New Release Round-up,
Ones that got away - Autumn/Winter 2017
As it's a relatively quiet time of year for new releases, this week we've decided to round up a few of our recent favourites (of all shapes and sizes!) which haven't perhaps received the attention they deserve in the form of a newsletter or interview. From vintage Beethoven making its first appearance on CD to a rediscovered apprentice-piece by George Dyson, here are ten 'ones that got away' over the past couple of months...
This early commemoration of the centenary of Debussy’s death (which falls next August) is an absolute winner: recorded in crisp, bright sound, Osborne brings immaculate clarity and impetus to music that’s often given the soft-focus treatment, though with no loss of the subtleties at play in works such as Images and L’Isle joyeuse.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The German violinist’s third recording of these works supersedes even his own earlier accounts for the rigour and lucidity which he brings to the contrapuntal movements in particular. There’s no shortage of wit or affection, either: slow movements unfold with improvisatory grace, and the gigues and bourrées really dance.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Elgar: Falstaff, Orchestral Songs; Grania and Diarmid
Roderick Williams (baritone), BBC Philharmonic, Sir Andrew Davis
Shakespeare’s ‘fat knight’ is brought to life with swaggering joie de vivre in the latest instalment of Andrew Davis’s Elgar cycle; Roderick Williams (always a joy in English song) is in his element in the orchestral songs, particularly ‘The King’s Way’, which sets verse by the composer’s wife to the central melody from Pomp and Circumstance No. 4.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
George Dyson: Choral Symphony & St. Paul's Voyage to Melita
The Bach Choir & Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, David Hill
Williams also features on the world premiere recording of Dyson’s Choral Symphony, composed in 1910 as part of the composer’s doctorate at Oxford University and discovered in the Bodleian Library just three years ago; scored for large orchestra, chorus and four soloists, it sets the text of the 107th Psalm, depicting the Jews’ exile and return to Israel.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Romantic Piano Concerto 73 - Sacheverell Coke
Simon Callaghan (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins
On paper, three works written between 1937 and 1950 might seem slightly unlikely candidates for Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series, but Sacherevell Coke’s musical language is unabashedly old-school, harking back to the lush orchestration and sweeping melodies of Rachmaninov (he was a lifelong Russophile), with occasional echoes of Bruckner, Mahler and Sibelius.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1
Colin Currie (marimba), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson
Wilson champions five works by his late friend and mentor (who shared his passion for music of the stage and screen as well as the concert-platform) with his customary verve: Celebration (1991), the Marimba Concerto (1987/8), the Third Symphony (1987), Sinfonietta (1984), and Summer Music (originally for flute and piano but presented here in the composer’s own orchestration.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Alkan: Edition
Vincenzo Maltempo (piano), Mark Viner (piano), Laurent Martin (piano), Alan Weiss (piano)
A comprehensive 13-disc survey of works by the fantastically inventive and idiosyncratic Parisian pianist-composer, including all of his major compositions for piano as well as a generous selection of the organ and chamber-music. Artists include the brilliant young pianist and Alkan authority Mark Viner, whose recording of the Etudes Op. 35 will be released later this month on Piano Classics.
Available Formats: 13 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Taken from the archives of Richard Itter (founder of the Lyrita Recorded Edition), these four CDs of previously-unreleased live recordings were made in London in the mid-1950s and include Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 29 and 40, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, Brahms Symphony No. 4 and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. A second volume will follow in 2018/9.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC
This four-CD set brings together sixteen Beethoven sonatas (including the Pathetique, Moonlight, Pastorale, Appassionata and Waldstein) which Kempff recorded in Germany between 1940 and 1943, several of which are taken directly from original shellac pressings and receive their first release on CD.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Celebrating a relationship between artist and label which lasted almost three decades, this 30-CD collection is excellent value, with repertoire ranging from Palestrina to Schoenberg, and including accounts of masterworks such as Bach’s Mass in B minor, the Mozart, Fauré and Brahms Requiems, and symphonies by Beethoven, Bruckner and Schumann.
Available Format: 30 CDs
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
