New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 28th June 2024
Wagner: Parsifal
Andreas Schager (Parsifal), Elīna Garanča (Kundry), Georg Zeppenfeld (Gurnemanz), Derek Welton (Amfortas), Jordan Shanahan (Klingsor), Tobias Kehrer (Titurel); Bayreuther Festspielorchester, Bayreuther Festspielchor, Pablo Heras-Casado
Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival last year, this Parsifal was praised in The New York Times for Schager's 'tirelessly passionate and convincingly boyish' hero and Heras-Casado's 'vibrant, even-keeled and well-paced' approach to the score; although distinctly unimpressed with the augmented reality production, the Financial Times described the Spanish conductor as 'the good shepherd, clearly on top of Bayreuth’s famously tricky acoustic challenges in his debut performance there'.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Rushdie Momen makes her debut on Hyperion with a recital of Tudor keyboard music which includes Byrd's The Bells, Will Yow Walke the Woods So Wylde and Pavana Lachrymae, Gibbons's The King's Jewel and Whoop, Do Me No Harm, Good Man, Sweelinck's Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la a 4 voci, and Bull's Walsingham and Doctor Bull's Good Night.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Conversation - Gaspard Le Roux: Suites For Two Harpsichords
William Christie, Justin Taylor (harpsichord)
This is the first of a series of recordings celebrating the 80th birthday of the American-French conductor and harpsichordist William Christie (which falls on 19th December): having recorded these pieces with Arthur Haas in the 1970s, Christie now joins forces with a former student whom he describes as belonging to 'the cream of European Baroque musicians'. Little is known of the life of Le Roux, beyond the fact that he worked in Paris in the early eighteenth century: Christie reflects that his music 'wasn’t inspired by the Couperin family. Stylistically, it is unique.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
As well as the overtures from Daniel Auber's Le Domino noir, La muette de Portici & Les Diamants de la couronne and Jean Planquette's Les Cloches de Corneville, this collection of nineteenth-century rarities also includes a suite of orchestral music from Alexandre Lecocq's 1872 opera Mam'zelle Angot, arranged and reorchestrated by Gordon Jacob for a ballet by Russian choreographer Léonide Massine in 1943.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Close-Ups
Heloïse Werner, Max Baillie, Julian Azkoul, Ruth Gibson, Colin Alexander, Marianne Schofield, Kit Downes
This sequel to Werner's Gramophone Award-nominated debut album Phrases features Errollyn Wallen's Tree and Werner's own Unspecified intentions, close-ups, Les Leçons du Mardi and Lullaby for a Sister, plus arrangements of Barbara Strozzi's Che si può fare, Julie Pinel's Sombres lieux and Hildegard von Bingen's O vis eternitatis; three improvisatory 'Echoes' (conceived in collaboration with Max Baillie, Colin Alexander, Marianne Schofield, and Kit Downes) complete the programme.
Listen to David's podcast with Heloïse about the recording.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This Stravinsky triptych comprises the Symphony in Three Movements from 1945 (the first major work which he composed entirely in the United States), the Symphonies of Wind Instruments composed in memory of Debussy in 1920, and the neoclassical Symphony in C from two decades later. Slobodeniouk's recording of the Violin Concerto (with the same orchestra and Ilya Gringolts as soloist) was described as 'perfectly poised' by BBC Music Magazine, whilst Gramophone observed that orchestra and conductor were 'alert to detail throughout the work'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following three vivid recital-albums with pianist Victor Santiago Asuncion, Crawford's first orchestral project on Orchid pays homage to a disc which he says 'surely inspired a whole generation of cellists, including myself': Rostropovich's 1968 recording of Dvořák's Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme with Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Young & Foolish
Céline Frisch (harpsichord/piano), Alexander Melnikov (piano), Café Zimmermann, Pablo Valetti
This programme of youthful works by Mozart and CPE Bach includes the former's Divertimento KV138 and Piano Concerto No.17 KV453, and the latter's Concerto for fortepiano, harpsichord and orchestra from 1788, thought to be the only work of its kind ever composed. Both soloists play replicas of eighteenth-century instruments by Christoph Kern: Frisch performs on a copy of a 1710 harpsichord by Michael Mietke, Melnikov on a copy of a 1795 piano after Anton Walter.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Four queens are referenced on this programme of predominantly sixteenth-century music: the Virgin Mary, Mary Tudor (sister of Henry VIII), Anne Boleyn, and Anne of Brittany. The repertoire includes works by Brumel, Josquin, Mouton, Clemens non Papa, Gombert and Lhéritier, plus two new commissions: Owain Park's Prière pour Marie (setting a wedding-blessing given by French peasants when Mary Tudor married Louis XII) and Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade’s Plaisir n’ai plus, which sets poetry by Clément Marot and draws on Monteverdi and Gesualdo.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The mainstays of this programme of Franco-Belgian sacred works are Langlais's Messe Solennelle and Dupré's Quatre Motets; the album also includes Severac's Tantum ergo, Gounod's Ave verum, Fauré's Tantum ergo & Cantique de Jean Racine, Franck's setting of Psalm 150, and a new arrangement of his Panis Angelicus by Owain Park.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Verdi: Aida (Blu-ray)
Elena Stikhina (Aida), Francesco Meli (Radamès), Agnieszka Rehlis (Amneris), Ludovic Tézier (Amonasro), Soloman Howard (Ramfis), Insung Sim (King), Francesca Chiejina (High Priestess), Andrés Presno (Messenger); Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Antonio Pappano, Oliver Mears
Filmed at Covent Garden in September 2022, Robert Carsen's new production of Aida was described by BachTrack as 'a howl of protest against nationalism', whilst The Stage's George Hall opined that 'there’s a purposefulness to Carsen’s direction that reaps significant rewards'. The Financial Times lavished praise upon musical elements, declaring that 'the orchestral playing is of the highest quality and Antonio Pappano paces the opera with surges of rousing urgency. Even more impressive is the chorus'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Wagner: Siegfried (Blu-ray)
Andreas Schager (Siegfried), Stephan Rügamer (Mime), Michael Volle (Wanderer), Anja Kampe (Brünnhilde), Peter Rose (Fafner), Anna Kissjudit (Erda), Johannes Martin Kränzle (Alberich), Victoria Randem (Waldvogel); Staatskapelle Berlin, Christian Thielemann, Dmitri Tcherniakov
Filmed at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in October 2022, this new Ring Cycle attracted mixed reviews for Tcherniakov's staging, but was widely praised for the quality of the musical performances: the Financial Times deemed Schager 'a superlative Siegfried, still full-throated after hours', and described Kampe's comparatively lyrical Brünnhilde as 'beautiful, intelligent, and profoundly moving'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
