New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 18th November 2022
Today's new releases include Handel duets and arias from Lea Desandre and Iestyn Davies with Jupiter and Thomas Dunford, Schubert's Schwanengesang from Andrè Schuen and Daniel Heide, Christmas concertos and pastorales from Bojan Čičić and the Illyria Consort, and sonatas & airs serieux by François Couperin from Cyrille Dubois, Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset.
Described by Dunford as ‘a Baroque West Side Story’, this programme of arias and duets from Handel's English-language works mixes the sacred and the secular, featuring excerpts from Theodora, The Choice of Hercules, the Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, Semele, Solomon, Susanna, Joseph and his Brethren, and Saul; Davies sang David in the latter work to great acclaim in Barrie Kosky's landmark staging at Glyndebourne in 2015.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Schuen and Heide's 2021 recording of Die schöne Müllerin was nominated for an International Classical Music Award, and was warmly received by Gramophone, who applauded the Ladin baritone's 'emotional truthfulness' and his partner's 'eloquent playing'; now they team up once more for a work which Schuen describes as 'my greatest love among the Schubert Lieder', having fallen under its spell via a Fischer-Dieskau recording as a very young singer.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Two violin concertos by Vivaldi bookend this lovely recital exploring the musical traditions which grew up around Christmas in seventeenth-century Catholic Europe: 'La notte' and ‘Il riposo – per il santissimo Natale’. The programme also includes Sonata pastorellas by Biber and Rauch, Vejvanovsky's Sonata Laetitiae, Finger's Pastoralle for three viols and basso continuo, a sonata from Schmelzer's Sacro-Profanus Concentus Musicus, and two anonymous pieces from a collection at the Minoritenkonvent Wien.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A year after winning Opus Klassik's Newcomer of the Year Award for Piazzolla Stories, the French trumpeter presents her first concerto recording, featuring works by Hummel, Haydn, Neruda, Arutiunian and Harry James; the programme is rounded off by Renaudin Vary's own Post-scriptum on Haydn.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Six years on from their ECHO Klassik Award-winning recording of works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninov (praised in BBC Music Magazine for their 'muscle and imagination' and in Gramophone for the 'keen sense of drama and line' on display), Moser and Korobeinikov join forces for Bohuslav Martinů's three cello sonatas, composed in 1939, 1941 and 1952 respectively.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The Japanese pianist's programme focuses on the young Brahms and his friendships with Clara and Robert Schumann; opening with Brahms's Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major (composed in 1853, and recommended to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel by Robert), the recital also includes the Variations on a theme by Schumann Op. 9, the Theme & Variations in D minor Op. 18b (a transcription of the slow movement of the String Sextet in B flat major, made at Clara's request), and Clara's transcription of Robert's 'Widmung'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The Swiss soprano's fifth solo album for Sony explores the world of fairies, elves and witches, and spans four centuries of music; highlights include Monteverdi's Lamento della Ninfa, an aria from Offenbach's Die Rheinnixen (later repurposed as the Barcarolle in Les contes d'Hoffmann), 'Be Kind And Courteous' from Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a new chamber arrangement of the 'Song To The Moon' from Dvořák's Rusalka.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This programme of secular instrumental and vocal works by François Couperin is the final instalment of a trilogy of albums marking the thirtieth birthday of Les Talens Lyriques; here the ensemble's founder Christophe Rousset does double-duty as harpsichordist (in a selection of the Pièces de clavecin I) and conductor (in the sonatas La Superbe, La Steinkerque and La Sultane; Dubois joins for a number of airs serieux, including the hitherto uncatalogued drinking song 'Souvent dans le plus doux sort'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A year on from their recording of František Ignác Antonín Tůma's Requiem (written for the interment of Emperor Charles VI in 1742), Válek and his period-instrument ensemble turn to the festive 1745 Te Deum which was composed for the Stift Wilhering (a Cistercian monastery in Upper Austria), the Sinfonia Ex C (one of Tůma's last compositions), and the Missa Veni Pater Pauperum from 1736; all three works receive their world premiere recordings here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Pascoe: Secular Requiem
Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo), Julien Van Mellaerts (baritone); Truro Cathedral Choir, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Christopher Gray
This is the world premiere recording of Cornish composer Russell Pascoe’s Secular Requiem, which received its first performance at Truro Cathedral in March 2013 and sets texts by authors including Walt Whitman, John Donne and Dylan Thomas; the album also includes Pascoe's Threnody for Jowan (written for the funeral of a friend's baby son) and the Sequence for Remembrance, composed in 2018 to mark the Armistice Day centenary.
Available Format: CD
I Vow To Thee, My Country
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Joshua Ryan, Richard Horne, William Vann
This collection of choral music by Gustav Holst includes the Nunc dimittis from 1915 (his only setting of the Anglican Service for Evening Prayer), the settings of Psalms Nos. 86 & 148, four Festival Choruses (drawing on influences including Welsh hymns and Byzantine liturgy), 'The Coming of Christ', 'Man born to toil', and the eight-part setting of Ave Maria for unaccompanied female voices.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ralph Vaughan Williams Live, Vol. 3
BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Renée Flynn, Roy Henderson, Ralph Vaughan Williams
This third volume of archive recordings (restored and remastered by Lani Spahr) comprises four performances conducted by the composer himself: the 1943 world premiere of his Fifth Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (plus a 1952 recording with the same forces), the London Symphony Orchestra’s 1946 Proms account of A London Symphony, and a 1936 Dona Nobis Pacem (with Roy Henderson and Renee Flynn as soloists).
Available Format: 2 CDs
Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore
Caterina Sala (Adina), Javier Camarena (Nemorino), Florian Sempey (Belcore), Roberto Frontali (Dulcamara); Orchestra Gli Originali, Coro Donizetti Opera, Riccardo Frizza, Frederic Wake-Walker
Hot on the heels of Camarena's superb Donizetti recital with Gli Originali on Pentatone last week, here's a chance to catch him in one of his signature roles, filmed at the opening of the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo last November; BachTrack declared that 'his interpretation was impeccable: spontaneous, emotional, but also lyrical and sentimental', and also praised the 22-year-old Sala's 'strong soprano, great breath control and technique, and very easy high notes' as Adina.
Available Format: DVD Video
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
