New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 13th September 2024
Puccini: Love Affairs
Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Pretty Yende, Anna Netrebko, Sonya Yoncheva, Malin Byström, Asmik Grigorian, Maria Agresta (sopranos), Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Asher Fisch
To mark the centenary of Puccini's death, Kaufmann is joined by six outstanding sopranos on this collection of love-scenes from his operas: Pretty Yende in La bohème, Anna Netrebko in Manon Lescaut, Sonya Yoncheva in Tosca, Malin Byström in La fanciulla del West, Asmik Grigorian in Il tabarro, and Maria Agresta in Madama Butterfly.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
This is Heras-Casado's first recording with the Belgian period-instrument orchestra, which he has conducted on a regular basis since 2020. Brass and woodwind sections play predominantly Viennese and German instruments dating from Bruckner's lifetime, with Heras-Casado reflecting that 'It's obviously fascinating to have at your disposal the same sound-palette as he had...It can compel you to start all over again in terms of balance, textures, tempi, dynamics and so on'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
This second instalment in the Calidore's Beethoven survey is Recording of the Month in the October edition of Gramophone, with Richard Wigmore praising the 'rare vividness and technical aplomb' of their playing throughout the programme and singling out the 'tender, fine-drawn cantabile lines and glowing beauty of sonority' in the slow movement of the Rasumovsky Quartet No. 2 as a particular highlight. Vol. 1 of the project won the Chamber Music category at this year's BBC Music Magazine Awards.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Rameau: Les Boréades
Sabine Devieilhe (Alphise), Reinoud Van Mechelen (Abaris), Benedikt Kristjánsson (Calisis), Thomas Dolié (Borée), Philippe Estèphe (Borilée), Tassis Christoyannis (Adamus/Apollon), Gwendoline Blondeel (Sémire/Nymphe/L'Amour/Polymnie); Orfeo Orchestra, Purcell Choir, György Vashegyi
Centring on the Bactrian queen Alphise and her love for Abaris (which provokes the wrath of the god of the north wind Boreas), Rameau's final opera remained unperformed in his lifetime and received its modern premiere in 1964, when it was staged in Paris to mark the bicentenary of the composer's death. The recording was made at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall last November, following concert-performances in Budapest, Helsinki, Paris and Amsterdam.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Dvořák: Cello Concerto
Raphaela Gromes (cello), National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Volodymyr Sirenko
Dvořák's 1894 Cello Concerto (which Gromes performed in Kyiv last December) is the centrepiece of a programme which also includes four pieces by Ukrainian composers in new arrangements for cello and orchestra by Julian Riem: Valentin Silvestrov's Prayer for the Ukraine, Hanna Havrylets's Tropar: Prayer to the Holy Mother of God, Yuri Shevchenko's We Are, and Stepan Charnetsky's Oi u luzi chervona kalyna ('Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow').
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 29 & 33, Clarinet Concerto
Ernst Schlader (clarinet), Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
The first volume of Forck's Mozart project with Akamus (featuring the 'Paris' and 'Haffner' symphonies and the Oboe Concerto with Xenia Löffler) received five stars in BBC Music Magazine thanks to the ensemble's 'frequently exhilarating sense of the finesse in Mozart’s musical architecture'; this sequel presents two symphonies from the 1770s, and the significantly later Clarinet Concerto (performed here on basset-horn, as originally intended).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
The earliest works on this programme are Brahms-influenced Three Intermezzi which Charles Villiers Stanford composed in 1879 (three years after completing his studies in Leipzig); the album also includes Stanford's Clarinet Sonata from 1911, Malcolm Arnold’s jazz-inflected Sonatina from 1951, Finzi's popular Five Bagatelles (1945), and Joseph Horovitz's Two Majorcan Pieces (1958) & Sonatina (1981).
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Rita Strohl: Volume 2, Musique de Chambre
Célia Oneto Bensaid, Tanguy de Williencourt, Heloïse Luzzati, Shuichi Okada
Admired by Saint-Saëns, Duparc, d’Indy and Fauré, Rita Strohl (1865-1941) was hailed as 'a composer of genius' by La Nation; a year on from their 'revelatory' (BBC Music Magazine) collection of her vocal music, La Boîte à Pépites present an anthology of her chamber works including the Grande Fantaisie-Quintette, the clarinet trio Arlequin et Colombine, the Septet for piano and strings, Solitude, rêverie for violin and piano, and Musiques sur l'eau for solo piano.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Following a much-praised recording of the Schumann and Grieg piano concertos at the beginning of the year, Leonskaja turns her attention to the Second Viennese School: the programme comprises Berg's Piano Sonata, Webern's Variations Op. 27, and Schoenberg's Klavierstücke Op. 11, Kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19 & Suite for Piano Op. 25.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
The Turkish pianist's recital of French repertoire takes its title from the second movement of Ravel's Miroirs, which Say learned during lockdown and describes as 'one of the most comprehensive and interesting works in the piano repertoire'; the album also includes Say's own adaptation of François Couperin's Suite No. 21 in E minor, and Debussy's Suite Bergamasque.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV
This debut album from the Armenian composer-pianist presents her set of twelve études which draw on influences including Bach, Chopin, Kancheli, jazz, and folk-tunes. Awadis writes: 'My music is not typically classical or neoclassical or avant-garde; it’s something in between...The ideal, for me, is to combine my own intuitive approach with the rhythmic precision of American minimalism, the spirituality of European minimalism and the emotions of Armenian music. '
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Inspired by a line in Rudyard Kipling's Kim, this programme of 'pieces of music which, in different ways, confront or embody a notion of brevity' includes Dorothy Howell's For Myfanwy and Boat Song, WH Squire's Danse Rustique, James Reese Europe's Queen Louise and Castle House Rag, Ruth Gipps's Lyric Fantasy and Jane Grey, and Vítezslava Kaprálová's Ritournelle.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV
Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus (Blu-ray)
Diana Damrau (Rosalinde), Georg Nigl (Eisenstein), Katharina Konradi (Adele), Andrew Watts (Orlofsky), Sean Panikkar (Alfred), Markus Brück (Dr Falke); Bayerische Staatsoper, Vladimir Jurowski, Barrie Kosky
Filmed in Munich last December, Kosky's production of 'The Revenge of the Bat' was described by BachTrack as 'a hit anchored somewhere between burlesque and vaudeville', with reviewer Zenaida des Aubris also praising Jurowski's 'stringent attention to the waltz's intoxicating effects at work throughout the opera' and Katharina Konradi's 'dazzling vocal technique, beautiful phrasing and cheeky stage presence' as the quick-witted chamber-maid Adele.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
