News from around the world

June 2022 New Releases

Browse a selection of new recordings

 

Here is our list of new releases, as of 26 May 2022, ordered by release date.

Our regular writers will receive an email about this list, and will be asked to choose which items they would like to review. If you have submitted details of an album and it is chosen for review, we will request a review copy from you, your label or its UK distributor.

The list has been prepared quickly. Apologies for any omissions, or if the information is not up to our usual standards. Please let us know if you find any mistakes.

Unless otherwise specified, each item is a single CD.

Extra information about some new releases can also be found here.

 

19 AUGUST 2022

 

Dawn
Ola Gjello
Decca Classics
Release: 19 August 2022
Composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo announces his second solo piano album, Dawn, on Decca Classics, featuring 17 tracks of brand-new soothing, meditative piano melodies.


15 JULY 2022

Gabríel Ólafs - Solon Islandus
Decca Records US
Release: 15 July 2022
Solon Islandus is the Decca Records US debut of twenty-three-year-old Icelandic composer Gabríel Ólafs. It is an ambitious concept album that pays homage to the artistic spirit of the people of Iceland. It is a work of personal discovery and an exploration of the artistry, culture, and place that has shaped Gabríel’s identity.

Haydn: Complete Piano Trios Vol 1, Fischer: one bar wonder
Trio Garpard
Chandos CHAN 20244
Release: 15 July 2022
This is the first volume of a new survey of the Haydn Piano Trios with Trio Gaspard. Each album is designed as a stand-alone programme, and each features a new commission based on one of the trios in the programme – in this instance one bar wonder by Johannes Fischer.

 

8 JULY 2022

Saudade
Plínio Fernandes
Decca Gold
Release: 8 July 2022
Brazilian classical guitarist Plínio Fernandes presents his debut album, Saudade. Brimming with youthful excitement and enchanting lyricism, the album reveals an artist full of heart and wide-ranging expression. A love letter to his home country, Saudade presents his two passions: the popular songs of Brazil and the classical tradition of Villa-Lobos. The result is an entrancing collection of works for solo guitar featuring duets with Maria Rita, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and Braimah Kanneh-Mason. Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, Plínio Fernandes' musical talent has brought him all over the world, including to the Royal Academy of Music in London where he received his master’s degree and has lived for the last seven years. With Saudade, an entrancing collection of works for solo guitar, Fernandes makes his auspicious recording debut for Decca Gold, weaving together all his musical loves and telling his complex and captivating international story in sound. 'I chose songs that I grew up listening to', Fernandes explains, 'and in many cases I fell in love with the guitar through them'. We hear that boundless love, that charge of artistic talent in early bloom, throughout Saudade.


1 JULY 2022

Handel: Oboe Concertos
Andrius Puskunigis, Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, Vincent Bernhardt
Brilliant Classics 96091
Release: 1 July 2022
This album is devoted to Handel's concertante music for solo oboe, of which only a few concertos have survived. He was particularly fond of the instrument and assigned many solos to it in his oratorios, operas, concerti grossi and sonatas. He is even reported to have said of his early oboe works: 'I used to write like the D-v [Devil] in those days, but chiefly for the oboe, which was my favourite instrument.' His some twenty concertos for a solo instrument are mainly for the organ and include just one violin concerto and three oboe concertos (HWV 301, 302a and 287). The latter, featured here, is the best known, as it also appears transcribed for other instruments. Further concertos for oboe have been attributed to Handel by the musicologists Fritz Stein and Fulvio & Sandro Caldini: one in E flat major and two more, both presented here in world-premiere recordings, in C minor. The 6 Concerti grossi Op.3 form the first printed collection of Handel’s orchestral compositions. Formerly known as the ‘oboe concertos’, the volume was published by John Walsh in 1734 – not necessarily on the composer’s own initiative – from a variety of pieces composed over a period of some twenty years. The orchestration in the Walsh edition is particularly unconvincing, with numerous octave doublings and a virtual absence of elements typical of the concertante style. Vincent Bernhardt has therefore proposed a new instrumentation, organised according to the principle of dialogue between groups that characterises the concertante language of this period. An improvised theorbo prelude precedes the work. To extend Handel's oboe repertoire the artists have fashioned two concertos, for oboe and oboe d’amore, out of eight selected movements that are essentially built on castrato arias from the operas, a practice in line with the pasticcios created in Handel’s day.

Francisco Soto De Langa: 20 Laude Spirituali
Capilla Musical de la Iglesia Nacional Espanola de Roma / Alessandro Quarta
Brilliant Classics 96164
Release: 1 July 2022
First recordings of sacred songs and popular hymns from late 16th-century Rome, reviving the work of a forgotten Spanish composer within the rich tradition of laude spirituali. The lauda spirituale is a song of praise designed for congregational singing which arose in medieval Italy, cast in the local language rather than the liturgical language of Latin. St Francis of Assisi and Jacopone di Todi are the most famous authors of texts which were set as laude spiritual by now-anonymous monk-musicians. Born in the Duero region of Spain in 1534, Francisco Soto De Langa began his musical training as a treble at the Cathedral of Burgo de Osma before travelling to Rome, where he joined the Sistine Chapel Choir in June 1562: Soto was the first castrato to join its ranks. He would go on to sing with the Choir for 49 years – until 1611 – for the last five of which he served as maestro di cappella. In Rome, he soon encountered St. Philip Neri, founder of the Oratorian church. It was for Neri that Soto composed and arranged the laude spirituali on this album. By this point, the tradition of vernacular hymn singing had evolved from unaccompanied, unison singing to be elaborated with harmony, simple polyphony and instrumental accompaniment. Soto the composer did not write in the refined polyphonic style of Palestrina, his colleague at the Sistine Chapel: these songs and hymns are still fundamentally popular and accessible in character. To mark the 400th anniversary of Soto’s death in Rome in 1619, the Spanish Church in Rome conceived and realized this project to record a collection of his many surviving hymns, in both Spanish and Italian. The singers are supported by a rich continuo ensemble of violin, theorbos, harp, viola da gamba, percussion and organ, lending colour and variety to the textures. The booklet to this enlightening new release includes an introduction to the history of laude spirituale, the career of Francisco Soto De Langa, and sung texts.

Müthel: Duets & Sonatas for Harpsichord
Anne Clemente and Giacomo Benedetti, harpsichords
Brilliant Classics 96344 (3 CDs)
Release: 1 July 2022
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728–1788) was an outstanding keyboard virtuoso and a talented improviser, but he left behind relatively few works, as he seemed to compose many sketches but complete only a few of them, when he was in just the right creative mood. His music can be traced stylistically to the empfindsamer Stil (sentimental style) which blended passages rich in emotional nuance and strong harmonic contrasts with expert use of rhetoric and counterpoint and sparkling improvisational techniques. The vast majority of his compositions are instrumental works, particularly works for keyboard. The pieces on this album represent the various key stages of the composer’s mature period. The Duet in E flat is one of the very first musical scores to feature the word ‘fortepiano’, a sign of the burgeoning public interest in the new instrument that would become the keyboard of choice for the Romantic period, better equipped to reveal the performer’s state of mind than the more ‘mechanical’ harpsichord. The movement names (cantabile, con affetto and performance instructions (dolce, crescendo, decrescendo) suggest the dynamic fortepiano, while the long trills and other embellishments are associated with the harpsichord tradition. The Duet in C reveals the influence of J C Bach’s keyboard sonatas Op.5 and contains innovative elements combined with expert use of rhetorical gestures. The bright and elegant Divertimento in B flat plays with the emotions with varied, sometimes chivalrous writing. The three sonatas for harpsichord, published in Nuremberg in 1756, were Müthel’s first publication. Their compositional style is highly idiomatic and eclectic, and the themes are developed confidently, with abrupt passages and sudden changes in emotion that epitomise Sturm und Drang writing.

