Future Releases

From the dance-like playfulness of Matthew Hindson's Repetepetition to the terrifying portents of an Aboriginal legend depicted in Anne Boyd's Ganba, six Australian composers demonstrate the stylistic variety that is a feature of the current Australian musical scene.

Micahel Duke is Chair of the Woodwind unit at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, while David Howie is a member of the Ensemble Unit there. Together they produce vivid performances of these striking additions to the saxophone repertoire

This Hybrid SACD is part of a series of recordings of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner from the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and the celebrated conductor Jaap van Zweden. It features one of the composer’s lesser known works, the Symphony No 6 in A major. Previous releases in the cycle, which have included performances of Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9, have received a great deal of critical praise - for instance, a stunning version of the Third Symphony (CC72551), released in March 2013.

Amsterdam-born Jaap van Zweden has risen rapidly in little more than a decade to become one of today’s most sought-after conductors. He has been Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and is also Honorary Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Radio Chamber Philharmonic (having been Chief Conductor from 2005-2011). Appointed at 19 as the youngest concertmaster ever of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he began his conducting career in 1995 and held the positions of Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra between 1996 and 2000, Chief Conductor of The Hague Philharmonic from 2000 to 2005, and Chief Conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra (2008-2011). His recent releases for Challenge Classics have included a live recording with the Netherlands RPO of Britten’s War Requiem (CC72388), and a concert performance of Wagner’s Parsifal (CC72519) which has just won the Edison Award.

Anton Bruckner wrote his Sixth Symphony between 1879 and 1891. Although considered by many to be one of his least successful works, it is still full of rich, individual expression and was a favourite of the great British composer and music critic Robert Simpson.

The celebrated Italian soprano Lucia Aliberti presents arias by twelve Verdi heroines from some of the composer’s lesser-known early operas. The collection includes music from I Vespri Siciliani, I Masnadieri, Alzira, Attila, Aroldo, I Lombardi, Giovanna d’Arco, Un Giorno di Regno, La Battaglia di Legnano, Ernani, I Due Foscari and Macbeth.

Italian soprano Lucia Aliberti was born in September, 1961 in Sicily. She is especially renowned for her performances in the bel canto roles in operas by Verdi, Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, and Puccini. As a young singer she studied with Luigi Ricci and the great Alfredo Krauss. After winning the Spoleto and Enal competitions she began her artistic career in Spoleto at the "Festival dei Due Mondi" under the direction of Giancarlo Menotti. Since then she has appeared at all of the world’s great opera houses and festivals. Lucia Aliberti is also a multi-instrumentalist and composer and has written several works for piano, clarinet, flute, and voice.

Following the example of his debut solo release for Challenge Classics, ‘ImproviSatie’ (CC72512), which was based around the music of the French composer Erik Satie, pianist Michael Gees has turned his attention to Robert Schumann. Once again he puts aside a traditional view of his work, and on the album ‘Beyond Schumann’ uses improvisation as a means of interpretation. This hybrid double SACD set features Gees’ versions of the Symphonic Etudes, the set Kreisleriana, and Vogel als Prophet, one of the Waldszenen, opus 82.

In Robert Schumann's day extrapolating around original compositions was the norm, and embellishments were not always written down in detail. As with his previous recording ‘ImproviSatie’, pianist Michael Gees takes the music of a particular composer, here Schumann, and uses improvisation as a means of interpretation.

Michael Gees is an acclaimed pianist, composer and improviser, particularly well-known for his partnership with the critically-acclaimed tenor Christoph Prégardien. Together they were rewarded with the MIDEM Vocal Award 2009, the MIDEM Record of the Year Award 2009, and a Supersonic Award by the Luxembourgian Pizzicato Magazine for Die Schöne Müllerin of Franz Schubert on Challenge Classics.

On ‘Oscillations’ the highly-talented Israeli born pianist Einav Yarden contrasts pieces by Beethoven and Stravinsky, two major figures from completely different musical eras. Both composers however shared the same passion for the piano, and considered it to be an indispensible tool in the art of composition. The recording features Beethoven’s Sonatas opus 14 No. 2, and Opus 10 No. 2, and the same composer’s 11 Bagatelles, alongside Stravinsky’s only solo Sonata and several of his piano miniatures.

Einav Yarden juxtaposes two composers who are rarely heard on disc together, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). For Beethoven, the piano was a central instrument, and he wrote five piano concertos, 32 sonatas, numerous variation works, bagatelles, and individual pieces. Although Igor Stravinsky’s piano compositions are limited to three works for piano and orchestra, the Sonata of 1924, some early pieces, etudes, barely a dozen individual pieces, and a few works for two pianos, the piano was key also to Stravinsky. “Every note I wrote,” said Stravinsky, “was tried out on this instrument, every interval singly tested, heard again and again.”

‘McGonagall-Lieder’ is a song cycle by the contemporary Dutch composer Robert Zuidam setting words by the infamous if legendary Scottish ‘poet’ William McGonagall. The music is conducted by Oliver Knussen and performed by soprano Katrien Baerts, Pianoduo Post & Mulder and Asko|Schönberg.

The song cycle highlights the theatrical sound for which Zuidam is particularly known, and is arranged for a unique combination of instruments with four cellos, double bass, percussion and two pianos supporting the soprano voice. The texts come from William McGonagall, the Victorian poet from Dundee. The Times Literary Supplement once wrote about this legendary but controversial writer: “A real genius, for he is the only memorable bad poet in our language”. Amongst his most memorable verse is The Tay Bridge Disaster, which concludes ‘McGonagall-Lieder’.

Robert Zuidam studied composition at the Conservatory of Rotterdam. He was awarded the Koussevitzky Composition Prize for ‘Fishbone’, a work for wind instruments and piano, and a Leonard Bernstein Scholarship enabled him to return to Tanglewood as a student. In 2010, Zuidam taught and lectured at Harvard University as Erasmus Professor, and was awarded the Kees van Baaren-Prize in The Hague for his opera ‘Rage d'amours’. The core of Zuidam’s compositional activities lies in the field of vocal music, particularly that of musical theatre.