New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 29th July 2022
Today's new releases include a final volume of Haydn piano sonatas from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet on Chandos, the complete Mysliveček violin concertos from Shizuka Ishikawa, the Dvořák Chamber Orchestra and Libor Pešek on Supraphon (originally issued separately in the 1980s), four Bach harpsichord concertos from Andrew Arthur and The Hanover Band on Signum, and the world premiere recording of John Luther Adams's Arctic soundscape Houses of the Wind on Cold Blue Music.
This final volume of the French pianist's Haydn series features Sonatas Nos. 1, 9, 14, 61 and 62, plus the Capriccio in G major 'Acht Sauschneider müssen seyn', the Theme and Variations in C major Hob.XVII:5, and several shorter pieces. Previous instalments have seen Bavouzet praised for the 'personable flair' (Sunday TImes), 'ideal clarity' (BBC Music Magazine) and 'technical perfection' (Gramophone) of his playing.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mysliveček: Complete Violin Concertos
Shizuka Ishikawa (violin), Dvořák Chamber Orchestra, Libor Pešek
Recorded in the Dvořák Hall of Prague’s Rudolfinum in the mid-1980s, these two albums are now issued together for the first time; composed after Mysliveček left his native Prague for Italy, the concertos are thought to have been inspired in part by those of Tartini, and in turn exerted their own influence on the young Mozart. Reviewing the original releases, Fanfare observed that 'Ishikawa is a commanding soloist, and Pešek's accompaniments are robust and well disciplined'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
The Hanover Band make their debut on Signum Classics with four of Bach's harpsichord concertos (BWV 1052, 1054, 1055 & 1058) - works which Arthur describes as 'occupying a significant place in the history of music, marking as they do the origin of the keyboard concerto genre'. Arthur plays a 2009 harpsichord by Andrew Garlick, based on a 1748 instrument by Jean-Claude Goujon.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Johann Wilhelm Wilms: Works For Flute Vol. 2
Helen Dabringhaus (flute), Sebastian Berakdar (cello), Hannah Vinzens (piano)
Hot on the heels of Ronald Brautigam's superb accounts of three of Wilms's keyboard concertos with the Kölner Akademie (our best-selling recording of the month to date!), Dabringhaus continues her survey of the Dutch-German composer's flute sonatas, also including his sole trio for flute, cello and piano. Reviewing the first instalment back in July 2020, Fanfare declared that 'her playing is immaculate, stylish, and delightful, as is the pianism of accompanist Sebastian Berakdar'.
Available Format: SACD
Drawing on composers' original manuscripts and first sketches for works more familiar in later incarnations, this album was inspired by Robert Schumann's assertion that 'The first concept is always the most natural and the best. The mind misleads, the feeling does not.' The original version of his Adagio and Allegro opens the programme, which also includes Gounod's Six Melodies for Horn and Piano, Richard Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2 in an early draft for horn and two pianos, and Volker David Kirchner's Tre Poemi.
Available Format: CD
Alongside his thirty-five year tenure as Music Director at the Gewandhaus, Carl Reinecke also spent over four decades teaching piano and composition at the Conservatorium of Music in Leipzig; this collection features music by illustrious students including Smyth, Grieg, Sullivan, Bruch, Janácek and Ciurlionis, plus a selection of Reinecke's own works for male voices.
Available Format: CD
The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer has been fascinated by the timbre of the Aeolian harp for decades, but this is the first time he's made direct use of it in his music; Houses of the Wind transposes and layers a ten-minute recording of the instrument which he made on a field-trip to the Arctic in the summer of 1989 and recently revisited, noting that 'the voices of the wind singing through the strings of the harp brought back vividly the clarity of light'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This is the first instalment of a projected series celebrating music from the Warmia region in northern Poland, and draws on a collection of over 800 predominantly sacred works dating from the sixteenth century onwards; the main event here is the world premiere recording of Homann's Mass in C (thought to date from the late 1770s), which is preceded by Vanhal's Quis nos separabit and three anonymous Offertorio fragments.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Born in Basel in the 1480s, Senfl studied with Henrich Isaac in Vienna, and succeeded his teacher as court composer to Emperor Maximilian I; a regular correspondent of Martin Luther, he attended the Diet of Worms and wrote a number of sacred songs for the Lutheran Duke Albrecht of Prussia. Several of these are included here, alongside motets such as Ave rosa sine spinis, Media vita in morte sumus, and Verbum caro factum est.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nowowiejski: Die Heimkehr des Verlorenen Sohnes
Agnieszka Rehlis (mezzo), Arnold Rutkowski (tenor), Lukasz Konieczny (bass), Marek Pawełek (organ), Warmia and Masuria Philharmonic Orchestra, Choir of the Karol Szymanowski Philharmonic, Piotr Sulkowski
Nowowiejski was just 24 (and still studying with Max Bruch in Berlin) when this oratorio on the subject of the Prodigal Son scooped him the Giacomo Meyerbeer Prize; his winnings funded a grand European tour, which brought him into contact with composers including Saint-Saëns, Mahler, Leoncavallo and Mascagni. The work, however, was never performed during his lifetime, receiving its complete premiere only in 1993.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
