All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Debussy & Mahler: Mélodies de jeunesse
Julie Fuchs (soprano) & Alphonse Cemin (piano) Julie Fuchs, the 26-year-old soprano from Avignon, has just won a Victoire de la Musique Classique in the 'Lyrical Revelation of the Year' category, after being hailed a Classical Revelation by the perfomers’ rights society, ADAMI and carrying off the Gabriel Dessurget prize at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Today, roles such as Susanna in 'Figaro' or Urgande in 'Amadis de Gaule' correspond perfectly to the quality of her voice, as did the title role in 'Acis et Galatée' which she took in July 2011 for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Over the coming decade, that voice and that stage presence will see her moving towards weightier roles, with the title role of La Traviata beckoning. She’s at the start of a big career: one to watch. “Fuchs’ bright soprano radiates character and sensitivity. An enchanting disc.” Financial Times, 16th March 2013 **** | 
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Berio: Orchestral realisations of Schubert, Brahms & Mahler
Berio had an abiding fascination with reconciling the past and the present, which can be seen in his orchestral realisations of works by Mahler and Brahms, and most notably, in Rendering (1990), his typically creative completion of unfinished symphonic sketches by Schubert. In Rendering, Berio – in his own words – sets himself the target of ‘following those modern restoration criteria that aim at reviving the old colours without, however, trying to disguise the damage that time has caused, often leaving inevitable empty patches in the composition’. In the ‘restoration’, Schubert’s sketches have been beautifully orchestrated in period style, and the ‘empty patches’ have been filled with music composed by Berio himself, in his own voice – thereby successfully combining the musical worlds of the early nineteenth and late twentieth centuries into one convincing whole. The Clarinet Sonata by Brahms embodies the composer’s taut and concentrated compositional style. In transcribing the work, Berio felt that, when experienced in the less intimate surroundings of today’s concert halls, the extreme compression of Brahms’s late chamber music style was in need of some additional support, and his version, recorded here, includes a fourteen-bar orchestral introduction to the first movement, leading into Brahms’s own, much shorter opening phrase, as well as five additional bars at the beginning of the second movement. Berio completed his orchestration of six early songs by Gustav Mahler in 1987, and conducted the first performance with the Toscanini Orchestra on 7 December that year, with Thomas Hampson the baritone soloist. The six songs in this orchestrated set are ‘Hans und Grete’, ‘Phantasie’, ‘Scheiden und Meiden’, ‘Erinnerung’, ‘Frühlingsmorgen’, and ‘Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald’. The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Edward Gardner, with Roderick Williams the baritone soloist in the songs by Mahler and Michael Collins the soloist in Brahms’s Clarinet Sonata. “[Berio's] versions of the Mahler songs are straightforward and affectionately sung by Roderick Williams...Berio himself looms larger in Rendering...The sound of the celesta, alien to Schubert, signals these departures into a dream world, which Gardner captures atmospherically. His assured sense of style in Schubert's material is compelling.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2012 **** “Gardner's phrasing of the central movement [is] a cousin to Brian Newbould's completion, and thus Rendering's periodic, unpredictable descent into twilit oblivion becomes all the more touching...Leaving balance issues to the engineers, Roderick Williams takes a relaxed, confiding approach, never less than suave even against the galloping rhythms of 'Scheiden und Meiden'.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012 “Gardner shapes it all beautifully, and his soloists – Michael Collins in the Sonata, baritone Roderick Williams in the songs – are suave and refined.” The Guardian, 2nd February 2012 **** “In a joyfully discombobulating programme, Luciano Berio's mischief-making orchestration of Mahler's "Six Early Songs" uses the Mahlerian paintbox in an almost anti-Mahlerian, jaunty fashion...Gardner conducts with élan, highlighting the clean attack of the Bergen strings.” The Independent, 12th February 2012 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mahler - Lieder
2009 BBC Music Magazine Award-winning baritone Christian Gerhaher returns with another exceptional recital recording, again accompanied by Gerold Huber. Gerhaher will be appearing at the Wigmore Hall in December 2009 in a recital to include Mahler Lieder. “Christian Gerhaher has always seemed an exceptionally profound and understanding singer and he proves that with this remarkable exploration of Mahler's songs...never over-emoting but keeping a beautiful, even line afloat often on the tiniest wisps of sound.” The Observer, 13th December 2009 “Gerhaher is today’s Lieder interpreter par excellence. The German baritone’s range of colour, velvet timbre and natural intelligence recall a golden age of artistry.” Financial Times, 12th December 2009 **** “Christian Gerhaher has always seemed an exceptionally profound and understanding singer and he proves that with this remarkable exploration of Mahler's songs...never over-emoting but keeping a beautiful, even line afloat…” The Guardian, 13th December 2009 “With every disc he makes, the German baritone Christian Gerhaher emerges more and more clearly as the true heir to the Lieder-singing legacy of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau...Every song is explored with a perfect mixture of musical tact and illumination” The Guardian, 14th January 2010 ***** “[Gerhaher's] finest achievement to date — indeed, one of the greatest programmes of this composer’s lieder ever committed to disc...Gerold Huber is an equal partner, painting the piano parts in a rich palette of instrumental colours. For once, one hardly misses Mahler’s orchestrations. Utterly memorable.” Sunday Times, 31st January 2010 ***** “…outstandingly imaginative piano playing of Gerold Huber. He counterpoints voice and piano with the subtext within the settings, often with revelatory results. Both Gerhaher and Huber pace the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen perfectly, balancing the songs' emotional lights and deep shadows, their sense of wonder and of yearning. A glinting and newly honed knife-blade pierces the soul in the third song, colouring it with an Expressionist angst.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2010 ***** “Gerhaher and Huber immerse you so successfully in their interior world that you barely register the orchestra’s absence...Huber achieves pianistic miracles of colour and timing, and to call this a mature partnership barely begins to address the depth of their mutual understanding...might I humbly suggest that this could be the finest Mahler you’ll hear all year? Absolutely essential.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 25th March 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mahler - UrlichtLieder
“astonishing sophistication” BBC Music Magazine ***** “One of my recordings of the year” Michael Kennedy, Sunday Telegraph | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mahler - Songs
“This disc shows Stephan Genz entering his fourth decade with all the light suppleness and ardour of his youthful recordings, but now with darker colours and firmer bass ballast folding into his baritone. His intuitive musical partnership with Roger Vignoles is as sentient and perceptive as ever; and together they uncover the dark, sensual mysteries of the late-Romantic response to the natural world” BBC Music Magazine “Stephan Genz's voice and style place him above his many noted contemporaries. His mellifluous baritone recalls that of a young Thomas Hampson, but his understanding of the Lieder genre is even more penetrating, as this Mahler recital reveals. Each song is shaped as a whole yet with subtleties of phrase and word-painting that seem inevitable in every respect, especially as the chosen tempi always seem the right ones.