Johann Baptist Vanhal: 3 Sonatas for Clarinet & Harpsichord; 6 Sonatinas for Harpsichord
Duo Chirò: Rodolfo la Banca, historical clarinet; Chiaria Tiboni, harpsichord
Brilliant Classics 96357
Release: 1 July 2022
Little-known but convivial chamber music from early 19th-century Vienna by a Czech colleague of Haydn and Mozart.
Like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so many others, Vanhal became the composer and the man we know him as now when he moved to Vienna. He was twenty-two years old when he settled there in 1761, and soon adopted a new identity, not as the Czech-born Jan Křtitel Vaňhal but as the urbane Jean-Baptist or Jan-Ignatius Vanhal. He played cello in an extraordinary ‘Composers’ Quartet’ led by his teacher Dittersdorf, with Haydn on second violin and Mozart playing the viola. Schubert rated him among the best composers of the day. Flute quartets and sonatas were (almost literally) ten a penny in Classical Vienna; the clarinet was still a relatively new instrument when Vanhal composed these sonatas in the first decade of the 19th century. Haydn had only begun latterly to write for the instrument (in works such as The Creation), inspired by the example of Mozart. Nevertheless, the clarinet quickly became popular among amateur musicians, and it seems likely that Vanhal wrote these attractively mellifluous sonatas in order to capitalise on that market. Unclouded by pathos even in the slow movements, they are written to give pleasure to both players and listeners with relatively simple quick writing and memorable legato melodies perfectly suited to the liquid, vocal quality of the clarinet. Rodolfo la Banca plays these sonatas on a pair of clarinets from the time: he is a specialist in the early clarinet both as a performer and teacher. The sonatas could equally be accompanied by fortepiano or harpsichordist; on this recording (unlike others in the catalogue) we hear the harpsichord, in the established partnership of Duo Chirò. Chiara Tiboni also contributes several brief and attractive sonatinas from Vanhal's first published collections, Opp 1 and 2.

Dussek: Violin Sonatas, volume 1
Miriam Altmann, fortepiano; Julia Huber, violin
Brilliant Classics 96385
Release: 1 July 2022
Having produced the first period- instrument edition of Dussek’s piano sonatas, Brilliant Classics now presents a complementary collection of the violin sonatas, beginning with the Op.8 collection which were published around 1789 in Paris. In fact these attractive pieces belong to the genre of ‘accompanied piano sonatas’ in which the musical substance is conceived principally for the keyboard instrument, with an obbligato melody instrument (such as the violin or flute) adding or doubling a top line if convenient. Such an arrangement belongs to an 18th- and early 19th- century culture in which well-bred ladies would become accomplished pianists; they could thus either entertain themselves or be joined by a companion (male or female) were one available. Nevertheless, these pieces were too good and too substantial to be confined to the parlour or music room, and there are records of Dussek himself playing the keyboard part at concertos in London once he had arrived there, in flight from the Revolution in Paris. High contrasts and dynamic expression belong to Dussek’s music whatever the context, and these sonatas share the power and brilliance of the Op.9 Sonatas recorded by Viviana Sofronitsky in the Brilliant Classics series of keyboard works. They are played here in new recordings by the German duo of Julia Huber and Miriam Altmann in polished and historically informed performances, using an authentic 1780 fortepiano. Huber has worked with German period- instrument ensembles such as L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, La Stagione Frankfurt and the Collegium Cartusianum in Cologne. Together they will make a substantial addition to the Dussek discography with a complete series of the violin sonatas on Brilliant Classics.

J S Bach: Transcriptions
Stefano Molardi, organ
Brilliant Classics 96413 (2 CDs)
Release: 1 July 2022
Transcription has always been a widespread musical practice: the desire to arrange pieces requiring an ensemble of instruments and/or voices for a single instrument like the organ, harpsichord or, later, piano, influenced the musical world in previous centuries, expanding the repertoire and providing composers with new ideas for formal structures and performance techniques. The eighteenth century was a very fertile period for transcription, and the practice reached its pinnacle among members of Johann Sebastian Bach's circle. In his Weimar period Bach transcribed the works of others for both organ (three concertos by Vivaldi and two by Ernst) and harpsichord (an astonishing fourteen pieces by various Italian composers), but he also adapted his own works for instrumental/vocal forces to the keyboard. The aim of these recordings is to offer listeners a series of works by J S Bach that in one way or another were originally written for instruments other than the organ. This includes the artist's own contribution to the genre in seven tracks on CD 1. BWV 539 is taken by Bach (or one of his children or pupils) from his Sonata No.1 in G minor for solo violin. The sinfonia from the cantata BWV 29 and the first movement of the trio sonata BWV 528, meanwhile, were certainly his own work. His ‘entourage’ was definitely responsible for the three trios BWV 1014, BWV 21 and BWV 1027. The first of these is the third movement of the sonata for harpsichord and violin BWV 1014 (originally in D), while the second is an arrangement of the sinfonia for oboe, strings and continuo from the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis BWV 21. BWV 1027 contains three movements that may originate from a lost sonata in G for two violins and continuo – the same material is used in the sonata for two flutes and continuo BWV 1039 and the sonata for viola da gamba with obbligato harpsichord BWV 1027. The second movement of the trio sonata BWV 528 has a previous version in E minor, while the third movment has similar features to the Allegro ma non presto of the sinfonia from cantata BWV 152 and was likely first composed in Bach’s youth as a sonata for oboe, viola (da gamba?) and continuo. The trio sonata BWV 525 offers a similar scenario. In this case, the 1978 discovery of an incipit from an organ trio in a catalogue suggests that there may be an earlier version (in B flat) of at least the first movement. It is almost identical to the start of the first movement of BWV 525, and the entire sonata could derive from a sonata for alto recorder, oboe and continuo. comes from a single source written out by Benjamin Cooke (1734–93), who was organist at Westminster Abbey in London. The transposition of BWV 545b into B flat (BWV 545 is in C) and the transcription of the piece’s various movements were probably carried out by Bach's pupil Johann Tobias Krebs. The Prelude, Trio & Fugue are Bach's own work, interpolated with an anonymous Adagio and Tutti (possibly also transcribed by Krebs). The Trio movement is an arrangement of the third movement of the Sonata for viola da gamba & obbligato harpsichord BWV 1029.

Hans Neusidler: Lute Music
Yavor Genov, lute
Brilliant Classics 96456
Release: 1 July 2022
A cultural map of Europe during the Renaissance would have looked quite different to one drawn in the present day. Individual artists and artistic schools brought fame to their place of origin, a noteworthy example being Mantua, home of the Gonzaga family who commissioned Orfeo from Monteverdi. North of the Alps, the city of Nuremberg became famous for its association with Albrecht Dürer, and its cultural life nurtured and supported a healthy tradition of lute making and lute playing in which the figure of Hans Neusidler played an instrumental role. Neusidler was a true pioneer of the lute, who masterfully adapted the language of the great Franco-Flemish polyphonists to his instrument. Born in 1508 in the prosperous Hapsburgian centre of Pressburg, today the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, Neusidler enters the historical record with his move to Nuremburg in 1530, where he married, became a citizen and bought a house. In 1536 the first of what would be a series of eight volumes of lute music was published under his name (the last of them appearing in 1549). Neusidler divided this first lute book of 1536 into two parts: for beginners and advanced players. Yavor Genov has selected from the latter pages of the book for this album, which has among its most singular features a treasury of dazzling intabulations of chansons by famed composers of the day such as Josquin, Ghiselin and Isaac. Besides his technical skill at transforming vocal music into lute pieces Neusidler demonstrates notable ingenuity in his free- form preambels: brief, original, ‘abstract’ compositions that move fluidly between canonic imitation, imitative sequences and homages to the older faux-bourdon style of Dufay and other late-medieval masters. The third principal stylistic component of the book is the dance form. Pieces designated as Tan[t]z/Tenzlein are probably based on vocal tunes or on a ground, and often move from double metre to a second section in triple metre (called Hupff auff).

