New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 2nd February 2024
In addition to the Symphonic Dances (completed in 1898 and inspired by traditional Norwegian folk tunes), this album includes the Funeral March for Grieg's friend Rikard Nordraak, and two works on texts by Nobel Prize-winner Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson: the 'declamation with orchestra' Bergliot and Before a Southern Convent (Foran sydens kloster), which sets part of Bjørnson's lyric-epic poem on the Norse hero Arnljot Gelline.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
Karen Cargill (Marguerite), John Irvin (Faust), Christopher Purves (Méphistophélès), Jonathan Lemalu (Brander), London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, London Symphony Chorus, Edward Gardner
Recorded live at the Southbank Centre last February, this account of Berlioz's légende dramatique was described as 'by turns broodingly introspective, beguilingly sensuous and eerily malign' by The Guardian, whilst The Times's Geoff Brown declared 'If I have to go to hell, I’ve decided, I want the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner to come with me'.
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 reunites 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.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Celebrating his thirtieth anniversary with Deutsche Grammophon, the Welsh bass-baritone's first album in five years is a collection of sea-shanties and sailor-songs from Wales, England, Ireland, Shetland, Brittany and beyond - including 'Whisky, Johnny!', 'Sloop John B', 'The Unst Boat Song', ''The Irish Rover' and 'Bold Riley'. Terfel's guests include Sir Simon Keenlyside, Sting, Fisherman's Friends, and Welsh folk band Calan.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Britten: Violin Concerto & Double Concerto
Baiba Skride (violin), ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop
Unlike the Violin Concerto from the late 1930s (which established a firm foothold in the repertoire soon after its premiere in 1940), the Double Concerto for violin and viola still has just a handful of recordings to its name: Britten began composing the piece whilst still a student at the Royal College of Music but never quite finished it, and the work received its first performance only in 1997, at the Aldeburgh Festival. The score was completed by Colin Matthews, who worked with Britten at Aldeburgh as a young man.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This second instalment of the Polish composer's orchestral music from Köln comprises the neo-classical Overture (1943) and Symphony No. 2 (1951), the Variations for Orchestra (1957), and the Musica sinfonica in tre movimenti (1965). Volume One (featuring Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4) was favourably reviewed in Gramophone last March, with Christian Hoskins observing that 'Borowicz demonstrates a strong feel for the composer’s idiom and draws impassioned playing from the WDR Symphony Orchestra.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Outi Tarkiainen: Midnight Sun Variations
Nicholas Daniel (cor anglais), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Collon
The title-work on this collection of orchestral music by the Finnish composer (b.1985) was commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic and National Arts Centre Orchestra Canada, and was premiered by John Storgårds at the BBC Proms in 2019. The album also includes the cor anglais concerto Milky Ways (dedicated to soloist Nicholas Daniel 'in memory of his dear mother'), Songs of the Ice (2019), and The Ring of Fire and Love (2020).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Both works here date from the mid-1870s and are suffused with autobiographical elements: Grieg observed that his String Quartet No. 2 (written in the aftermath of losing his daughter and parents) contained 'hidden traces of my lifeblood', whilst Smetana's From My Life pays tribute to his first wife and overtly references his hearing-loss and declining health.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Taking its title from Mieczysław Weinberg's 1968 opera, this recital from the Danish trio (which celebrates its twenty-fifth birthday this year) pairs the composer's 1945 Piano Trio with Schubert's Piano Trio No. 2 from 1828. The two works are connected by their use of folk-music and preoccupation with melancholy and isolation, with Weinberg's trio referencing his recent experience of fleeing wartime atrocities in his native Poland.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ahead of a heavy-duty summer singing Siegfried and Tannhäuser at Bayreuth, the German tenor makes a rare excursion into Lieder with this world premiere recording of Schubert's song-cycle as arranged for voice and chamber ensemble by Andreas N. Tarkmann. The German composer and arranger's previous recording-projects have included Bach transcriptions for oboist Albrecht Mayer and a wind octet version of highlights from Schubert's opera Alfonso und Estrella for the Linos Ensemble.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: Bravo! Bene!
Hana Blažiková (soprano), Valer Barna-Sabadus, Franz Vitzthum (countertenors), Florian Götz (baritone); Nuovo Aspetto
Born in Florence in 1681/2, Conti spent much of his career in Vienna, where he enjoyed significant fame as a mandolinist and opera-composer; this album includes scenes and arias from his operas Archelao, re di Cappacia, Galatea vendicata, Pénélope, Il trionfo dell'amicizia e dell'amore and Sesostri, re di Egitto, plus music by his contemporaries Giuseppe Porsile and Antonio Maria Bononcini.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Arguably Pergolesi's best-known work after the Stabat Mater, La serva padrona ('The Maid as Mistress') was composed as a comic intermezzo for his opera seria Il prigionier superbo (the Sinfonia of which is the curtain-raiser on this album). Livietta e Tracollo was similarly composed as a palate-cleanser for Adriano in Siria, but subsequently gained a life of its own. The programme also includes the Sinfonia for Flaminio and an ensemble from Leonardo Leo's Onore vince amore.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
