Coming Soon,
Liszt from Jonas Kaufmann and other forthcoming vocal highlights
Whilst large-scale choral recordings have been on hiatus for much of the year, early autumn is shaping up to be a bumper season for solo vocal releases, with the relaxation of lockdown restrictions across the world allowing many singers to embark on recording-projects with socially-distanced orchestras once again after last year's plethora of song-recitals. Among the highlights are a Franco-Spanish programme from Marianne Crebassa, a second album of baroque sacred music from Jakub Józef Orliński and Il Pomo d’Oro, an imaginative debut recording on Deutsche Grammophon from the young Italian-Canadian mezzo Emily D'Angelo, and a gallery of operatic amazons from Lea Desandre and Jupiter.
Liszt’s Es muss ein Wunderbares sein was one of the standout tracks on Kaufmann and Deutsch’s lockdown project Selige Stunde last September, and now the pair devote an entire album to his songs, including the Tre Sonetti del Petrarca, Die drei Zigeuner, Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, and Die stille Wasserrose.
Released 17th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Italian-Canadian mezzo makes her debut on Deutsche Grammophon with a programme of music by female composers, including new arrangements of Hildegard von Bingen’s O virtus sapientae and O frondens virga, Hildur Guðnadóttir’s A Thousand Tongues and Fólk faer andlit, and excerpts from Sarah Kirkland Snider’s cantata Penelope and Missy Mazzoli’s chamber opera Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt.
Released 9th October (and also available on vinyl).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
After giving us a glimpse of his Figaro on his Rossini album with Lawrence Brownlee last year, Spyres tears up the rule-book by mixing tenor and baritone repertoire on his first solo album for Erato, with snapshots of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Idomeneo and Count Almaviva, Offenbach’s Hoffmann, Wagner’s Lohengrin (sung in French), Thomas’s Hamlet, Donizetti’s and Leoncavallo’s Tonios, and Verdi’s Conte di Luna. There are also rarities from Méhul’s Ariodant and Spontini’s La vestale.
Released 24th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Three years on from their Opus Klassik Award-winning Anima Sacra, the Polish countertenor and Il Pomo d’Oro join forces for a second album of baroque sacred music including Zelenka’s Barbara, dira effera and Laetatus sum (with Egyptian soprano Fatma Said), Manna’s Laudate pueri, and arias from Fux’s Il fonte della salute, aperto dalla grazia nel calvario, Almeida’s La Giuditta, and Nucci’s Il Davide trionfante.
Released 24th September (and also available on vinyl).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Passion
Véronique Gens (soprano), Ensemble Les Surprises, Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas
Praised in this week’s Sunday Times for Gens’s ‘clarity of diction and histrionic eloquence’, the soprano’s programme of French baroque music includes scenes from Lully’s Amadis, Alceste, Atys, Proserpine and Le triomphe de l'amour, Desmarets’s Circée and La Diane de Fontainebleau, Collasse’s Achille et Polyxène and Thétis et Pélée, and Charpentier’s Médée.
Released 27th August.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their acclaimed recording of Die schöne Müllerin last autumn, Bostridge and Giorgini team up again for an all-Respighi programme, including Nebbie, Stornellatrice, Deita silvane, the Quattro Liriche dal Poema Paradisiaco di Gabriele d'Annunzio and Arie scozzesi, Bella porta di Rubini, and Le fontanelle.
Released 3rd September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The French mezzo’s gallery of female warriors includes characters from Vivaldi’s Ercole sul Termodonte, Carlo Pallavicino’s L'Antiope, André Cardinal Destouches’s Marthésie, première reine des amazons, Francesco Provenzale’s Lo schiavo di sua moglie, Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani’s Mitilene, regina delle amazzoni, and André Danican Phildor’s Les Amazones.
Released 17th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The centrepiece of Hughes and Middleton’s second joint album is Helen Grime’s song-cycle Bright Travellers, which the pair premiered in 2018 and which was praised in The Guardian for its ‘fiercely compelling grip’; the programme also includes Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and Charles Ives’s The Children’s Hour, Serenity, Mists, The Housatonic at Stockbridge and Songs My Mother Taught Me.
Released 3rd September.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Sampson joins the Finnish orchestra for a selection of 25 of the 30 songs which Canteloube collected, arranged and published between 1923 and 1954, including the famous Baïlèro, Brezairola, Jou l'Pount d'o Mirabel, Obal, din lou limouzi, La delaïssádo, Pastourelle, and Uno jionto pastouro.
Released 1st October.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ina Boyle: Songs
Paula Murrihy (mezzo), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Ben McAteer (baritone), Iain Burnside (piano)
A pupil of Vaughan Williams, Boyle lived a secluded life in County Wicklow; despite being one of the most prolific Irish composers of the first half of the twentieth century, she received relatively little recognition during her lifetime owing to family responsibilities which prevented her from travelling. Recorded at Wigmore Hall last year, this programme includes the Three Songs by Walter de la Mare, Five Sacred Folksongs of Sicily, and her prize-winning setting of Walt Whitman’s The Last Invocation.
Released 27th August.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fleur de mon âme
Karen Cargill (mezzo), Simon Lepper (piano), Royal Scottish National Orchestra Soloists
Following a 'breathtaking' (The Herald) recital of lieder by Gustav and Alma Mahler, Cargill and Lepper present a programme of fin de siècle song by Francophone composers, which opens with Reynaldo Hahn's À Chloris and also includes Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, Chausson's Sérénade italienne, and mélodies by Duparc. Soloists from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra join them for Chausson's Chanson perpétuelle and Joseph Jongen's Calmes, aux quais déserts.
Released 24th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Séguedilles
Marianne Crebassa (mezzo), Orchestre et Choeur du National du Capitole de Toulouse, Ben Glassberg
The mezzo celebrates her Franco-Spanish roots with a programme of arias from Carmen, La vida breve, Don Quichotte, La Périchole and L’heure Espagnole, plus songs by Falla, Guridi Bidaola, Mompou, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and Ravel. Guest artists include Thibaut Garcia and Stanislas de Barbeyrac.
Released 22nd October.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Described by the French countertenor as ‘a journey between different cultures, different continents and different languages’, Jaroussky and Garcia’s first joint recital-disc takes its title from a song by Poulenc and also features music by Dowland, Purcell, Giordani, Caccini, Schubert, Granados, Luiz Floriano Bonfa, Dilermando Reis, and the great French chanteuse Barbara.
Released 15th October.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