The Habsburg Garden of Eden
Works by Caldara, Bonporti, Handel, Biber, Ziani and Muffat
Ensemble Arava
Brilliant Classics 96564
Release: 1 July 2022
Vienna, Salzburg and Rome were among the principal centres of power for the Holy Roman Empire of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and they accordingly attracted the most talented and ambitious composers of the day. The Venetian-born Caldara aspired to the post of Court Kapellmeister in Vienna, and composed the wedding music for Emperor Charles VI in 1708. He won huge success in Rome, where he followed in the footsteps of the young Handel, and eventually won the favour of the emperor himself, who even conducted some of Caldara's operas. Secular cantatas by the two composers therefore form the centrepieces of this unique recital. The vocal writing by Caldara, in Risoluto son già tiranno amore, and Handel's Un'alma innamorata,emphasises the vocal brilliance of the singers in bravura coloratura with finely elaborated instrumental accompaniment. The ostensible theme of both cantatas is the standard trope of thwarted and unrequited love in a pastoral context, but mainly to represent imperial power. Bonporti, Ziani, Biber and Muffat also won fame for the virtuosity as performers and composers in an Italiante style whether they came from north or south of the Alps. Bonporti's Aria cromatica is as bold and innovative in its harmony as the violin sonatas of Biber and Muffat are in their extensions of violin technique. The featured work by the lesser-known Ziani is a setting of the Marian hymn Alma redemptoris mater, with closely interwoven parts for soprano and violin. Based in Germany, the four young musicians of Ensemble Arava gathered together specifically to explore the rich Baroque heritage of music for soprano, violin and continuo. They named themselves after the Hebrew word for willow as well as wilderness, symbolising both untamed nature and the annual rejuvenation of spring. They have won prizes at several international early-music competitions: this release marks their debut album.

J S Bach: Guitar Transcriptions
Arcady Ivannikov, guitar
Brilliant Classics 96568 (2 CDs)
Release: 1 July 2022
New recordings from a pioneering Russian classical guitarist: works for lute by Bach, plus Ivannikov's own transcriptions of the D minor Partita and A minor Sonata for solo violin. Unlike the suites for unaccompanied cello or the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, Bach’s works for solo lute do not seem to have been conceived as a group. They include a variety of compositions written in different styles and span a fairly long period of his creative life; the E minor Suite BWV 996 dates from Bach's time in Weimar, while the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV998 is believed to have been composed during the last years of his life. Although some pieces are more idiomatic than others, they all make taxing demands on the performer. There is no evidence that Bach actually played the lute himself, but he was clearly interested in the sound of the instrument. This is further illustrated by his subtle use of it in the St John Passion and the Trauerode BWV 198. Of the four suites which appear to have been written specifically with the lute in mind, Arcady Ivannikov presents the E minor BWV 996 and the C minor BWV 997 (transposed here to A minor). BWV 997 is probably a late work of Bach's and in the richness and complexity of its full five-movement form (especially the fugue) notably reminiscent of the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, which makes Ivannikov’s coupling so inspired (but unusual). As a transcriber and performer, Ivannikov has taken a path of minimal intervention, attempting only to make small editorial adjustments to ease the fit of the music from the four-string violin to the six- string guitar. Culminating in the sublime Chaconne which was probably composed as a tombeau to mark the sudden passing of his first wife Maria Barbara, the D minor Partita is Bach's most profound work for solo instrument besides the piano, and a fitting climax to this collection from one of Russia’s master guitarists.

Wolf-Ferrari: Piano Quintet, Cello Sonata, Duo
Quartetto Guadagnini; Costantino Catena piano; Amedeo Cicchese, cello
Brilliant Classics 96590
Release: 1 July 2022
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) is a composer difficult to classify. As the son of a German father and an Italian mother from an aristocratic family, he was born in Venice and went to study in Munich. He became famous as a composer for the stage with works such as Il Segreto di Susanna and I gioielli della Madonna. His name is now emerging from the shadow cast by his wartime collaboration with Italy's Fascist regime, and a series of albums on Brilliant Classics have revealed his gifts as a composer of chamber and instrumental music, including violin sonatas, piano trios and a sequence of his piano works. Following on from the piano trios, the Piano Quintet Op 6 dates from 1900. Some of the cantabile melodies may remind us of Brahms, and the delicately embroidered harmony of Hugo Wolf, but Wolf-Ferrari's characteristic sweetness of tone does not descend into decorative mannerism or affected sentimentalism: he was, to the core, a German-Italian composer with a foot on both sides of the Alps. More than any other of his early chamber works, the Piano Quintet successfully embodies his declared aim as a composer, to create a 'universal beauty' where no rules apply, but only a feeling of well-being and sensuousness – especially in the ebullient Scherzo and Trio. The Cello Sonata (1945) and Duo for violin and cello (1946) share the Romantic language of his early chamber music, but now refined by an escapist mode of neo-classicism, particularly in the lively dialogue of the Duo. The Cello Sonata is imbued with a gentle radiance throughout its brief, traditionally structured quarter-hour duration, drawing on a nostalgic vein of expression which comes naturally to the cello, and including literal echoes of Brahms in the slow movement.

Vaughan Williams - Complete works for Violin and Piano
Midori Komachi and Simon Callaghan
MusiKaleido
Release: 1 July 2022
Violinist, writer and composer, Midori Komachi, who has developed a diverse career in bridging UK and Japanese cultures through music, is on a mission to bring the music of British composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, to a wider audience during 'RVW150' in 2022; the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. As part of her 'RVW Project', a new album is to be released in the summer, alongside a Japanese translation of the composer's biography by Simon Heffer, to be published in Japan, and tie-in concerts in both countries. Actively promoting British music in the UK and Japan, Komachi has been particularly noted for her performances, publications and recordings, and the RVW Project builds on her hugely successful 2017 'Delius Project', which included the publication of her Japanese translation of Eric Fenby’s 'Delius as I Knew Him'. 'My RVW Project aims to disseminate the music of Vaughan Williams to a wider audience in the UK and Japan, through an album release, publications, performances, films and talks', explained Komachi. To be released during summer 2022 on her own label, MusiKaleido, 'Vaughan Williams: Complete Works for Violin and Piano', features Komachi and her recording partner, Simon Callaghan, in repertoire encompassing the wide-ranging styles of Vaughan Williams' music, from those rooted in folksong to dramatic symphonic sonorities reflecting the composer's life experiences.

Revoiced
Corvus Consort | Ferio Saxophone Quartet | Freddie Crowley
Chandos CHAN 20260
Release: 1 July 2022
Revoiced is a fascinating programme of choral works from the renaissance to the present day, performed by choir and saxophone quartet.

Louis Lortie plays Chopin Vol 7
Chandos CHAN 20241
Release: 1 July 2022
Louis Lortie’s acclaimed survey of the works of Chopin reaches volume 7. For this programme Lortie focuses on Chopin’s ‘nationalistic’ output.

 

24 JUNE 2022

Héloïse Werner: Phrases
Héloïse Werner & friends
Delphian DCD34269
Release: 24 June 2022
This release sees Héloïse Werner appear on Delphian not as a founding member of The Hermes Experiment, but as a composer and performer at the epicentre of contemporary music in the UK and further afield, as – like a star with her own gravitational force – she pulls together a an eclectic mix of like-minded composers and contemporary performers in Phrases.

Vivaldi : The Great Venetian Mass
Sophie Karthäuser, Lucile Richardot, Les Arts Florissants / Paul Agnew
harmonia mundi HAF8905358
Release: 24 June 2022
Vivaldi: The Great Venetian Mass, Gloria and other sacred works

Liszt: Piano Concertos 1 & 2; Piano Sonata
Alexander Ullman, piano; BBC Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Litton
Rubicon RCD1057
Release: 24 June 2022

Trevor Duncan: 20th Century Express; A Little Suite; Children in the Park – British Light Music, Vol 8
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Penny
Naxos Records 8.555192
Release: 24 June 2022
Allied to his melodic gifts, early experiences as a sound and balance engineer equipped Trevor Duncan with a profound understanding of instrumental colour. During the 1950s he composed music that became instantly recognisable in the light music tradition. The Girl from Corsica was heard almost daily on British radio and the theme tune for the BBC TV series Dr Finlay’s Casebook remains one of his most celebrated works (it’s part of A Little Suite, heard here in full). Duncan was an inspiration for other composers, and was capable of sensuous romance, breezy scene setting, delicate tone poems and irresistible glamour.

