New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 13th October 2023
Ravel: Piano Concertos & Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Alexandre Tharaud (piano), Orchestre National de France, Louis Langrée
Twenty years after his recording of Ravel's complete solo piano music (in which The Scotsman detected 'a sense of enjoyment and energy that lights up Ravel's acute sense of texture and colour'), the French pianist turns his attention to the two piano concertos. Tharaud reflects that the two works (both premiered in 1932) 'are simultaneously unique and alike. They share meticulous craftsmanship and jazzy touches, and both evoke little automata and the ghosts of war.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Lully: Thésée
Mathias Vidal (Thésée), Karine Deshayes (Médée), Deborah Cachet (Aeglé), Marie Lys (Cléone/Cérès), Bénédicte Tauran, (La Grande Prêtresse de Minerve), Thaïs Raï-Westphal (Dorine/Venus); Les Talens Lyriques, Chœur de Chambre de Namur, Christophe Rousset
Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques continue their sterling advocacy for Lully with this recording of his tragédie en musique based on an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses, premiered for the court of Louis XIV in 1675. Reviewing their recording of the composer's Acis et Galatée last year, Opera Magazine declared that 'the performance is everything that has come to be expected in Lully from Christophe Rousset and his exceptional forces. That means it is all but flawless.'
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Montenegrin guitarist makes his debut on Sony with an all-Baroque programme, including transcriptions of the Chaconne from JS Bach's Partita No. 2, Couperin's Les baricades mistérieuses, two Scarlatti keyboard sonatas, and Weiss's Passacaille; he's joined by Arcangelo and Cohen for concerto movements by Vivaldi and Marcello, and the Fandango from Boccherini's Guitar Quintet No. 4 in D major.
Watch our video-interview with Miloš about the project here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their widely-praised sets of the complete Beethoven and Brahms symphonies (the first of which won Recording of the Year at the International Classical Music Awards), Fischer and his Danish orchestra launched a series of late Haydn recordings back in August; this second volume of London symphonies comprises Nos. 96-98 (the first of which was nicknamed the 'Miracle' after reports that a falling chandelier narrowly missed a section of the audience at the Hanover Square Rooms premiere).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Jan Novák: Concertos
Dora Novak-Wilmington (piano), Clara Nováková (flute), Karel Košárek (piano), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tomáš Netopil
Both of the Czech composer's daughters appear as soloists here: flautist Clara was the dedicatee of Choreae Vernales (originally written for flute and guitar in 1977 and given here in Novák's revision for flute, strings, harp and celeste), whilst Dora performs in the Concentus biiugis for piano four hands & strings as well as the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra from 1955. The latter work was inspired in part by Novák's visits to New York jazz clubs with his teacher Martinů, and was previously recorded by the composer and his wife Eliška Nováková under the direction of Karel Ančerl.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Emily Howard: The Anvil
Kate Royal, Claire Booth (sopranos), Hugh Cutting (countertenor), Christopher Purves (bass-baritone); BBC Philharmonic, BBC Singers, Hallé Choir, Ben Gernon, Vimbayi Kaziboni
Setting texts by the poet Michael Symmons Roberts, The Anvil was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the Manchester International Festival to mark the bicentenary of the 1819 Peterloo massacre (in which eighteen people died and hundreds were injured whilst campaigning for the reform of parliamentary representation); reviewing the recording last month The Times noted that 'Howard’s musical style, jangly and adversarial, entirely suits her subject'. The companion-piece is another Howard/Symmons Roberts collaboration: Elliptics, which 'explores underlying patterns in words and music rooted in numbers, along with love and loss'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Arrangements of two works by Corelli himself (the Sonata a tre in B minor, Op. 3 No. 4 and 'La folia' from the Violin Sonata Op. 5 No. 12 in D minor) bookend this programme exploring the Italian's influence on the subsequent generation of Baroque composers: the album also includes JS Bach's Fugue in B minor on a theme by Corelli BWV579 and 4 Duettos BWV 802-805, Handel's Keyboard Suite in B minor HWV 434, and Telemann's Sonata in A minor TWV 42:a5.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This is the world premiere recording of the clarinet quintet which Adès composed for Simpson and Quatuor Diotima in 2021; drawing inspiration from music by Dowland, Byrd and Berg, it was hailed as 'one of his finest achievements of recent years' by The Guardian, whilst the Financial Times described it as 'original, inventive, but also bewitchingly elegiac' following its first performance at Kings Place.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Telling often unheard stories about womanhood primarily through women’s own words and music', this recital features the world premiere recordings of Charlotte Bray's Crossing Faultlines and new arrangements of two songs from Judith Weir's woman.life.song (premiered by Jessye Norman in 2000 and setting texts by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Toni Morrison). Also includes songs by Libby Larsen, Florence Price, Helen Grime, Rebecca Clarke and Michele Brourman.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Spanning three centuries, this programme of French love songs includes Lambert's 'Ma bergère est tendre et fidelle', Charpentier's 'Auprès du feu l'on fait l'amour', Hahn's 'À Chloris' & 'Néère and Barbara's 'Dis, quand reviendras-tu?', as well as excerpts from opera and operetta: 'Amours divins' from Offenbach's La belle Hélène, Debussy's 'Mes longs cheveux' from Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and 'J'ai deux amants' from Messager's L'Amour masque. Dunford also supplies interludes by de Visée and Satie.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Featuring several world premiere recordings, this collection of part-songs by the British-Sierra Leonean composer opens with Sea Drift (setting a poem by T.B. Aldrich rather than the Walt Whitman poem which inspired Delius and Vaughan Williams), and also includes the Shelley setting Song of Proserpine, Isle of Beauty, Whispers of Summer, The Sea Shell, and All My Stars Forsake Me.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Delibes: Lakmé (Blu-ray)
Sabine Devieilhe (Lakmé), Frederic Antoun (Gérald), Stephane Degout (Frédéric), Ambroisine Bré (Mallika); Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon, Laurent Pelly
Filmed last October at the Opéra Comique in Paris, this production of Delibes's 1883 opera features French soprano Sabine Devieilhe in her signature-role (and in a rare operatic collaboration with her husband , Raphaël Pichon); it was selected as one of The New York Times's Best Classical Music Performances of 2022, thanks to the 'graceful restraint of Pelly's staging, Devieilhe's 'crystalline' high notes, and Degout's 'richly resonant' baritone.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
