New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 5th January 2024
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto and other works
James Ehnes (violin), BBC Philharmonic, Sir Andrew Davis
As well as the Violin Concerto (composed in 1931 for the Polish virtuoso Samuel Dushkin), this all-Stravinsky programme features the 1927/28 ballet Apollon musagète, the two orchestral suites which Stravinsky arranged from piano duets he had written in the 1910s, and the Scherzo à la russe - written as a showpiece for the Paul Whiteman band in the mid-1940s and subsequently rearranged for symphony orchestra.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
It was with Bruckner's Seventh Symphony that Haitink bid farewell to the stage aged 90 in 2019, after a 65-year career in which the composer's music had been a constant feature. This live recording was made at the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz in November 1981, by which time the Dutch conductor's relationship with the orchestra was well-established: he first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and returned on a regular basis for the next six decades.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
On this eleventh instalment of his Bruckner series (set to cross the finishing-line this year for the composer's bicentenary), Poschner presents Symphony No. 1 as it was performed at its premiere in Linz in 1868; after the work was coolly received, the composer revised it in 1877 (making further light amendments seven years later) before overhauling it substantially once more in 1891. Previous volumes of Poschner's Bruckner cycle have been described as 'extremely distinguished' (Gramophone on Symphony No. 8) and 'impeccable' (BBC Music Magazine on the 'Nullte'); Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 will be released in February and March respectively.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Already in the running for a Grammy Award, this album from the Chicago-based percussion quartet features world premiere recordings of four works by living composers: Missy Mazzoli's Millennium Canticles, Tyondai Braxton's Sunny X, Gemma Peacocke's Death Wish, and Ayanna Woods's Triple Point. The programme is completed by In Practice, a collaborative composition by the group's four members: David Skidmore, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and Sean Connors.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Telemann: A Christmas Oratorio
Veronika Winter (soprano), Anne Bierwirth (contralto), Georg Poplutz (tenor), Matthias Vieweg (baritone); Das Kleine Konzert, Hermann Max
This 'Christmas Oratorio' has been assembled by Hermann Max, bringing together five previously unpublished cantatas which Telemann composed in Hamburg and Frankfurt and which cover the period from the Nativity to Epiphany: 'Siehe, ich verkündige euch große Freude', 'Tönet die Freude, belebte Trompeten', 'Darzu ist erschienen die Liebe Gottes', 'Wünschet Jerusalem Glück', and 'Ihr Völker, bringet her dem Herrn'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Premiered in Salzburg in 1788, Michael Haydn's singspiel sets a libretto by Christian Felix Weiße (commonly regarded as the founder of German children's literature) which centres on the story of a young field-worker who is wrongly accused of theft by her overseer before being exonerated by the landowner's children and discovering that she is in fact the daughter of their father's closest friend. The work is coupled here with the cantata Ninfe inbelli, written for the occasion of Princess Josepha of Bavaria's overnight stay at Lambach Abbey in January 1765 and thought to have been premiered by the composer's wife-to-be Maria Magdalena Lipp.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Paderewski: Manru
Thomas Mohr, Romelia Lichtenstein, Levent Bakirci, Franziska Krötenheerdt, Ki-Hyun Park; Staatskapelle Halle, Michael Wendeberg
Born in present-day Ukraine in 1860, Paderewski trained at the Warsaw Conservatory and had enormous international success as a concert-pianist and composer before channelling his energies and finances into politics during World War 1: he became Prime Minister of the newly-independent Poland in 1919. Based on a novel by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Manru was commissioned by the Dresden Opera and premiered there in 1901 before travelling throughout Europe and to the Metropolitan Opera; set in the Tatra Mountains, the opera explores racial discrimination and social inequality, and is musically indebted to Wagner.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Rameau: Platée (Blu-ray)
Lawrence Brownlee (Platée), Julie Fuchs (Thalie/La Folie), Mathias Vidal (Thespis), Nahuel Di Pierro (Un Satyre/Citheron), Marc Mauillon (Momus), Tamara Bounazou (L'Amour/Clarine),Jean Teitgen (Jupiter), Reinoud Van Mechelen (Mercure),
A comic opera centring on an ugly nymph who believes herself beloved by the king of the gods may seem like a bold response to a commission celebrating a royal wedding - but Platée was an immediate success when it was performed at Versailles in 1745 to mark the marriage of Louis, Dauphin of France and the Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain. This revival of Laurent Pelly's classic 1999 Paris staging was filmed at the Palais Garnier in June 2022; reviewing the live performance, Opera Today applauded Brownlee's 'consummate charm' in the ungrateful title-role, whilst British Theatre Guide declared 'what a joy to discover this funny, touching, bubbling production'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