Sergey Taneyev: String Trio, Op 31; Piano Quartet, Op 20
Spectrum Concerts Berlin
Naxos 8.574367
Release: 24 June 2022
Taneyev was a pupil of Tchaikovsky and a teacher of Rachmaninov and Scriabin. During his lifetime his chamber music was widely considered on a par with that of the great Viennese masters. The String Trio in E flat major, originally scored for violin, viola and the rarely-heard tenor viola, is a mature work with echoes of Mozart and Beethoven. The Piano Quartet in E major is a large-scale, passionate work, sonorous and melodic, with a transfiguring beauty. It has always retained an honoured place in the Russian chamber repertoire.

Haydn: Piano Trios, Vol. 7 (Nos. 16, 19, 35, 37 and 41)
Oberlin Trio
Naxos Haydn Piano Trios 8.574385
Release: 24 June 2022
Much of Joseph Haydn’s musical life was spent in service at the palace of Eszterháza on the Hungarian plains, a complex of buildings to rival Versailles in magnificence. Haydn’s reputation abroad was, however, already considerable by 1790, and he was invited to travel to London where the delightfully lively and at times brilliantly virtuosic trios Hob.XV:16 and 19 were published. Further trios from the 1760s express music of sheer joy, all performed here by the acclaimed Oberlin Trio.

Brahms: Complete Works for Piano Four Hands and Two Pianos (18 CD Boxed Set)
Silke-Thora Matthies, Christian Köhn
Naxos 8.501803 (18 CDs)
Release: 24 June 2022
To make his works more accessible to the general public, Johannes Brahms produced a raft of arrangements for piano four hands and two pianos. These included his symphonic and orchestral music, as well as both the piano concertos, chamber works, A German Requiem and original pieces such as the Hungarian Dances and the Sonata for Two Pianos. This collection brings together for the first time the acclaimed recordings by Silke-Thora Matthies and Christian Köhn, much praised for their ‘breathtakingly fine-tuned ensemble work’ (ClassicsToday.com). All of Brahms’ arrangements of his own works are included as well as his versions of compositions by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Joseph Joachim.

These Distances Between Us - 21st-Century Songs of Longing
Edie Hill, Jonathan Santore, Craig Brandwein, Jessica Rudman
Emily Jaworski Koriath, mezzo-soprano; Tad Koriath, piano; Jonathan Santore & Craig Brandwein, computer generated electronics
Naxos American Classics 8.559908
Release: 24 June 2022
The four American composers on this album have all won recognition for their diverse approaches to contemporary art song. Both Emmy-nominated Craig Brandwein, in his beautiful Three Rilke Songs and Jonathan Santore in Two Letters of Sulpicia use computer generated electronics to enhance the vocal line, while Edie Hill’s setting of poems by Amy Lowell exemplifies why her music has been described as ‘full of mystery’ (Stereophile). The common thread running throughout Jessica Rudman’s works is expressivity, and These Distances Between Us charts a cycle that recognizes the precarious nature of personal connections.

Italian Guitar Rarities
Bettinelli, Brescianello, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ghedini, Giuliani, Malipiero, Paganini
Giuseppe Buscemi, guitar
Naxos Guitar Classics 8.574400
Release: 24 June 2022
This programme represents a harvest of rare Italian gems from Baroque to contemporary masters for an instrument that has been of great significance to Italian culture for centuries. Exploration of the guitar's expressiveness ranges from the lyrical amiability of Brescianello’s Partita No 7 to Paganini's delightful miniatures, and the improvisational austerity of Bettinelli's Cinque preludi. Virtuosity can be found in Malipiero's only guitar work, the dramatic Preludio, and Giuliani's extraordinary Rossiniana. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's meditative Aranci in fiore was written in gratitude for the gift of a basket of oranges.

Bach & Pärt
David Bendix Nielsen, organ
Orchid Classics ORC100197
Release: 24 June 2022
Young Danish-Hungarian organist David Bendix Nielsen makes his solo album debut with a recording that weaves the music of J S Bach and Arvo Pärt into a rich recital. By combining composers with such apparently different musical approaches, Nielsen sheds new light on both, so that listeners hear unexpected parallels between the music of the German Baroque and that of twentieth-century Estonia. One characteristic shared by both composers is that of a deep spirituality, as heard in chorale preludes and fugues by Bach, or in Pärt's hypnotic 'tintinnabulation' in Spiegel im Spiegel. There is secular music, too, in the form of Bach's organ transcription of Vivaldi’s Concerto in D minor. David Bendix Nielsen is the organist of St Mark’s Church in Copenhagen and teaches at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He won the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize in 2018, and from 2022 to 2023 is a recipient of the Young Cultural Elite scholarship from the Danish Arts Foundation.

 

17 JUNE 2022

Chopin | Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonatas
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello; Alexander Melnikov, piano
harmonia mundi HMM902643
Release: 17 June 2022
Chopin: Cello Sonata Op 65; Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata Op 19

Carlos Simon: Requiem for the Enslaved
Decca Classics (digital only)
Release: 17 June 2022
US composer Carlos Simon presents a multi-genre work, Requiem for the Enslaved. This work is a musical tribute to commemorate the stories of 272 enslaved men, women, and children sold in 1838 by Georgetown University. Carlos infuses his original compositions with African American spirituals and familiar Catholic liturgical melodies.

Johannes Moser: Alone Together
Platoon
Release: 17 June 2022
The album features six specially-commissioned new works as well as multi-layered octophonic arrangements of string classics.  Johannes Moser announces a highly innovative new album which shows him to be not only the highly-acclaimed international classical cellist performing at the highest level worldwide but as one of the most pioneering, open-minded, experimental, and creative classical artists on the scene.  It is conceived to fully immerse listeners in a multi-dimensional, spatial sound world that takes full advantage of the audio possibilities of DOLBY ATMOS’s revolutionary technology. Featuring six new commissions for electric cello, alongside multi-layered octophonic arrangements of pieces for cello ensemble, the album creates the impression of sound moving around the listener in three dimensions.  Alone Together is one of the very first full-length classical albums to use multi-tracking so extensively, taking advantage of Dolby Atmos technology in a way that has not been seen in contemporary classical music before. Moser said of the concept, “The spatial aspect of the music was just as much a part of the programming as the artistic and musical vision of this repertoire, which represents a strong aspect of who I am and what the pandemic has also forced me to be - a need to be a multifaceted musician creating musical environments just using my cello.” Six of the fourteen pieces on the album are brand-new works, commissioned especially by Moser for the project. ‘Somewhere There Is Something Else’, by Pulitzer Prize Winner Ellen Reid relies entirely on the sound created by Moser’s cello, transforming and looping it through a uniquely programmed patch. Guggenheim Fellowship winner Nina Young’s ‘meteoros’ uses a similar process to transform the sound of Moser’s cello into a spatial landscape. Multiple Grammy-nominated composer Christopher Cerrone’s ‘Exhalation’ is a piece in the minimalist style, combining pre-recorded performances with the live.  Annie Gosfield, winner of the Music Prize from the Academy of Arts and Letters (2021), uses obscure snatches of World War II radio distortion signals to set up a digital dialogue with Moser’s cello in ‘Ghost Radios & Audio Mirages’ (for electric cello and broken radios). ‘Lobby Music’ by Ted Hearne also uses prerecorded sound bites, combining audio from violent outbreaks in America with hyper-pop to explore the polysemic meanings of the word ‘lobby’ - either a physical meeting place or an agitated mob. Finally, Grammy-nominee Timo Andres’ ‘Ogee’ is a ‘double eight’, playing with the idea of an infinite loop, as well as eight cellos in an octophonic set-up. Moser alternates between playing on his famous 1694 Guarneri instrument, and two electric celli: a Ned Steinberger and a Yamaha electric cello.  The cellist has cited a personal passion for new music since the early days of his career, with a particular joy in commissioning original works. His first commission for electric cello was ‘MAGNETAR’ by Enrico Chapela in 2011, which premiered with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic. Moser claims that he has been “haunted” by the desire to create a soundscape using just the electric cello and a speaker set-up ever since.  The initial idea for these commissions emerged from Moser’s urge to present contemporary music in spaces that typically rely on traditional repertoire, expanding the reach of contemporary music and breaking down the traditional barriers between artist and audience. The recent coronavirus pandemic made such performances impossible, so Moser channeled his inspiration into a recording project with Platoon instead.