Performing and listening to these songs with piano is inevitably a more intimate experience than when they are heard in their orchestral garb.
The pair's rapport is evident throughout. Memorable are the the poise and stillness of 'Ich atmet' einen Linden duft' from the Rückert-Lieder, the eloquent sadness of 'Nicht Wiedersehen' and the restrained sorrow of the whole of Kindertotenlieder.
Not a hint of sentimentality, such a danger in Mahler, spoils the experience of the composer's deeply felt emotions.
Hyperion's recording, beautifully balanced, catches the true quality of Genz's voice and the refinement of Vignoles's playing. This disc is an experience not to be missed by any lover of Mahler and/or of Lieder.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Mahler - Songs of My Youth
“The performance are radiant and deeply understanding from both singer and pianist, well caught in atmospheric recording. A heart-warming record.” Penguin Guide, 2010 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Virpi Räisänen: The Legacy of Mahler
Virpi Räisänen (mezzo-soprano) & Marita Viitasalo (piano) Ondine is pleased to announce the debut release of charismatic mezzo-soprano Virpi Räisänen. Having already performed as a successful violinist, Virpi Räisänen has since appeared as a singer at the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Netherlands Opera and the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher in Nono’s opera Al gran sole carico d’amore in 2009 and in the premiere of Wolfgang Rihms’s Dionysos in 2010. Virpi Räisänen is equally at home with contemporary and baroque music with her beautiful timbre able to fit well with all genres. Pianist Marita Viitasalo has performed extensively as Soile Isokoski’s accompanist, performing with her in recitals across the world since 1987. She plays chamber music in the Trio Finlandia and appears regularly with Scandinavian orchestras. “With a Nordic timbre suggesting a genetic kinship with Karita Mattila, Räisänen's instrument is clear, clean and beautifully produced from a technical standpoint, with an extra something that's initially hard to put your finger on. Then, as the recital goes on, you realise a violinist's sensibility is at work...As much as her sound recalls Mattila, her vocal line is like Felicity Lott's...it's a highly impressive calling-card.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2012 “the precision of Raisenen's singing is most impressive, although it doesn't come across as cold or overly technical...Her sound is bright on top and her lower register is rich without being matronly. She is idiomatic in German, Russian and English...The only thing that I miss in her singing is communicative warmth and intimacy...Here is a singer to keep an ear on.” International Record Review, February 2013 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Fischer-Dieskau 85th Birthday Edition: Mahler LiederBerlin Philharmonie, 1971 (live)
These releases from the archives of the RIAS and the Sender Freies Berlin document the unequalled quantitative and qualitative spectrum which baritone Fischer-Dieskau acquired during the five decades of his career. They offer a fascinating insight into the breadth of his repertoire as well as his artistic approach, with which he maintained a careful balance of development and continuity until the end. These recordings – spanning Beethoven’s sacred songs Op. 48 of 1806, through Schumann, Brahms, Mahler and Reger, to Heinrich Sutermeister’s expressive psalm setting of 1948 – demonstrate the essential Fischer-Dieskau. Not only do they document the artistic partnership with pianists such as Hertha Klust, Daniel Barenboim, Cord Garben, Aribert Reimann and Tamás Vásáry, but also the delightful collaboration with the organist Ulrich Bremsteller. Furthermore, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau can be heard together with his wife and musical partner, Julia Varady. This is a documentary edition both in the sense of a historic and an artistic legacy: it reveals the riches of lieder from the last two centuries which Fischer-Dieskau, in his role of musical chronicler, made accessible for the present age; and it is an impressive record of an incomparable interpretational art, according to which word and music were always treated and realised as a unit. | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Hausmusik
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  |
“His voice is an infinite reservoir of emotion, tonal colour and nuance.”
(Le Monde de la Musique, August 1994) | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |
|
Gramophone Awards 2010
Penguin Guide