New Release Round-up, New Release Round-Up - 16th August 2024

This collection of Gipps's chamber music for oboe/cor anglais and piano spans her entire composing career (from 1938 to 1990), and takes its title from a work for unaccompanied oboe which was premiered by its dedicatee Marion Brough in 1941; the piece was inspired by a painting by Estella Canziani. The album also includes the two oboe sonatas, the Sea-shore Suite and Sea-Weed Song, the Kensington Gardens Suite, the Op. 10 Trio for oboe, clarinet and piano, and the Threnody for cor anglais.

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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The piano concertos of Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg are fairly frequent bedfellows on disc, but Dariescu instead opts for the piano concerto which Clara Wieck (as she then was) composed and premiered in her teens: Dariescu, who is strongly committed to gender parity in programming, describes it as 'a youthful piece, full of dreams, fiendish virtuosity and a testament to what an innovative performer and composer Clara was, even as a teenager.'

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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The Australian composer describes the five pieces on this album as 'the result of an extended fascination and confrontation with Shakespeare’s Hamlet' - all are related in some way to material from his opera of the same name, which premiered at Glyndebourne in 2017. The programme comprises And once I played Ophelia for soprano and strings, Rooms of Elsinore for viola and piano, Gertrude Fragments for mezzo and guitar, Confessio (based on Claudius's guilt-wracked monologue) for bass clarinet, and the accordion concerto The Players.

Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Born in what is now Ukraine in 1884, Thomas de Hartmann studied with Arensky, Taneyev and Rimsky-Korsakov, and drew inspiration from George Gurdjieff (who became a kind of spiritual mentor) and Komitas. This album features his Cello Concerto from the mid-1930s and the Violin Concerto from 1944, both of which show the influence of his forays into film music and jazz; Joshua Bell describes the latter work as 'both heart-wrenching and uplifting, and as gripping and relevant today as it was when it was composed'.

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Ukrainian pianist Maria Narodytska makes her debut on SOMM with a recital of works written in time of conflict: Szymanowski's Masques, Chopin's Two Polonaises Op. 40, Artem Liakovych's 24 Postludes for Piano (the 'War Notebook'), Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor Op. 61, and her own composition After (which she describes as 'a direct reflection of the war in Ukraine').

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Mendelssohn began playing and composing for the organ at the age of eleven, and continued to write for the instrument for the rest of his life: this programme includes the six organ sonatas, and a selection of preludes, fugues and Andantes. Schmitt recorded on two instruments from Mendelssohn's lifetime: the organs of the Kirche Sankt Maria in Schramberg and the Evangelischen Kirche Hoffenheim.

Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Holst's birth (which falls on 21st September), SOMM present this collection of previously-unreleased live recordings dating from the 1940s-1960s: a 1956 account of the chamber-opera Sāvitri from Aldeburgh (with Arda Mandikian in the title-role and Peter Pears as Satyavān), The Planets (recorded in Boston under Adrian Boult in 1946), Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda (conducted by Imogen Holst), the ballet suite from The Perfect Fool (conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent in New York), and a number of shorter works including Hammersmith.

Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV

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Filmed at the Salzburg Festival last year, this was Grigorian's debut as Lady Macbeth: the Financial Times declared that 'she is an extraordinary performer, intelligent and compelling in all that she does', whilst The Times's Neil Fisher opined that 'there are plenty of gruesome, macabre touches in this show...but it’s the inexorable descent of Grigorian and Sulimsky that grips.'

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

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Kušej's dark, mafia-influenced take on the 'mad day' of Figaro's wedding is light on comedy and heavy on sex and violence: the Financial Times deemed it 'brutal but brilliant', whereas BachTrack felt that it 'left a nasty taste in the mouth'. The musical elements won near-unanimous praise, with The Opera Critic applauding the 'superlative playing' of the Wiener Philharmoniker under Pichon, and Frankfurter Rundschau declaring that 'one will rarely, if ever, hear Le nozze di Figaro so well balanced on stage, with such a homogeneous ensemble of such class'.

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

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Premiered in Zurich in 1961 and based on Nikos Kazantzakis's novel The Re-Crucified Christ, The Greek Passion centres on a group of refugees who are driven out of a Greek village where a Passion play is being staged for Holy Week; this is its world premiere on DVD/Blu-ray. Simon Stone's Salzburg production was crowned Best Performance of the Year at the 2023 Oper! Awards, whilst The Times also judged it to be 'a highlight of this year’s Salzburg Festival'.

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

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