Concert in the Barn
Paul Winter Consort
Living Music Records
Release: 17 June 2022
Very early on a morning in June 2021, in the hills of northwest Connecticut, a unique ensemble of musicians gathered in the hayloft of a barn to perform a special livestream concert in celebration of the summer solstice.  The inspiration for this concert comes from a long tradition of solstice celebrations by Paul Winter and his colleagues at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Consort's long-time home forum. For the previous 25 years, the Cathedral had been the venue for this event, to welcome the sunrise of the longest day of the year. With the Cathedral closed for performances during the pandemic, it was opportune to take advantage of the cathedralesque loft of Paul Winter's barn as a grass-roots alternative to playing in the world's largest cathedral. The personnel of the ensemble was also a product of the pandemic, as it didn't seem prudent for most of the Consort's regular members to be traveling from their homes around the country to converge for this event, as they have for many years. Winter recognized that he needed to gather players from 'the neighborhood'. "I had known of a young bassoonist, Jeff Boratko, who lives nearby," Winter recalls. "The Consort has always included a double-reed player, either oboe or English horn, but I'd never considered bassoon, though I've always loved its soulful voice. I couldn't have imagined finding locally a superb player who also happens to be a first-class singer/songwriter. So I invited Jeff to both play and sing in the concert." Henrique Eisenmann, a young Brazilian pianist who recorded and concertized with Winter during the last two years, was willing to come up from New York. It was convenient that two of the Consort's longtime members, cellist Eugene Friesen and vocalist Theresa Thomason, lived within easy driving distance. "I love the inter-generational makeup of this band," Winter says. "Jeff and Henrique weren't even born when Eugene and I began playing together 40-some years ago." This ensemble has one of the more unique instrumentations in the Consort's lineage. "We still have our three-horn front-line, as always," explains Winter, "with the bassoon, soprano sax, and cello, which I think of as another horn. We don't have bass or percussion here, but Henrique's piano-playing is like a one-man rhythm section, and Eugene's pizzicato cello often takes on the bass role." The great majority of the pieces are new musical offerings by the Consort. Concert in the Barn embraces the gamut of genres that Paul Winter's solstice celebrations have been known for, interweaving instrumental adventures with songs sung by Theresa Thomason and Jeff Boratko. And as the date of the concert, June 19th, also happened to be that of Juneteenth, Theresa sings, in the finale, the traditional anthem, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Winter notes, "We had never performed this before. And the spontaneous version that Theresa and Henrique created is, to my ear, iconic."

James Kallembach’s Antigone: The Writings of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement
Lorelei Ensemble
New Focus Recordings
Release: 17 June 2022
The groundbreaking Lorelei Ensemble, led by Artistic Director Beth Willer, releases Antigone: The Writings of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement by the acclaimed composer James Kallembach, out on New Focus Recordings. The album features Ensemble sopranos Sarah Brailey, Rebecca Myers Hoke, Jessica Beebe, and Arwen Myers, mezzo-sopranos Christina English and Sophie Michaux, and altos Stephanie Kacoyanis and Emily Marvosh, plus a cello quartet consisting of Caleb van der Swaagh, Lisa Caravan, Michael Unterman, and Jonathan Dexter. Beth Willer conducts Antigone. James Kallembach’s Antigone: The Writings of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement was commissioned by the Lorelei Ensemble and Carson Cooman, and premiered by the Ensemble on June 10, 2017 at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. When Kallembach began working on the piece, he chose the writings of Sophie Scholl as a starting point. Scholl and her brother, Hans, were both active in the White Rose resistance during World War II, which was a nonviolent group of students and one professor from the University of Munich, which became active in 1942. The group wrote and distributed pamphlets denouncing the Nazi government. Both Scholl siblings were sentenced to death and executed by guillotine in 1943 for their anti-Nazi views. The composer secondly chose Sophocles’ Antigone as the framework to give the new work structure. Kallembach explains, “In crafting the libretto, Scholl’s writing seemed to meld directly into the words of Antigone, while the anti-Nazi pamphlets distributed by the White Rose movement served as ideal Greek choruses, delivering the Antigone narrative in short, suggestive vignettes. For me, this ancient play serves to honor and extol the words of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement in their timeless, transcendent qualities. The clash between what we hold to be undeniably just and the decrees of those in power was important two thousand years ago in the public spectacle of Greek drama, it was important during WWII, it is important now and it always will be.”

Hildegard Portraits
Voice
SOMM Recordings SOMM 0652
Release: 17 June 2022
SOMM recordings announces the exciting label debut of Voice. Hildegard Portraits draws on close relationships between Voice and featured composers. Featuring exclusive/first recordings of Laura Moody, Steve Wishart, Marcus Davidson, Emily Levy and Tim Lea Young.  

On This Shining Night. Music for Voice and String Quartet
Roderick Williams, baritone; James Gilchrist, tenor; Sophie Bevan, soprano; Coull Quartet
Warlock, Barber, Beamish, Delius
SOMM Recordings SOMM 0654
Release: 17 June 2022
A thrilling first collaboration between long-time SOMM stablemates, baritone Roderick Williams and the Coull Quartet, joined by tenor James Gilchrist and soprano Sophie Bevan. With six first recordings, On This Shining Night is a ravishing recital focusing revealingly on a twentieth-century phenomenon: works for voice and string quartet.

Corazón: The Music of Latin America
Leo Brouwer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Carlos Guastavino, Manuel Ponce, Egberto Gismonti, Astor Piazzolla
John-Henry Crawford, Victor Santiago Asuncion, JIJI
Orchid Classics ORC100198
Release: 17 June 2022
'In the summer of 2019, I travelled to Mexico to compete in the IX International Carlos Prieto Cello Competition, and little did I know, the trip would transform my life musically. At the time I was very well acquainted with Latin American music, but after having the great fortune of winning first prize and returning to Mexico multiple times for performances, I fell in love with the music of Latin America, the culture, the history, and the Spanish language. This album takes the listener on a musical tour through Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico. The centrepiece of the programme is the Sonata in G minor by Manuel Ponce, who is most famous in the classical world for his song Estrellita popularised by Jascha Heifetz. Ponce was keen to reunite the concert world with Mexican folklore and traditional songs, as listeners can hear in the romantic, longing title-track Por ti mi corazón. Spanning over 140 years of Latin American music culture, this album takes us from Ponce’s unique traditional voice and Villa-Lobos’ Chopinesque style to music by still-living Cuban guitarist Leo Brouwer – his innocent lullaby Canción de Cuna. Other highlights include Astor Piazzolla’s timeless Oblivion and Le Grand Tango and Egberto Gismonti’s Água e Vinho. As the title suggests, this music pulls at the heartstrings and exudes romance and passion.' - John-Henry Crawford

Mozart: Symphony No 38 in D major, 'Prague' K 504; Voříšek: Symphony in D major, Op 23
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Herbert Blomstedt
Accentus Music ACC30574
Release: 17 June 2022
With these concerts, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig embarks on a musical journey to the Czech Republic in memory of its former conductor Václav Neumann. It was there that Jan Václav Voríšek was born in 1791, the year of Mozart's death, and was taken away from it by pulmonary tuberculosis at the same age as Mozart, only thirty-four years old. The manuscript of his D Major Symphony shares the fate of the symphonies of his friend and companion Franz Schubert and was neither printed nor performed during his lifetime. In the meantime, however, it has become his most frequently performed work! A short, late and rare happy chapter of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's moving biography is set in the capital of the Czech Republic. When he arrived in Prague in January 1787, he was quite astonished: That his music met with such great enthusiasm was by no means a matter of course for Mozart. Looking back, he will describe his successes in Prague as the most beautiful moments of his life. The D major Symphony K 504 was premiered in Prague and opens the group of Mozart's last four symphonies. Recorded live at Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, September 2020.

