New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-up - 8th June 2018
This week's highlights include an assured debut from Deutsche Grammophon's youngest artist, an homage to the great violinists of the early twentieth century from Ray Chen, and a second jazz album from bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, who retired from classical performance several years ago.
The Golden Age
Ray Chen (violin), Julien Quentin (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Robert Trevino
Bruch’s evergreen Violin Concerto No. 1 is the centrepiece of Chen’s second album for Decca, which also includes arrangements and original compositions by the great violinists Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler, and A New Satiesfaction - a mash-up of Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 and Rossini’s William Tell Overture by the cellist of Chen’s Made in Berlin Quartet.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
JS Bach: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Daniel Lozakovich (violin), Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Radoslaw Szulc
The 17-year-old Swedish violinist (who came first in the Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition in 2016, and made his concerto debut under Spivakov aged just 9) is the youngest musician currently on Deutsche Grammophon’s books; his first recording for the label is an all-Bach programme, featuring the complete Second Partita as well as the two concertos.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For his first album since retiring from public performance as a singer six years ago (he continues to appear as a speaker and narrator), the German bass-baritone joins the NDR Big Band for a programme of jazz and swing standards including But not for me and Cry Me a River. Quasthoff has real form in this music – his 2007 Jazz Album was described as ‘Ella good’ by Jazz Times.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Shostakovich & Lidström – Works for cello & orchestra
Mats Lidström (cello), Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy
The Swedish cellist’s own Rigoletto Fantasy (very much in the tradition of Sarasate’s virtuoso take on Carmen) is tremendous fun, and the perfect foil to his acerbic account of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. He and Ashkenazy have been regular collaborators for several decades, with a joint discography including Rachmaninov and Shostakovich Piano Trios and concertos by Khachaturian and Kabalevsky.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recently praised by The Guardian for its ‘virtuosic ensemble playing, spiced with a mischievous sense of fun’, this recording features musicians including cellist Adrian Brendel (son of Alfred), violist Lawrence Power (currently in the news for his fine new recording of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy with Andrew Manze) and horn-player Richard Watkins.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Charpentier: Leçons de ténèbres
Samuel Boden (tenor), Stéphane Degout (baritone), Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
Baritone Stephane Dégout and tenor Samuel Boden (who recently appeared as father and son in George Benjamin’s new opera Lessons in Love and Violence) are the soloists in the Leçons; the programme also includes Litanies de la vierge, the Magnificat à 3 and Ouverture pour le sacre d’un évêcque.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For their tenth recording on Avie,The Brook Street Band return to their first love, Handel (the ensemble is named after the composer’s London address) with nine sonatas composed over a period of four decades – though, as the group cheerfully admit, several of the works here may be of doubtful authenticity!
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Lohengrin
Klaus Florian Vogt (Lohengrin), Annette Dasch (Elsa), Petra Lang (Ortrud), Jukka Rasilainen (Telramund), Bayreuth Festival, Andris Nelsons
If you’re keen to experience Vogt’s ethereal swan-knight (a role which he’s currently singing at Covent Garden, again under Andris Nelsons) without Hans Neuenfels’s provocative staging and its notorious chorus of rats, Opus Arte have just issued an audio recording of the 2011 Bayreuth production, which has been available on DVD and Blu-ray for several years: BBC Music Magazine opined at the time that 'If the recording of the live performance had been on CD, I would have been mainly enthusiastic'!
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
