New Releases

Angela Hewitt turns to two of Mozart’s greatest and most popular concertos for her latest album. Together with her frequent collaborators, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova and brilliant Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, she presents these works in performances which are both elegantly stylish and profoundly felt. This release is completed by a personal reflection on the music by Hewitt herself in the accompanying booklet.

Young virtuoso Chloë Hanslip and York Bowen specialist Danny Driver present Bowen’s complete works for violin and piano. Many of these works have never been recorded or indeed published before, and have been excavated from the archives by Driver himself. This double album is therefore a valuable resource for admirers of a composer whom Hyperion has done so much to champion through recordings. This body of work includes juvenilia, miniatures (written with an eye to academic performance during Bowen’s years as a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, but all impressive enough in quality to be concert works), his two Violin Sonatas, a Suite and a number of single-movement works. All show a superb composer of chamber music, a genuine original with a performer’s ear.

Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989) was one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century. Born in Salzburg, he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1934. In 1946 Karajan gave his first post-war concert in Vienna with that orchestra, and in 1949 he became artistic director of the city’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. He also conducted at La Scala in Milan, but his most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly formed Philharmonia Orchestra in London, helping to build them into one of the world’s finest.

In 1955 he was appointed music director for life of the Berlin Philharmonic as successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler. From 1957 to 1964 he was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera. Karajan was closely involved with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival. He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically until his death in 1989, mainly with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic.

This 2CD set preserves the exact concert that took place at the Royal Festival Hall on 6 April 1962, including the British and Austrian national anthems.

It is sourced from the Music Preserved archive.

The combination of Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic playing Mozart and Bruckner drew a ‘packed and raving audience’ according to Neville Cardus in The Guardian.

The Bruckner Symphony No.7 received great acclaim from the Daily Telegraph, with a review headlined ‘Noble Height in Bruckner: Vibrant Vienna Philharmonic’, and the critic Donald Mitchell writing ‘London has not heard a Bruckner performance of this quality for years’. Mitchell went on to add that the music-making was ‘undoubtedly touched by interpretative genius’.

In his booklet essay, Richard Osborne notes that ‘the performances of both Mozart and Bruckner are quicker here than any of Karajan’s studio performances … they are also freer in places and given to a number of astonishing build-ups of power’.

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920–1995) was born in Brescia, Italy. He began music lessons at the age of three and at ten he entered the Milan Conservatory. In 1939, he won first prize in the Geneva International Piano Competition, where he was acclaimed as ‘a new Liszt’ by pianist Alfred Cortot, a member of the judging panel.

His repertoire was strikingly small for a concert pianist of such stature, concentrating only on specific works. Owing to this obsessive perfectionism, relatively few recordings were officially released during Michelangeli’s lifetime. Debussy and Ravel as well as Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Beethoven featured in his limited concert schedule. His recordings of Ravel and Debussy were considered essential for any collection.

Michelangeli was a connoisseur of the mechanics of the piano and he insisted that his concert instruments be in perfect condition. Whenever possible he took his own Steinway piano with him on tour. His last concert (all Debussy) took place on 7 May 1993 in Hamburg, Germany.

Any recording featuring Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli is an important event because he recorded very little in the studio, leaving the field open for many unauthorised versions to be released on the market. This authorised live SWR recording from the Ludwigsburg Festival in 1956 shows a Mozart style far removed from that presented today. These are full-blooded interpretations and show Michelangeli with a very strong forward drive, well supported by Antoine de Bavier, a pupil of Furtwängler.

The recording made by SWR is of excellent quality, showcasing Michelangeli’s superb playing. These two concertos (Michelangeli only played around five Mozart concertos) were performed throughout Michelangeli’s career, but the recording here was made when he was thirty-six years old and at the peak of his powers.

Praised by The New York Times for her ‘clear articulation … unequivocal phrasing … [and] expressivity’, Ingrid Jacoby has established herself as one of the most poetic and admired pianists of her generation. She began her piano studies with Larisa Gorodecka, herself a pupil of Heinrich Neuhaus. Graduating at sixteen with highest honours from the St Louis Conservatory of Music, Ingrid Jacoby went on to win the National Baldwin Piano Competition, the Concert Artists Guild International Piano Competition and the Steinway Hall Artists Prize.

In America, the National Society of Arts and Letters awarded to her (in 1994) one of its highest distinctions, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Her discography includes the world premiere recording of Korngold’s solo piano pieces, works by Gershwin and Bernstein, and a recording of the Shostakovich and Ustvolskaya piano concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, which earned the highest commendation from the American Record Guide.

This is Volume 2 of Ingrid Jacoby’s complete set of Beethoven Piano Concertos.

The first CD of Beethoven Concertos 2 & 4 has received wonderful reviews: ‘Jacoby revitalises Beethoven’s Piano Concertos … terrifically and with so much intelligence and energy that all leading competitors pale by comparison.’ (Crescendo magazine, Germany), and ‘Here is a performance of Beethoven that is well-nigh flawless in every regard.’ (International Record Review, UK). This strongly projected performance of Beethoven’s Concerto No.5 is complemented by an all-Beethoven recital which Ingrid Jacoby recorded in 1991–2, featuring sets of variations, the Andante favori and the op.119 Bagatelles. The producer was Tony Faulkner.

The booklet contains notes by Richard Wigmore in addition to personal insights by Ingrid Jacoby on Beethoven interpretation.

The final volume in the series, featuring Beethoven’s Piano Concertos 1 & 3, will be released in the autumn this year.

Here, interpreted by André Isoir, are J. S. Bach’s works for concertante organ, arranged in three programmes, specially compiled from his historic Calliope recordings, which intersperse the cantata sinfonias with obbligato organ, the concertos transcribed after Vivaldi, and the trio sonatas.

La Dolce Volta offers an original approach to this repertory, cultivating through three coherently arranged programmes a new way of listening to pieces that are extremely diverse yet at the same time display close affinities. Here are 15 of Bach’s most important organ works, underlining the unity of a creative philosophy that rises above any specific medium. The lovingly produced packaging and 80-pp booklet includes organ specifications and photos of André Isoir through the ages.

Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London on 4 December 2010.

Mahler’s First Symphony: the opening chapter of his spiritual autobiography. And the music itself seems to awaken – emerging from hushed strings and woodwind cuckoos into its stride, marching forth, stamping towards an eerie realisation of a nursery rhyme and arriving at a final, blazing affirmation of confidence.

Vladimir Jurowski conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in this live 2010 concert performance including the Symphony’s original second movement, ‘Blumine’.

Sir Colin Davis conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and a stellar cast of soloists in a concert performance of Weber’s eerily fantastical opera, 'Der Freischütz'.

'Der Freischütz' is heralded as one of the cornerstones of Romantic opera, drawing on traditional German folk tunes and elements of Romanticism for the first time in the history of opera. The evocative and colourful orchestration is particularly impressive in the '‘Wolf’s Glen’ scene: often considered the most gruesomely expressive rendering of evil to be found in a musical score!

All three main soloists are well established on LSO Live: Opera News declared the Verdi Requiem (LSO00683), featuring Christine Brewer, as "one of the finest recordings the work has ever received". Sally Matthews, who has performed regularly with Sir Colin Davis, was praised in her role in Haydn's 'Creation' (LSO0628). Simon O’Neill’s previous appearance on the label, in the title role of Verdi's 'Otello' (LSO0700) saw much critical acclaim, and confirmation that "he is the best heroic tenor to emerge over the last decade" The Telegraph.