Nathan Milstein - The US Armed Forces Studio Recordings
Nathan Milstein, Valentin Pavlovsky, Artur Balsam, Joseph Kahn, Arthur Fiedler, NBC Symphony Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler
Biddulph Recordings 85015-2
Release: 17 June 2022
Nathan Milstein is universally regarded as one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century. A student of the famed Leopold Auer, Milstein stayed in Russia after the 1917 Revolution and only emigrated to the West in the mid-1920s. As well as solo concerts, Milstein performed in a piano trio with Horowitz and Piatigorsky. After settling in the West, he became established as a major musical artist, and he continued giving concerts into his mid eighties. This CD includes many items never before available commercially. Of special interest are the complete recordings Milstein made for the 'Basic Music Library' on the Armed Forces label. This includes several works he never otherwise recorded, including the Brahms Violin Sonata No 2, and short pieces by Ravel and Wieniawski. Also featured on this CD release are Milstein's V-disc and 'Voice of America' recordings, as well as the RCA album 'Violin Favorites' featuring popular violin solo encores arranged for orchestral accompaniment by Leroy Anderson.

Donizetti: La fille du régiment
Orchestra Donizetti Opera, Chorus of Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Paolo Bordogna, John Osborn, Sara Blanch, Cristina Bugatty, Haris Andrianos, Adolfo Corrado, Andrea Civetta, Alessandro Zillioli, Ernesto López Maturell, Michele Spotti
Dynamic CDS7943 (2 CDs)
Release: 17 June 2022
An opéra-comique by an Italian composer? This was a rarity in its day, but after the 'barely averted disaster' of its opening night, Donizetti's La Fille du régiment became a popular success, not least for the high Cs demanded from Tonio in the famous tenor aria 'Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!'. The story revolves around Marie, the canteen girl of the Regiment, whose lover Tonio joins the army to be near her just as she is claimed for marriage into nobility.

Alan Hovhaness: Piano Works, Vol 2
Alessandra Pompili
Dynamic CDS7946
Release: 17 June 2022
American-Armenian composer Alan Hovhaness was a significant representative of 20th-century music – a composer who sought a path independent to the fashions and trends of his time. He avoided the European avant-garde, instead embracing Armenian and oriental traditions as well as Medieval and Renaissance music. This second volume includes the sonic atmospheres of Hermes Stella, dedicated to the poet-philosopher-mystic Francis Bacon, and the complex and fascinating Piano Sonata ‘Journey to Arcturus’ which takes us to one of the most visible stars from Earth.

Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe: Concerts à deux violes esgales, Vol 1
Paolo Biordi, Francesco Tomei
Dynamic CDS7952
Release: 17 June 2022
Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe’s life is largely shrouded in mystery, and almost nothing was known of his music until these Concerts à deux violes esgales were discovered in Geneva in 1966. Full of inspiration and fantasy, these pieces are often technically very demanding, innovatively deploying the viol's entire range and putting players to the test in ways that were unprecedented in French viol literature. The sound of the viols is as haunting as the music’s titles are teasingly expressive, and for their extraordinary imagination, originality and rare sonic splendour these works are justly considered one of the great monuments of European Baroque music.

Carulli Rediscovered
Marcello Fantoni
Dynamic CDS7956
Release: 17 June 2022
A native of Naples, Ferdinando Carulli established his reputation as a leading guitarist and teacher in Paris, and his Guitar Method, Op 27 is still in use today. As a composer he shrewdly satisfied the demands of players and audiences alike. Entertaining light waltzes can be found alongside popular melodies treated to virtuoso variations of great brilliance and indisputable originality. Musical references to Carulli's contemporary Paganini and the fashionable influence of Spanish styles and techniques are brought together in a programme that includes numerous world premiere recordings to deliver a portrait of a Neapolitan musician who deserves to be much better known.

Sachiko Furuhata-Kersting: Chopin Favourites
Oehms Classics OC495
Release: 17 June 2022
Sachiko Furuhata-Kersting was born in Yokohama, Japan, and completed her piano studies at the Tokyo Conservatory. Further studies took her to Germany at the Detmold University of Music and the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf. Her teachers include Roberto Szidon, Detlev Kraus, Naoyuki Taneda and Willem Brons. Her concert activities have taken her to Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Japan. With this third recital album, Sachiko Furuhata-Kersting takes up selected works by Frédéric Chopin. With the famous etudes, the nocturnes and waltzes, different moods are singled out and compare so that an independent Chopin portrait is drawn.

J S Bach: Suites for Cello Solo
David Stromberg
OC498 (2 CDs)
Release: 17 June 2022
In this recording, David Stromberg deals with the well-known Bach cello solo suites. Unlike the usual recordings, he uses a historical style of playing and interpretation using the baroque cello, piccolo cello and a baroque bow. The gut strings of the baroque cello have a more versatile sound than the steel strings and enable the finest nuances in the tone. In this way one will discover these works in a fresh new way.

Personal Noise
Sarah Plum, violin
Blue Griffin Recordings BGR619
Release: 17 June 2022
The ever-adventurous violinist Sarah Plum has long been a champion of contemporary music. The album features new music for violin and electronics by living composers, many of which were written especially for Ms Plum. The collection includes works by Mari Takano, Mari Kimura, Kyong Mee Choi, Jeff Herriot, Charles Nichols, Eric Moe and Eric Lyon. 'Each work on this album came to me through friendships, connections and collaborations that have defined and influenced my career in new music', wrote Sarah Plum in the liner notes. 'I have given at least thirty performances of most of these compositions, and this album represents the world premiere recording of many of the selections.'

 

10 JUNE 2022

Music for the South Downs
New Music Players, Primrose Piano Quartet
First recordings of music by Ed Hughes
Divine Art Métier MSV28623
Release: 10 June 2022
Music for The South Downs by Ed Hughes is inspired by the 260 square mile range of chalk hills across the South East of England. Despite the local inspiration, it transcends place to bring works of contemplation and constantly changing perceptions filled with colour, textural warmth and harmonic continuity.

J S Bach: Six Suites for Solo Cello, BWV 1007-1012
Marina Tarasova
Divine Art DDA21238 (2 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
The Bach Cello Suites have been performed and recorded countless times over the last 100 years, with a variety of interpretative approaches. Some of these approaches, could often be rather academic and formal. Marina Tarasova takes a radically opposing approach, one which is inspirational and which infuses the works with vitality and spirit.

Lieder (Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich, Brahms)
Matthias Goerne, Daniil Trifonov
Release: 10 June 2022
After his critically-acclaimed and award-winning lieder albums with pianists Jan Lisiecki and Seong-Jin Cho, baritone Matthias Goerne concludes his DG lieder trilogy with DG exclusive artist Daniil Trifonov. With this album, Goerne explores the art song from a metaphysical perspective, and in these visionary meditations by Brahms, Wolf, Berg, Schumann, and Shostakovich, Goerne and Trifonov’s intense, intuitive partnership opens our ears to the awe-inspiring, yet consoling voice of the prophets.

Trios from Contemporary Chicago
Cedille Records
Release: 10 June 2022
The twice-Grammy-nominated ensemble is heard in world-premiere recordings of piano trios by Shawn E Okpebholo, Mischa Zupko, and Stacy Garrop, plus works by Augusta Read Thomas and Shulamit Ran.

