New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 26th January 2018
This week’s stand-out releases include two outstanding pianists directing from the keyboard: Piotr Anderszewski in Mozart with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on Warner Classics, and Boris Berezovsky in Brahms and Stravinsky on Mirare. Elsewhere, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques continue flying the flag for Lully with panache, Hervé Niquet makes a persuasive case for Gounod’s three attempts (the final one successful!) at the Prix de Rome, and 18-year old cellist and BBC Young Musician of the Year Sheku Kanneh-Mason presents a programme of his musical inspirations - from Shostakovich to Bob Marley. (You can read Katherine’s interview with him about his remarkable career to date here).
Following well-received recordings of Bellérophon, Armide, Amadis, Phaeton and Persée, Rousset and his musicians turn their attention to Lully’s 1674 tragédie en musique, based on Euripides’s Alcestis; reviewing the live performance at Versailles last December, Early Music Review praised the ‘finesse and fervour’ of the playing and hailed Rousset as ‘unshakably established as the outstanding Lully interpreter of our (and probably any) day.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
An eclectic and supremely assured debut solo album from the 18-year-old British cellist, including music by Bob Marley, Leonard Cohen, Pablo Casals and Saint-Saëns as well as Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 – the work which won him the BBC Young Musician of the Year crown in 2016 – in which he’s partnered by the CBSO and their new music director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For his third recording of Mozart piano concertos with Warner Classics/Erato, the Polish pianist directs the Chamber Orchestra of Europe from the keyboard once again; previous instalments have been feted for the ‘limpid and unpretentious expressive quality of Anderszewski’s playing’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘admirably paced’ (Gramophone) handling of his orchestral forces.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Brahms & Stravinsky Piano Concertos
Boris Berezovsky (piano), 'Evgeny Svetlanov' Russian State Symphony Orchestra
Also doing double-duty as soloist and director is Boris Berezovsky in Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments in this live recording from Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, made last April with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation (now named after its longest-serving chief conductor).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Two Elegies by Franz Liszt sit at the heart of the German sisters’ recital, which explores his relationships with Edvard Grieg and César Franck; following a joint album of Szymanowski, Hindemith and Respighi on AVI Music in 2014, this is their debut on Rubicon Classics.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra & Piano Concerto No. 3
Javier Perianes (piano), Münchner Philharmoniker, Pablo Heras-Casado
It’s not every conductor whose discography includes Monteverdi, Wagner and Bartók (all released within the space of three months!) but Heras-Casado has always been one to mix things up – the dance-like impetus and pared-down textures which are hallmarks of his baroque recordings pay similar dividends in this later repertoire.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The celebrated British lutenist joins forces with the Canadian viol consort for Dowland’s sombre 1604 collection of pavans, almands and galliards based on the theme of tears; his previous recordings of Dowland have been described as ‘beyond reproach’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘unfailingly musical and highly imaginative’ (Gramophone).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Three unpublished cantatas which Gounod submitted for the Prix de Rome between 1837 and 1839 (Marie Stuart et Rizzio, La Vendetta and Fernand, the latter of which finally won him the competition!), plus the Messe vocale, Christus factus est, Hymne sacrée and the Messe de Saint-Louis-des-Français, complete with Ediciones Singulares’s customary lavish packaging and scholarly notes.
Available Formats: 2 CDs + book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This 4-CD set includes the Polish pianist’s debut recording of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit (made shortly after his performance of the work propelled him to victory in the 1956 Queen Elizabeth Competition, and remastered for CD for the first time here), plus Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives Op. 22, concertos by Mozart and JS Bach, and solo works by Chopin.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
