New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 26th August 2022
Todays new releases include the complete Brahms symphonies from Ádám Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra on Naxos, Johann Jakob Walther's Scherzi da Violino from Bojan Čičić and the Illyria Consort on Delphian, Sean Shibe's Lost & Found on Pentatone, and early English keyboard music from Italian harpsichordist Giulia Nuti on Arcana.
Already our best-selling recording of August in the wake of being featured as Recording of the Month in the September edition of Gramophone, Roth's account of Mahler's Fourth with the period instruments of Les Siècles prompted reviewer Edward Seckerson to declare 'I absolutely adored this recording...it has opened my ears and my heart and there isn’t a whole lot more that one can ask for, is there?'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra celebrate their twenty-five year relationship with this Brahms cycle, which was recorded in Denmark in 2021/2022 using forces similar to those employed at the premieres: reviewing the set earlier this month, The Guardian declared that 'these constantly fascinating performances demonstrate that, even in Brahms, less can mean a lot more'.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Rather like Leif Ove Andsnes's ongoing Mozart Momentum series, this project from the Scandinavian period-instrument orchestra (previously known as Trondheim Barokk) explores a single year in the composer's life - though Wahlberg & Co. extend the focus to include music by his contemporary Gretry, whose suite from Céphale et Procris is bookended by Mozart's Symphony No. 25 and four interludes from Thamos, König in Ägypten.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Scottish guitarist describes his second album on Pentatone as 'less portraiture than a journey that revels in eclecticism...If an image did come to mind, it would be something like an overflowing toybox, some kind of emporium of curiosities'. That emporium includes music by Hildegard von Bingen, Messiaen, Moondog, Julius Eastman, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Meredith Monk, Shiva Feshareki and Oliver Leith, plus the world premiere recording of Daniel Kidane's Continuance (written for Shibe during lockdown).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their superb advocacy of 'missing link' composers including Carbonelli and Giornovich, Čičić and his Illyria Consort turn the spotlight on Johann Jakob Walther, one of the most significant violinists in Germany in the generation before J.S. Bach and described as 'the Paganini of his day' by the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis. This is the first-ever complete recording of his Scherzi da Violino, published in Dresden in 1676.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Three years on from her debut on Warner with a recital of Liszt and Chopin, the Georgian pianist returns with a programme of operatic, song and organ transcriptions, which includes Thalberg's Grande caprice sur des motifs de 'La Sonnambula', Liszt's Chants Polonais after Chopin and transcriptions of Isolde's Liebestod and songs from Schubert's Schwanengesang, and Harold Bauer’s adaptation of César Franck’s Prélude, Fugue et Variation.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The young Dutch violinist's debut recording brings together some of the pieces which first inspired him to take up the instrument: Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro (in the style of Pugnani), Dvořák's Romance in F minor, Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Tartini's 'Devil's Trill' sonata, and Ravel's Tzigane. Baar plays a violin by Carlo Bergonzi (no relation to the tenor!), made in Cremona in 1729.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Just over two decades on from his Grammy-winning recording of Britten's Cello Suites, the Norwegian cellist turns his attention to another work which the composer wrote for Mstislav Rostropovich - the Cello Sonata of 1961, composed shortly after their first meeting. The programme also includes Bridge and Debussy sonatas (both written during the First World War), and concludes with Janáček's Pohádka (Fairy Tale) from 1915.
Available Format: CD
The Brooklyn-based orchestral collective present new orchestrations of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata (arranged by their co-founder Colin Jacobsen, who is also the soloist) and Janáček's string quartet of the same name (by Eric Jacobsen, brother of Colin). In between these two works are two new commissions: Colin's Kreutzings and Anna Clyne's Shorthand, which takes its title from a line in Tolstoy's novella: 'music is the shorthand of emotion'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This is the final instalment of Roscoe's Beethoven series, which began in 2010 and is the first complete cycle of the sonatas to use Barry Cooper’s new edition, published by the ABRSM; reviewing previous volumes, BBC Radio 3 applauded his 'perfect musical judgement and formidable technique', whilst BBC Music Magazine observed that 'I haven't heard playing from any recent pianist that surpasses Roscoe's'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Taking its title from an evocative short piece by Martin Peerson, the Italian harpsichordist's recital of music by the English virginalists also includes Byrd's The Bells, a selection of Dowland’s pavanes and galliards (transcribed by the aforementioned composers), John Amner's O Lord, in Thee is All my Trust, John Tomkins's John Come Kiss Me Now, and a solo keyboard arrangement of Caccini's Amarilli mia bella.
Read our interview with Giulia about the project here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vivaldi's Women
Adrian Chandler (violin/director), Claire Booth (soprano), Renata Pokupić (mezzo), Jess Dandy (contralto), Robert Howarth (organ), La Serenissima
This programme of music written for the women of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice includes the world premiere recording of a recently rediscovered violin concerto in F, two other concertos also written for the violino in tromba marina (which Vivaldi is thought to have invented himself), the Viola d'amore Concerto in D minor RV394, Cur sagittas, cur tela, and the Nisi Dominus RV803.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Niquet writes: 'I have delighted in immersing myself in the world of Handel for more than forty years now. But I must admit that I experienced yet another lesson in strength and joy when I toured and recorded the Dettingen Te Deum and the Coronation Anthems'. The French conductor has assembled a line-up similar to the huge forces used at the premiere of these works, and assigned the solo arias to the whole ‘chapel’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Founded by Laurence Equilbey in 1991, the French chamber choir has amassed a distinguished operatic and oratorio discography in recent years, but this is their first a cappella recording in some time; with their associate conductor Christophe Grapperon at the helm, they explore unaccompanied choral works by Saint-Saëns and Hahn, including the former's Romance du soir, Calme des nuits and Saltarelle, and the latter's Aubade athénienne, À la lumière and L'obscurité.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Janáček: Jenůfa (DVD)
Asmik Grigorian (Jenůfa), Karita Mattila (Kostelnička), Saimir Pirgu (Števa Buryja), Nicky Spence (Laca Klemeň), Elena Zilio (Grandmother Buryjovka), David Stout (Stárek), Jacquelyn Stucker (Karolka) Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Henrik Nánási, Claus Guth
As rave reviews for Grigorian and Mattila's searing Suor Angelica from the Salzburg Festival continue to flood in, Opus Arte release another performance which sees these two wonderful singing actresses striking sparks off one another as an ostracised young mother and her devout, older female relative. Filmed at Covent Garden last year, the production was praised for Mattila's 'formidably intense and utterly commanding' Kostelnicka (The Guardian) and Grigorian's 'fragile yet incisive, vulnerable yet radiant' Jenůfa (Opera Magazine).
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