Beethoven: Cello Sonatas, Op 102 - Bagatelles, Opp 119 and 126
Andreas Staier, cello; Roel Dieltiens, fortepiano
harmonia mundi HMM902429
Release: 10 June 2022

Beethoven: The Famous Piano Sonatas
Paul Lewis, piano
harmonia mundi HMX2904030.31 (2 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
Moonlight, Appassionata, The Tempest, Therese & Hammerklavier, etc

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6; Stucky: Silent Spring
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck
Reference Recordings FR-747 (SACD)
Release: 10 June 2022
Reference Recordings proudly presents the Symphony No 6 of Ludwig van Beethoven, with Steven Stucky’s Silent Spring, in exceptional performances from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Honeck honors us again with his meticulous music notes. He gives rare insight into his conducting and interpretation, as well as the history and musical structure of Beethoven's beloved Pastoral Symphony. Steven Stucky's Silent Spring was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the book Silent Spring, the seminal work by Pittsburgh native Rachel Carson. It received its first performance in February 2012. The composer generously includes his own album notes about this work, which like the book can be heard as a call to action to love and save nature and the earth before it is too late. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 125 years, is credited with a rich history of the world's finest conductors and musicians, and is deeply committed to Pittsburgh and its region. Since 2008, the Pittsburgh Symphony has been led by its worldwide acclaimed music director Manfred Honeck. Past music directors have included many of the greats, including Fritz Reiner, William Steinberg, Andre Previn, Lorin Maazel and Mariss Jansons. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has always been at the forefront of championing new works, including recent commissions by Mason Bates, Jonathan Leshnoff, James MacMillan and Julia Wolfe. The Pittsburgh Symphony has a long and illustrious history in the areas of recordings and live radio broadcasts dating back to the 1930s. It has toured frequently both domestically and overseas since 1900, including more than forty international tours. The Pittsburgh Symphony continues to be critically acclaimed as one of the world's greatest orchestras.

Matthew Burtner: Icefield
Ravello Records RR8066
Release: 10 June 2022
If glaciers could speak, what would they tell us? On Icefield, veteran composer Matthew Burtner answers that very question with an eclectic series of works that explore the intersection between the environment and controlled sound. Combining specialized field recordings of glaciers and Arctic storms, electroacoustics, and traditional instruments, Burtner creates surreal soundscapes that blur the line between audio and physical experience—from the opera Auksalaq to the audio synthesization of data on Sonification of an Arctic Lagoon, each piece on the album channels the whip-crack chill of the air, the blinding snow, and the awe-inspiring sight of glacial fields breaking apart and bringing sea levels higher and higher.

Letters for the Future
Time For Three, The Philadelphia Orchestra / Xian Zhang
Deutsche Grammophon
Release: 10 June 2022
Innovative string trio Time For Three (TF3) – praised by Simon Rattle as “benevolent monsters, monsters of ability and technique surely. But also conveyors of an infectious joy that I find both touching and moving” – releases the new album Letters for the Future with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Xian Zhang. The album comprises world premiere recordings of two technically demanding and musically virtuosic concerti for trio and orchestra by two Pulitzer Prize-winning composers, Jennifer Higdon’s 2007 Concerto 4-3 and Kevin Puts’ brand-new Contact.

Gian Francesco Malipiero: Violin Concertos Nos 1 and 2; Per una favola cavalleresca
Paolo Chiavacci, violin; Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma / Francesco La Vecchia
Naxos Records 8.573075
Release: 10 June 2022
This release couples Gian Francesco Malipiero’s two contrasting violin concertos with the world premiere recording of his kaleidoscopic orchestral work Per una favola cavalleresca, evoking legendary scenes of love, tournaments, battles, moonbeams and heroes. Malipiero’s First Violin Concerto is one of his most beautiful and joyful works, a remarkable achievement for a composer who is said to have played the violin badly in his youth. His Second Violin Concerto, written 30 years later, sounds astonishingly different on a first hearing, but reveals itself to be inspired by the same lyrical impulse as the earlier concerto. This album will be released in the 140th anniversary year of Malipiero’s birth.

Boris Lyatoshynsky: Complete Symphonies
Ukranian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Naxos Records 8.503303 (3 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
Boris Lyatoshynsky was a leading member of the Ukrainian cultural renaissance in the 20th century and his five symphonies remain the most important cycle in his country’s musical history. Although the Romantic and lyrical First Symphony evokes the traditions of Borodin, Glière and Tchaikovsky, Lyatoshynsky soon moved away from Russian models, drawing together Ukrainian folk songs and melodies with contemporary harmonic and formal approaches. His symphonic orchestration was inventive, his themes memorable. The Third Symphony is his most moving and famous, and originally bore the epigraph ‘Peace will defeat war’. Also included is his emotionally charged symphonic ballad Grazhyna.

48 Strings – Music for One, Two, Four and Twelve Cellos
Piatti, Popper, Fitzenhagen, Klengel
Andreas Brantelid, Ingemar Brantelid and friends
Naxos Denmark 8.574301
Release: 10 June 2022
The four cellist-composers in this recital share a common background: from musical families they played as soloists in outstanding orchestras, taught many students, and wrote music for the instrument that continues to challenge players of our own time with its virtuosity and intensity. In his 12 Caprices, Alfredo Piatti fused dazzling technical demands with operatic drama, whilst David Popper’s Suite remains an admired piece for two cellists. Wilhelm Fitzenhagen’s Concert Waltzes for four cellos makes prolonged use of the upper register, and in contrast Julius Klengel’s Hymnus is a sonorously beautiful elegy for twelve cellists.

Jean-Marie Leclair: Violin Sonatas, Book 3 (Op 5, Nos 9-12)
Adrian Butterfield, Sarah McMahon, Silas Wollston, Clare Salaman
Naxos Leclair Violin Sonatas 8.574381
Release: 10 June 2022
Jean-Marie Leclair was a master of fusing Italian and French idioms, conjoining the lyricism of the former with the dance momentum of the latter. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in his third book of violin sonatas. The sonatas in this album embody rich melodic beauty, drone and rustic elements – most vividly in the Tambourin of the C major sonata in which a hurdy-gurdy is employed – and demand tour de force virtuosity such as in the joyous Ciaccona of the G major sonata. On this CD, Adrian Butterfield completes his acclaimed traversal of Leclair's Violin Sonatas Books Nos 1-3.

Rossini: La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder)
Claudia Urru, Meagan Sill, Michele Angelini, Remy Burnens, Emmanuel Franco, Eugenio Di Lieto, Gianluca Ascheri, Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra, José Miguel Pérez-Sierra
Naxos 8.660512-13 (2 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
Gioachino Rossini was only 20 when he was commissioned to compose La scala di seta. It is one of four farsa comica operas which fed popular demand for this genre in Venice in the early 19th century and was wildly successful with its original audiences. Assisted by the silken ladder of the title, the diverting romantic intrigues of the narrative revolve around secretive assignations and obtuse misunderstandings, by no means helped by the presence of the slow-witted manservant Germano, in one of Rossini’s most successful comedies.

Sigismond Thalberg: Fantasies on Operas by Verdi, Rossini and Bellini
Francesco Nicolosi, piano
Naxos 8.555503
Release: 10 June 2022
A student of Hummel, Sigismond Thalberg was one of the great virtuoso pianist-composers of the 19th century, who enjoyed a celebrated rivalry with Liszt that was largely fomented by the press. Thalberg’s influence on fellow pianists was enormous and his operatic paraphrases and fantasies, designed for his own use in concert performances, proved exceptionally popular. Even Liszt himself performed several of them. Berlioz praised Thalberg as the creator of ‘a new art’ and the thrilling examples here, taking the best-known themes from great Italian operas, reveal bravura embellishments and ingenious elaborations.

