New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 1st December 2023
Mahler: Symphony No. 8
Carolyn Sampson, Jacquelyn Wagner (sopranos), Sasha Cooke (mezzo), Jess Dandy (contralto), Barry Banks (tenor), Julian Orlishausen (baritone), Christian Immler (bass-baritone), Minnesota Chorale, National Lutheran Choir, Minnesota Boychoir, Angelica Cantanti Youth Choir, Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä
This latest instalment in Vänskä's acclaimed Mahler series was recorded live in Minnesota - the concert was the Finnish conductor's final performance as Artistic Director of the orchestra. Sampson (who stepped in at short notice to sing Magna Peccatrix as well as Mater Gloriosa) describes Vänskä's approach to the score as 'like chamber-music making on the biggest scale you can imagine'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French harpsichordist told us last year that The Art of Fugue was a work which he never expected to record until the lockdowns of 2020 left him with an unexpectedly empty diary: 'I had so much time to crack open the score, study it and consider it afresh, and after all that I finally felt ready to get into the studio. I used one of my own harpsichords, an anonymous instrument which has such a beautiful sound and so many different colours. It was the most wonderful project.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following albums dedicated to Falla and Mompou, the Spanish pianist presents Granados's Goya-inspired suite from 1911; the work was premiered by the composer himself, who enthused that he had created 'great flights of imagination and difficulty'. This is Perianes's second Granados recording, eight years on from what Gramophone hailed as a 'luminous, animated, sensitive' account of the Piano Quintet with Cuarteto Quiroga.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
In anticipation of the 150th anniversary of Franz Schmidt's birth next year, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales present his four symphonies, composed between 1896 and 1933. Symphony No. 1 was released digitally in March 2021, when BBC Music Magazine remarked that 'what really makes this new recording so enticing is the sheer energy and enthusiasm with which conductor and orchestra communicate the vigour and optimism of the opening movement'.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Swedish composer Natanael Berg (1879-1957) began his working life as a veterinarian, and went on to study at the Stockholm Conservatory; some early scores were breezily described as 'quite nice stuff!' by Richard Strauss when Berg met with him in Dresden in 1909. The Symphony No. 4 ('Pezzo Sinfonico') was composed in 1918 after a wager with Kurt Atterberg, whilst No. 5 (subtitled 'Trilogia delle passioni') dates from 1924; Berg was still working his 'day-job' in the Swedish Army during this period, only devoting himself fully to composition in 1939.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This programme of predominantly Italian baroque Christmas music takes its title from a work by Frescobaldi, and also includes Giovanni Paolo Cima's Hodie Christus natus est, Maurizio Cazzati's Giga Angelella, Francisco Soto de Langa's Nell’apparir del sempiterno sole, Giovanni Razzi's O Maria diana stella, and excerpts from Heinrich Isaac's Missa de Sancta Maria a nativitate usque ad purificationem (composed during his long stay in Florence).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The German pianist's programme falls into two halves: the first features short works by composers including Scarlatti, Couperin, Rameau, Royer, Kuhnau and Galuppi, whilst the second is given over to improvisations on Baroque themes and his own arrangements of personal favourites including 'Summer' and 'Winter' from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Lilian Akopova joins him for four-hands arrangements of Pachelbel's Canon, the first prelude from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and the Passacaglia from Lully's Armida.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Mel Bonis: Entre Soir Et Matin
Sandrine Cantoreggi (violin), Gustav Rivinius (cello), Sheila Arnold (piano), Michael Faust (flute)
Born in 1858, Bonis studied at the Paris Conservatoire alongside Debussy and Gabriel Pierné, and was taught by César Franck; her 1901 Piano Quartet prompted an astonished Saint-Saëns to exclaim 'I never imagined a woman could write such music!'. This programme of her chamber and instrumental works includes the Suite Orientale for piano trio, Soir – Matin (for the same forces), the Violin Sonata in F sharp minor and Sérénade for violin and piano, and Suite for Flute, Violin and Piano.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This programme of contemporary Scandinavian music inspired by the natural world comprises Andrea Tarrodi's Acanthes for two violins and strings, Mats Larsson Gothe's Lied von der Erde (composed to mark the orchestra's fortieth birthday in 2012), Britta Byström's Im Freien for violin and orchestra, and Sauli Zinovjev's short, explosive Recharged (2015/18). All four works receive their premiere recordings here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Published in Dresden in 1671 (the year before the composer's death), this setting of Psalm 119 is thought to have been Schütz's final completed work: scored for two antiphonal choirs and organ continuo, it splits what Martin Luther described as 'a small Bible' into eleven self-contained motets. The composer supplemented his 'swan song' with an earlier setting of Psalm 100 ('Jauchzet dem Herren, alle Welt') and the German Magnificat - 'Meine Seele erhebt den Herren'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Cavalli: Il Xerse
Carlo Vistoli (Xerse), Gaia Petrone (Arsamene), Carolina Lippo (Romilda), Ekaterina Protsenko (Amastre), Carlo Allemano (Ariodate); Baroque Orchestra Modo Antiquo, Federico Maria Sardelli
Predating Handel's setting of the same libretto by over eight decades, Cavalli's Il Xerse was premiered at the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice and later revised (with ballet interludes by court composer Lully) for the wedding of Louis XIV in Paris. This live recording was made at the Festival della Valle d'Itria Martina Franca last year, and uses a slightly abridged version of a new critical edition by Sara Elisa Stangalino & Hendrik Schulze; reviewing the performance, BachTrack noted that 'a word of praise must be said for the Xerse sung by Carlo Vistoli, who showed a beautiful timbre and a very clever, nuanced phrasing to depict the wavering feelings of the monarch.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea
Elsa Benoit (Poppea), Jake Arditti (Nerone), Ambroisine Bré (Ottavia), Iestyn Davies (Ottone), Alex Rosen (Seneca), Stuart Jackson (Arnalta); Cappella Mediterranea, Leonardo García Alarcón
Filmed at the Palace of Versailles earlier this year (and broadcast on medici.tv), Ted Huffman's production of Monteverdi's opera was previously staged at the Aix-en Provence Festival, when OperaWire enthused that 'the gods themselves appeared to have an interest' in the results: Arditti's 'virile, volatile and domineering' Nerone was singled out for particular praise, as was Alarcón's 'fabulously detailed' approach to the score.
Available Format: Blu-ray + DVD Video
A Timeless Motif
Arden Records, clay house, The Tea Shop, French WiFi, wrongnumber, pecna, DAVI JUNO, Maono, Sleep Culture, Trankilo, sagun London Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, Valéry Gergiev, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, François-Xavier Roth
This new collaboration between Arden Records and the London Symphony Orchestra sees ten LSO Live recordings reimagined in the form of lo-fi mixes: for instance, the slow movement of Sibelius's Symphony No. 5 is reworked as dusk by The Tea Shop, 'Neptune' from Holst's The Planets as depth by Sleep Culture, and Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture as chain of memories by Trankilo.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
