New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 15th December 2023
This third instalment of Roth's Bruckner series from Cologne uses the original 1873 version of the score which the composer sent to its dedicatee Richard Wagner for approval, but ended up revising heavily both before and after its (disastrous) premiere four years later. Reviewing the recording last week, The Guardian noted that 'There’s a breadth to Roth’s interpretation, certainly, but it also feels human-scaled, even intimate, and the hour or so that he and his players take over the music flies by'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Following their superb accounts of piano concertos by Rautavaara & Martinů earlier this year, the Finnish orchestra and their Chief Conductor embark on a survey of the music of their compatriot Helvi Leiviskä (1902-82), who studied with Erkki Melartin and Leevi Madetoja: the programme comprises her Sinfonia Brevis (1962), Symphony No. 2 (1954) and Suite for Orchestra No. 2 (based on her 1937 film score Juha). The great-grand-daughter-in-law of Sibelius, Stasevska was named as BBC Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year in April.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This sixth volume in Viner's hugely impressive survey of Alkan's complete solo piano music features some of the maverick composer's most outlandish experiments, including the Capriccio alla Soldatesca and Le Tambour bat aux champs, a fiendishly difficult 'Toccatina', and Le Chemin de Fer (composed in 1844 and thought to be the first-ever musical depiction of a railway!). Reviewing the first instalment, The Sunday Times declared that 'Viner turns Alkan’s forbidding torrents of notes into real music', whilst BBC Music Magazine concurred that 'the playing makes a wonderful artistic case for an ultra-idiosyncratic idiom'.
Available Format: CD
Born in Veviers, Belgium in 1870, Guillaume Lekeu studied philosophy in Paris before a visit to Bayreuth brought him under the spell of Wagner and prompted him to begin studies under César Franck upon his return; in a preface to the unfinished Piano Quartet published shortly after his death of typhoid aged just 24, Debussy remarked: 'Yes, there is a Belgian school. Next to Franck, Lekeu is one of its most remarkable representatives'.
Available Format: 2 CDs
Trio Isimsiz's programme opens with the trio which Korngold composed when he was just twelve (yet already making waves in Vienna thanks to the popularity of his ballet Der Schneemann, which premiered a year earlier). It's followed by a new work by Francisco Coll (written especially for for Trio Isimsiz and premiered in Madrid last January), and Brahms's Piano Trio No. 2 from 1882.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Already nominated for an International Classical Music Award, the Schumann Quartet's celebration of the year 1923 comprises Janáček's String Quartet No. 1 'The Kreutzer Sonata', Copland's Movement for String Quartet, Hindemith's Militärminimax, Berg's String Quartet Op. 3, and Schulhoff's Five Pieces for String Quartet. (This is the second recording this year to focus on 1923, following Duo Tal & Groethuysen's programme of Jaques-Dalcroze, Tansman, Delius and more back in September).
Available Format: CD
The Belgian chamber ensemble prefaces Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time (composed and premiered whilst he was a prisoner of war in Görlitz) with a response to that extraordinary work by French spectralist composer Tristan Murail, who studied with Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory from 1967 to 1972: Stalag VIIIa is named after the camp where Messiaen was interned, and is scored for the same forces as the Quartet for the End of Time.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Polish clarinettist and pianist's programme is bookended by virtuosic short pieces by their countryman Krzysztof Penderecki: the Prelude (composed in 1987 as a fortieth-birthday gift for British composer Paul Patterson) opens the recital, and the Three Miniatures (a student work from 1956) close out proceedings. The Poulenc and Weinberg clarinet sonatas sit at the heart of the recital, preceded by a transcription of Debussy's Violin Sonata.
Available Format: CD
The Bulgarian viola-player's debut solo recording comprises three twentieth-century works: Rebecca Clarke's 1919 Viola Sonata, Benjamin Britten's Lachrymae, and York Bowen's Phantasy for Viola & Piano (written for Lionel Tertis in 1918). A prize-winner at the Anton Rubinstein Viola Competition in 2017, Markova is currently a member of the Zurich Opernhausorchester and guests regularly with orchestras around Europe.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following several acclaimed recordings of music by their namesake composer and a fine album championing another compatriot, Jan Novák, the Czech chamber choir turn their attention to Britten: the programme comprises the Te Deum in C, A Ceremony of Carols and the Hymn to St Cecilia. The choir's disc of Martinů madrigals in 2018 was described as 'a treasury for everyone' in BBC Music Magazine, whilst Gramophone enthused that 'the voices are fresh and responsive, and Lukáš Vasilek once again proves that he is a true master of choral conducting'.
Available Format: CD
This 2023 Broadway Cast recording of Sondheim's 1979 musical about The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is in the running for a Grammy next year; Groban, Ashford and Miles also received Tony nominations for their roles as Sweeney Todd, Mrs Lovett and The Beggar-Woman/Lucy. The New York Times described the revival as 'ravishingly sung, deeply emotional and strangely hilarious', and noted that '[Groban's] quasi-operatic pop baritone perfectly encompasses the range of the role, and [his] technique makes sure every word is bell clear.'
Available Format: 2 CDs
This collection of the Spanish-Argentine tenor's complete recital recordings for Decca includes albums of popular Italian and Spanish songs, zarzuela excerpts, love-duets with Katia Ricciarelli and Montserrat Caballé, sacred music with the Vienna Boys' Choir, and several discs of opera arias. Three bonus CDs feature highlights from Carreras's complete opera recordings, including Carmen with Agnes Baltsa and Karajan, Simon Boccanegra with Abbado, and Samson et Dalila, Werther, Tosca and Il trovatore (all with Colin Davis).
Available Format: 21 CDs
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
