Coming Soon,
Katya Kabanova from Simon Rattle and other forthcoming highlights
Other stand-outs for February and early March include Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 from Domingo Hindoyan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Marc-André Hamelin performing a selection of his own solo piano works, and music by Ravel, Lennox Berkeley & Adam Pounds from Sinfonia of London and John Wilson.
Janáček: Katya Kabanova
Amanda Majeski (Katya), Katarina Dalayman (Kabanicha), Simon O'Neill (Boris), Andrew Staples (Tichon), Magdalena Kozená (Varvara), Ladislav Elgr (Kudrjas); London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Simon Rattle
Recorded live at the Barbican last January, this performance of Janáček's 1921 opera was described as 'a tremendous evening' by The Guardian's Tim Ashley, who praised the 'veracity and immediacy' which Majeski brought to the title-role as well as Dalayman's 'steely high notes and vicious declamation' as her mother-in-law. (Rattle's Janáček series with the LSO continues this week with two concert-performances of Jenůfa, starring Agneta Eichenholz as Jenůfa and Katarina Karnéus as the Kostelnička.)
Released 23rd February.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Wagner: Parsifal
Jonas Kaufmann (Parsifal), Ludovic Tézier (Amfortas), Elina Garanča (Kundry), Georg Zeppenfeld (Gurnemanz), Wolfgang Koch (Klingsor), Stefan Cerny (Titurel); Wiener Staatsoper, Philippe Jordan
This live recording was made during Kirill Serebrennikov's new production in Vienna in April 2021, and captures Garanča's debut as Kundry (her first complete Wagner role). Although Serebrennikov's contemporary staging polarised critical opinion, the performances themselves were warmly received, with BachTrack's Mark Valencia observing that 'On a purely musical level this is a luminous Parsifal at the Wiener Staatsoper, fabulously cast from the A-list and conducted superbly by a proven Wagnerian'.
Released 1st March.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Laws of Solitude
Asmik Grigorian (soprano), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mikko Franck, Markus Hinterhauser (piano)
Two years on from her multi-awarding-winning recital of Rachmaninoff songs on Alpha, the Lithuanian soprano turns to Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder, which she associates with the idea of solitude. She performs the songs first with orchestra, then in arrangements for voice and piano by Max Wolff and John Gribben - her partner here is Markus Hinterhäuser, director of the Salzburg Festival (where Grigorian has appeared to great acclaim as Strauss's Salome and Chrysothemis in recent years).
Released 9th February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The three composers featured on this album are interconnected: Lennox Berkeley acted as interpreter and tour-guide to Ravel when the older composer visited London in the 1920s, and also taught British composer and conductor Adam Pounds (b.1954) in the 1970s. Ravel is represented by Le tombeau de Couperin, Berkeley by the 1942 Divertimento (composed after he had taken Ravel's advice to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris), and Pounds by his Symphony No. 3 - which was written during the 2020/21 lockdowns and is dedicated to Sinfonia of London and Wilson.
Released 9th February.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following superb albums of French music, works by Roberto Sierra and orchestral excerpts from verismo operas, the Liverpool orchestra and their Chief Conductor mark the Bruckner bicentenary with this fourth project on Onyx Classics. The recording was made from a live performance at Philharmonic Hall last January, which was described by The Spectator's Richard Bratby as 'a stirring, sophisticated interpretation from an orchestra and a conductor whose partnership seems to have been fully formed from the off'.
Released 23rd February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Handel: Alcina
Magdalena Kožená (Alcina), Anna Bonitatibus (Ruggiero), Erin Morley (Morgana), Elizabeth DeShong (Bradamante), Alois Mühlbacher (Oberto), Alex Rosen (Melisso), Valerio Contaldo (Oronte); Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
Twenty years after singing Cleopatra on Minkowski's treasurable recording of Giulio Cesare (also with Les Musiciens du Louvre), Kožená joins forces with the French conductor to take on another of Handel's enchantresses. This studio recording was made in Bordeaux last February, shortly before a concert-performance in Barcelona: Broadway World described Kožená's anti-heroine as 'all round marvelous to listen to', whilst opining that Morley 'gave the evening's absolutely most enchanting performance' as her sister Morgana.
Released 2nd February.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This collection of the Canadian composer-pianist's own works includes the Toccata on 'L’homme armé' (commissioned for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2017), the Variations on a theme of Paganini, the short Variation diabellique sur des thèmes de Beethoven, the Kapustin-inspired Suite à l'ancienne, and My feelings about chocolate - which pays whisical homage to Satie and Feldman.
Released 2nd February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite & Falla: El retablo de maese Pedro
Benjamin Alard (harpsichord), Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Pablo Heras-Casado
All three works on this album date from the 1920s and draw inspiration from earlier periods in music history. Stravinsky described Pulcinella as 'my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible'; Falla's Harpsichord Concerto (written for Wanda Landowska) and his puppet-opera El retablo de maese Pedro ('Master Peter's Puppet-Show', based on an episode from Cervantes's Don Quixote) both incorporate elements of Spanish early music and neo-Classicism.
Released 23rd February.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French violinist's 2022 recording of the C major concerto 'Per Anna Maria' and the Violin Concerto in B minor RV384 (alongside works by Locatelli and Leclair) was a Gramophone Recording of the Month, with reviewer Mark Seow describing the performances as 'so special that I feel a changed man from listening to them'. This new album is devoted entirely to the music of the 'Red Priest', and includes 'Il ritiro', 'L'estate' (from Le quattro stagioni), and the 'Concerto per Pisendel'.
Released 16th February.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Handel: Theodora
Louise Alder (Theodora), Tim Mead (Didymus), Anna Stéphany (Irene), Stuart Jackson (Septimius), Adam Plachetka (Valens); Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
This studio recording of Handel's oratorio about religious persecution was made in London last spring, immediately after a concert performance of the work at the Barbican which was praised in The Guardian for the 'pure, subtle and extremely tasteful' singing of the five soloists, and for Cohen's 'endlessly energetic' direction from the harpsichord. The Times, meanwhile, singled out Alder and Mead's 'exquisitely sung' final duet and Stéphany's 'poise and rich colour' as Theodora's mentor Irene.
Released 23rd February.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
