Coming Soon,
Stravinsky from Isabelle Faust and other forthcoming highlights
Stand-out releases for early spring include Stravinsky's Violin Concerto (plus a selection of his chamber works) from Isabelle Faust, François-Xavier Roth Les Siècles, a second album of English music for strings from John Wilson & Sinfonia of London, Schumann & Brahms from Benjamin Grosvenor, an 'anti-Valentine’s Day' recital from American countertenor Randall Scotting and lutenist Stephen Stubbs, and world premiere recordings of Margaret Bonds's Credo & Simon Bore the Cross from the Dessoff Choirs & their pioneering Music Director Malcolm J Merriweather.
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto & Chamber Works
Isabelle Faust (violin), François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles
Following the success of her recording of The Soldier's Tale (which was nominated for a Gramophone Award last year), Faust turns her attention to the concerto which Stravinsky composed for Samuel Dushkin in 1931. It's preceded here by the 'Variation d'Apollon' from the 1928 ballet Apollon musagète, and followed by the Three Pieces for String Quartet (arranged by the composer from the original version for four-hands one-piano), the tiny Concertino for String Quartet from 1920, and the violin & piano version of the 1907 Pastorale (transcribed for Dushkin in 1933).
Released 3rd March.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Two years on from their widely acclaimed recording of works by Britten, Bridge, Berkeley and Bliss, Wilson and Sinfonia of London present a second album of English music for string orchestra: Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Howells's Concerto for String Orchestra, Delius's Late Swallows (arranged from the slow movement of the String Quartet by his amanuensis Eric Fenby), and Elgar's Introduction & Allegro
Released 3rd February.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For his seventh album on Decca, the British pianist explores the complicated relationships between Brahms and Clara & Robert Schumann; his programme opens with Robert's ETA Hoffmann-inspired Kreisleriana, and also includes the set of variations which Clara composed on a theme by her husband for his final birthday at home, Brahms's Three Intermezzi, and Grosvenor’s own arrangement of Robert’s song Abendlied.
Released 17th March.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Stravinsky: The Soldier's Tale
Martins Imhangbe (The Soldier), Mark Lockyer (The Devil), Richard Katz (The Narrator), Principals of the Hallé Orchestra, Sir Mark Elder
In 2021, the Hallé commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Stravinsky's death with a compelling film of The Soldier's Tale, shot on location in Manchester and using a new English translation by Jeremy Sams; the film was broadcast on BBC4 on Remembrance Day last year, and was described as 'intelligently conceived and brilliantly executed' by BachTrack. This audio-only release has been specially remastered.
Released 3rd February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia antartica & Symphony No. 9
Elizabeth Watts (soprano), BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins
This recording of two late symphonies concludes Brabbins's Vaughan Williams cycle, which began in 2017 with what The Guardian described as a 'fabulously assured' London Symphony; the series has since been praised for the 'conspicuous finesse and lustre' of the orchestral playing (Gramophone) and Brabbins's 'sense of purposeful directness' (BBC Music Magazine).
Released 3rd March.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
It was a 2006 performance of the Beethoven concerto at the Salzburg Festival with Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker which brought the German violinist Veronika Eberle to international attention; this recording captures her London performance of the same work last year (incorporating new cadenzas by Jörg Widmann), which prompted The Strad to remark that 'when the LSO Live album of the concert appears, it should make for essential listening'. Also includes the incomplete Violin Concerto in C major WoO5 - a 259-bar fragment from the early 1790s.
Released 24th February.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Reich was personally involved with this recording of the three string quartets which he composed between 1988 and 2010 (Different Trains, Triple Quartet and WTC 9/11), which here appear on a single album for the first time. Described by The Chicago Reader as 'one of America's most daring and ferocious new-music ensembles', the Mivos Quartet have a long-standing collaborative history with Reich, and have previously received critical acclaim for their recordings of music by contemporary composers including Yotam Haber, Frank Horvat and Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann.
Released 3rd February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This programme of chamber and vocal music composed for the French court at the turn of the seventeenth century includes works by Robert de Visée, Antoine Boesset, Henry de Bailly, Gabriel Bataille, Etienne Mouliné, Michel Lambert and Louis de Caix d'Hervelois.
Released 17th February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Whately reflects that she and Middleton 'felt drawn to reflect on grief, mortality, and bereavement' when they began to assemble this programme of early twentieth-century songs during the pandemic; as well as Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and a selection of Lieder by Richard Strauss, their programme includes music by Johanna Müller-Hermann (a pupil of Zemlinsky and Franz Schmidt) and Margarete Schweikert (a high-profile music-critic as well as a prolific song-composer).
Released 17th February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their excellent recording of Bonds's Christmas cantata The Ballad Of The Brown King in 2019, the New York choirs and their Music Director present two more world premiere recordings of sacred works by the African-American composer; written in collaboration with Langston Hughes and based on the spiritual 'He Never Said a Mumblin' Word', Simon Bore the Cross focuses on the figure of Simon of Cyrene, whilst the Credo (premiered by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic shortly before Bonds's death) sets texts by sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois.
Released 3rd February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Due out on 10th February, the American countertenor's second album on Signum is a collection of 'anti-Valentine’s songs' from the seventeenth century, exploring what Scotting describes as 'a unique period when feeling these bittersweet emotions was embraced as fuel for artistic expression'; includes music by William & Henry Lawes, Étienne Moulinié, Daniele da Castrovillari, John Dowland, John Blow, Henry Purcell and Pierre Guédron.
Released 10th February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Released to mark what would have been the Italian conductor's ninetieth birthday, this mammoth collection comprises everything which he recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Philips, and is accompanied by a hardback book including reminiscences by Alfred Brendel, Yuja Wang, Evegeny Kissin & Albrecht Mayer and new essays by James Jolly, Julia Spinola, Jon Tolansky and Clemens Hellsberg. A particular highlight is the DVD premiere of the production Janáček‘s From The House of the Dead which Abbado conducted in Vienna in 1992.
Released 17th February.
Available Format: 257 CDs + 8 DVDs
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
