Les Troyens from 2000 with Ben Heppner, Petra Lang and Michelle DeYoung, and his second recording of the Grande Messe des Morts with Barry Banks.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Rossini’s death, Chailly and his La Scala forces present a rare recording of the Requiem composed in his memory by thirteen Italian composers (including Federico Ricci, Carlo Pedrotti, Antonio Bazzini and Giuseppe Verdi, who re-used in his contribution in his own Requiem) and intended for performance in 1869 but not premiered until 1988.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schumann: Cello Concerto and works for cello and piano
Sol Gabetta (cello), Bertrand Chamayou (piano), Kammerorchester Basel, Giovanni Antonini
The Argentine cellist returns to the Fantasiestücke Op. 72 (which she recorded with Hélène Grimaud in 2012) in a programme which also includes the Stücke im Volkston Op. 102, the Adagio and Allegro Op. 70, and the Cello Concerto – which she only began learning a few years ago, and decided to record with a chamber orchestra rather than the usual larger forces.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
