New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 20th July 2018
Today’s new releases include Strauss’s Alpensinfonie from Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Shostakovich’s Fourth and Tenth symphonies from Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra, the first album devoted to the choral music of Julian Anderson, and the world premiere recording of the latest opera by octogenarian composer Aribert Reimann.
The Colombian-Austrian conductor and his Frankfurt orchestra have serious form when it comes to Strauss: their live recording of Salome (with Emily Magee in the title-role) last autumn was praised for its ‘exemplary clarity’ (BBC Music Magazine), and their 2016 Heldenleben for its ‘rich, well-upholstered sound’ and ‘easy virtuosity’ (Gramophone).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Venzago’s recordings of Bruckner with the Finnish orchestra have attracted considerable acclaim, with Gramophone describing their accounts of the ‘Nullte’ and First Symphonies on CPO as ‘luminous and revealing…Bruckner for non-Brucknerians’; now they turn their attention to Brahms, in advance of a season which will see them pairing works by the two composers in live concerts.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
It’s almost ten years since Mikhail Pletnev’s ‘strongly compelling and often illuminating’ (BBC Music Magazine) recording of Shostakovich’s final symphony with this orchestra (their complete cycle of the symphonies has also seen Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Paavo Berglund and the late Yakov Kreizberg taking up the baton). Now he returns to conduct the monumental Tenth and enigmatic Fourth.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The British vocal consort (shortlisted for a Gramophone Award last year for their recording of Lennox Berkeley’s Stabat Mater) mark their tenth anniversary with a programme of Renaissance and contemporary settings of the same texts, including Allegri and James MacMillan’s Misereres, and Stabat Maters by Palestrina and Gabriel Jackson (the latter newly commissioned for this recording).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Aribert Reimann: L'Invisible
Rachel Harnisch, Annika Schlicht, Stephen Bronk, Thomas Blondelle; Deutschen Oper Berlin, Donald Runnicles
Like Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande, Reimann’s ninth opera sets text by Maurice Maeterlinck (adapted by the composer himself) and explores a series of claustrophobic family relationships through the prism of fairy-tale; reviewing the premiere in Berlin last October, the Financial Times observed that ‘Reimann’s handiwork is refined, the music strong and engrossing’.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The first album dedicated to the choral music of the British composer (b.1967) includes a setting of the Nunc dimittis (commissioned with this recording in mind), the Bell Mass (2010) for double choir and organ, Four American Choruses on Gospel Texts (2003), and the wedding anthem My beloved spake, premiered by the London Philharmonic Choir in 2006.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The eighth volume in ATMA’s projected series of Bach’s complete sacred cantatas in partnership with the Festival Montréal Baroque presents two works written for the Feast of the Reformation (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott and Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild) and Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, originally composed for the Second Sunday after Trinity but later loaned out to Leipzig’s Paulinerkirche for their celebrations of the Reformation.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Malipiero & Busoni: Violin Concertos
Domenico Nordio (violin), Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Tito Ceccherini
The Italian violinist has made a speciality of the music of his nineteenth- and twentieth-century compatriots (his discography includes works for violin and orchestra by Respighi, Petrassi, Dallapiccola, Casella and Castelnuovo-Tedesco); this latest disc presents both of Malipiero’s concertos (dating from 1932 and 1963) alongside Busoni’s 1890s homage to the masterpieces of the genre by Beethoven and Brahms.
Available Format: CD
After their recent sterling advocacy for the songs of Félicien David, Benjamin Godard and Fernand de la Tombelle (‘There's no mistaking the fineness of Christoyannis's artistry’ - Gramophone), Christoyannis and Cohen explore a comparatively neglected area of a rather better-known composer’s output: includes settings of two poems by Théophile Gautier which also crop up in Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, and several English-language songs.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (DVD)
Michael Volle, Klaus Florian Vogt, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Anne Schwanewilms, Daniel Behle; Bayreuth Festival Philippe Jordan, Barrie Kosky
Filmed at last year’s Bayreuth Festival, Kosky’s new production (which places the composer himself at the centre of the action, and sets the first act of the opera in Wahnfried) was described as ‘imaginative, subtle and serious’ (The Guardian) and ‘alert and intellectually agile’ (The New York Times).
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
