New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 27th October 2023
This tribute to the great Italian librettist Pietro Metastasio includes arias from Gluck's Il Re Pastore, Hasse's Demofoonte, Ferrandini's Il Siroe, Valentini's La clemenza di Tito, and both JC Bach and Jommelli's operas on Artaserse. (Metastasio described the latter text as 'the most fortunate of all my children' - it was set by nearly 100 composers during the eighteenth century, including Vinci, Arne, Hasse and Mysliveček). All ten arias receive their world premiere recordings.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This sequel to 2021's Behind Closed Doors completes La Serenissima's survey of the Italian Baroque composer and violinist's Op. 1 - a mixture of violin concertos and sinfonias, and the only set of works which Brescianello himself elected to publish. Reviewing Volume One, Fanfare observed that 'To make this [music] come alive requires absolute precision in terms of tone and phrasing, and the period group La Serenissima does a fine job of it.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The first instalment of Minasi's Mozart series (comprising the last three symphonies) won particular praise for his account of the 'Jupiter', with BBC Music Magazine declaring that the Italian violinist-conductor 'clarifies textures and points phrases in a way that is truly exhilarating' and Gramophone noting that 'tutti textures have an abrasive clarity'; they continue their journey with these two symphonies from the mid-1780s.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This digital-only release presents five movements from Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn's 1960 arrangement of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker: the Overture, 'Toot Toot Tootie Toot' ('Dance of the Reed-Pipes'), 'Dance of the Floreadores' ('Waltz of the Flowers'), 'Sugar Rum Cherry' ('Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy') and 'Peanut Brittle Brigade' ('March').
Please note short playing-time of 17 minutes.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Quatuor Arod celebrates its tenth birthday with two masterpieces of the belle époque, complemented by French composer Benjamin Attahir (b.1989): inspired by the 103rd sūrah of the Qur'ān, Al Asr was written for the Arods and premiered by them in 2017. The accompanying DVD features Ménage à quatre, a documentary about the quartet directed by French filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon and including music by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bartók and Ravel (as well as an appearance from György Kurtág).
Available Format: CD + DVD Video
Taking its title from a group of works which Michel-Richard Delalande composed for Louis XIV, this royal musical banquet comprises the Cinquième Suite from his Recueil d’airs détachés et d’airs de violons, André Cardinal Destouches's Le Carnaval et la Folie, François Colin de Blamont's Les fêtes grecques et romaines, excerpts from Rameau's Les Fêtes de Polymnie, and the Quatrième Suite from François Francoeur's Symphonie du festin royal de Monseigneur le comte d’Artois.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Gurney composed his first piano sonata in 1910 (shortly before taking up a scholarship at the Royal College of Music), and his third during a brief period of good health after World War I. Both works receive their first recordings here, as does the only surviving movement from the Piano Sonata No. 2 (which Gurney described as having 'proved more difficult than pleasant') and 'Autumn' from 1912; the album opens with the Five Preludes from 1919/20.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This album of works by the British composer, singer and cellist takes its title from a suite which pays homage to the victims of the Zong massacre of 1781 (in which over 130 enslaved people were thrown overboard by their captors as they sailed from Africa to Jamaica) and to a young man who drowned in a beach accident in Jamaica which Witter-Johnson witnessed during a family holiday. She describes the piece as an 'exploration of themes around my ancestry, family history and the ocean'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Jacob Mühlrad: REMS
Johannes Rostamo (cello), Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Pablo Heras-Casado
A former pupil of Sven-David Sandström, Swedish composer Jacob Mühlrad (b.1991) has worked extensively in pop and film music as well as having works premiered at venues including Carnegie Hall and The Royal Swedish Opera. REMS (Rapid Eye Movement Sleep) is his first orchestral composition to be recorded, and draws inspiration from Jewish prayers and lullabies, Indian ragas and quarter-tone technique. Some of its themes and ideas are revisited in the companion-piece, Maggid (for solo baroque cello).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Homelands
Ian Bostridge (tenor), Jennifer France (soprano), Wonsick Oh (bass), James Atkinson (baritone), Aron Goldin (piano)
This recital of songs about exile was curated by pianist Aron Goldin and performed at the Royal Academy of Music in London on World Refugee Day in June 2022 (with Sir Simon Russell Beal reading ancient Hebrew and Chinese poetry plus poems by Auden, Brecht and Duffy); the recital raised over £200,000 for the 30 Birds Foundation. The programme includes songs by Duparc, Fauré, Schubert, Schumann, Donghoon Shin and Tchaikovsky.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
This all-Handel programme exploring love's vicissitudes includes the cantatas Mi palpita il cor, Tu fedel? tu costante? and Un'alma innamorata, the Trio Sonata Op. 2 No. 6 and the Sonata in G minor for violin/oboe and continuo Op. 1 No. 6, plus the world premiere recording of S'un di m'appaga la mia crudele - thought to have been composed between 1738 and 1741 as an alternative aria for one of the operas.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Rossini: La donna del lago (Blu-ray)
Salome Jicia (Elena), Juan Diego Flórez (Giacomo V), Varduhi Abrahamyan (Malcolm), Michael Spyres (Rodrigo), Marko Mimica (Douglas); Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Michele Mariotti, Damiano Michieletto
Recorded at the Adriatic Arena in Pesaro during the 2016 Rossini Opera Festival, this production of Rossini's Walter Scott-inspired opera was warmly received across Europe: the Financial Times noted that 'with characteristic boldness, Michieletto reformulates this glittering music into something otherworldly', the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung opined that 'Mariotti and his outstanding orchestra were the stars of the evening', and Opera Today declared that 'it is clear that Juan Diego Flórez has no equal in finding the joy of singing'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Puccini: Tosca (Blu-ray)
Kristine Opolais (Tosca), Jonathan Tetelman (Cavaradossi), Gábor Bretz (Scarpia), Rafał Pawnuk (Sacristan/Sciarrone); ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Marc Albrecht, Martin Kušej
Filmed at the Theater an der Wien last January, Kušej's bleak, hyper-violent staging of Tosca was the subject of much controversy, but the performances themselves were widely praised: Albrecht's conducting was described as 'a masterly achievement' by Opernwelt, whilst Gramophone noted that Tetelman 'sang a superb Cavaradossi, his chiselled good looks and excellent stage presence allied to some truly thrilling singing.'
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