Tan Dun: Eight Memories in Watercolor; C-A-G-E- (In Memory of John Cage); Film Music Sonata; Traces; The Fire; Blue Orchid
Ralph van Raat, piano
Naxos 8.570621
Release: 10 June 2022
Tan Dun’s originality has been reflected in worldwide recognition of his music, which draws on both Chinese and Western musical languages. The Eight Memories in Watercolor are deft painterly reflections, while in Traces he balances sound with silence in this evocation of nature. The vibrant drama of Blue Orchid incorporates the opening motif of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. In Film Music Sonata, which here receives its first recording on general release, Tan Dun draws on his score for the film The Banquet. The kaleidoscopic C-A-G-E-, strikingly Chinese in sound, is a tribute to his teacher and spiritual compass, John Cage. The Fire, written for Ralph van Raat, contains some of Tan Dun’s most virtuosic and dramatic piano writing.

Fernando Lopes-Graça: Divertimento; Sinfonieta; Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses; Quatro Invenções
Portuguese Symphony Orchestra / Bruno Borralhinho
Naxos 8.574373
Release: 10 June 2022
Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of Portugal's greatest composers of the twentieth century, whose artistic credo was the binding together of the folk music of his native country with modern techniques to create an alternative and original national identity. With its constantly shifting tonal context the Divertimento perfectly captures Lopes-Graça’s inimitable style, which is further enriched in the concisely constructed Sinfonieta by his admiration for Haydn. The moving, even tragic Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses are based on traditional ballads while the challenging Quatro Invenções, in the composer’s words, explore 'essentially atonal dramatic expressionism'.

Bokyung Byun: Winner 2021 Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) Competition
C Assad, Brouwer, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Kaya, Lam, Luiz, Ponce, Seixas
Naxos Laureate Series - Guitar 8.574433
Release: 10 June 2022
Bokyung Byun, winner of the 2021 Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) Competition and one of the most formidable classical guitarists of the younger generation, presents here a wide variety of music from diverse nationalities and eras. From 18th-century Classicism and 20th-century works inspired by the mastery of Andrés Segovia, to the eclectic works of today, Byun takes us through many moods and cultural styles in a dazzling display of virtuosity, bravura and immense sensitivity.

Great Composers in Words and Music: Debussy
Lucy Scott, various artists
Naxos 8.578364
Release: 10 June 2022
Claude Debussy is regarded by many as the quintessential French composer, with music that invited both warm applause and frosty criticism in his day. While our ears no longer hear him as controversial, his works heralded the dawn of an artistic period founded on innovation and experiment, and a desire to break with the past in search of new expressive means. With never a dull moment, Debussy went from being a musical misfit at the Paris Conservatoire to bohemian life amongst the Symbolist poets with involvement in some scandalous love affairs. The transformative effect of pieces such as the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune eventually saw him awarded the Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 1903. The narrative is illustrated with musical excerpts from Children’s Corner, String Quartet in G minor, Images, Nocturnes and Pelléas et Mélisande, among many others.

Defunensemble – Hyperrealistic Songs
Hanna Kinnunen, Mikko Raasakka, Lily-Marlene Puusepp, Emil Holmstöm, Markus Hohti, Anders Pohjola, Timo Kurkikangas
Alba Records ABCD508
Release: 10 June 2022
The electroacoustic music group defunensemble releases its second album. Formed in 2009, defunensemble has astonishingly fast established itself as one of the most important contemporary music groups in Finland. Defunensemble gives premieres of the most essential electroacoustic repertoire both classic and current, while simultaneously actively commissioning new works incorporating the latest technologies. The musicians and sound designers of defunensemble are some of the most active personalities in the Finnish contemporary music scene. The album 'Hyperrealistic Songs' includes works commissioned and premiered by the group from composers Christian Winther Christensen, Asta Hyvärinen, Hikari Kiyama, Sami Klemola and Perttu Haapanen.

Wenzel Thomas Matiegka: Six Sonatas, Op 31
David Starobin, guitar
Bridge Records BRIDGE 9567
Release: 10 June 2022
Bridge Records is pleased to issue guitarist David Starobin's final studio recording, W T Matiegka's Six Sonatas, Op 31, performed on a Viennese style guitar. Starobin regards Matiegka's sonatas as 'in their time, the pinnacle of expression on the guitar, offering the most detailed notation of both articulation and character - a clear window onto performance style in the era of Beethoven and Schubert'. Since Starobin's retirement from the concert stage in 2018, the native New Yorker has kept a busy schedule, co-authoring with his wife Becky, the libretto of the opera The Thirteenth Child (music by Poul Ruders); writing and directing the film, String Trio, Los Angeles 1946 (filmed in Arnold Schoenberg's Los Angeles home); and serving as Director of Artists and Repertoire at Bridge Records. David Starobin teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he co-founded Curtis's guitar program in 2011.

Un Milagro de Fe
Border CrosSing, Ahmed Anzaldua
Bridge Records BRIDGE 9568
Release: 10 June 2022
Un milagro de fe (A Miracle of Faith) presents the spectacular debut recording of the choral ensemble Border CrosSing, based in the Twin Cities, and led by Mexican-Egyptian conductor Ahmed Anzaldúa. Their kaleidoscopic program presents vibrant readings of works of faith by Beatriz Bilbao, Ariel Ramirez's Misa Criolla, Mary Lou Williams' St Martin de Porres and selections from Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos.

Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Keziah Thomas, harp
Convivium Records CR072
Release: 10 June 2022
British harpist Keziah Thomas enjoys a reputation of a lively and engaging concert artist. Discover Vivaldi's The Four Seasons in her new arrangement for harp.

Frédéric Chopin: Complete Fantasies
Alberto Nones
Convivium Records CR074
Release: 10 June 2022
Alberto Nones executes Chopin’s music with restrained elegance and poise, avoiding the trappings of indulgent virtuosity or sentimentality. Instead, these performances demonstrate unencumbered fidelity to the composer's directions; it is almost as if we can hear Chopin's own breath between each line and phrase.

Ben Moore: Gathering
Isabel Leonard, Matthew Polenzani, Liz Callaway, Janai Brugger, Joseph Lattanzi, Michael Kelly, Alexander Gemignani, Brian Zeger
Delos DE 3581
Release: 10 June 2022
Stirring, varied songs by Ben Moore — art songs to cabaret, sung by stars such as Isabel Leonard and Matthew Polenzani, with pianist Brian Zeger. Moore’s lyrical style illuminates texts spanning many centuries.

Bach: Partitas, BWV 825-830
Eleonor Bindman, piano
Delos DE 3597 (2 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
Eleonor Bindman presents here J S Bach's six great keyboard Partitas, recorded on a lovely Boesendorfer piano.

French Impressions Boxed Set – A potpourri of French piano styles, from the Romantics to new age
Emile Naoumoff, Yau Cheng, Geoffrey Burleson, Nicolas Horvath, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, Eliane Reyes
Louis Théodore Gouvy, Camille Saint-Saëns, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Vincent D’Indy, Benjamin Godard
Grand Piano GP900X (6 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
The range and variety of French piano music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is exemplified in these critically acclaimed albums bringing together rarely encountered pieces, a number of which are performed on period instruments. Théodore Gouvy’s little-known sonatas and Benjamin Godard's fragrant lyricism are part of a lineage that includes the masterful large-scale Piano Sonata of Vincent d'Indy, the virtuosic rarities – many in première recordings – of Saint-Saëns, Satie’s tenderness and wit, and unknown piano versions of some of Debussy's greatest orchestral masterpieces.

Barmotin Piano Music 3 – Ballade; 6 Morcaeux, Op 5; 10 Morceaux, Op 6
Christopher Williams
Grand Piano GP866
Release: 10 June 2022
A student of Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev and a contemporary of Stravinsky and Rachmaninov, Semyon Alexeyevich Barmotin (1877-1939) flourished in the years before the Russian Revolution. His was probably the first Ballade for solo piano written by a Russian composer and this large-scale work exemplifies his perfect control of expansive form, Lisztian virtuosic impulse and thematic variety. The two sets of Morceaux enshrine other essential elements of his art – folkloric influences, crystalline sonorities and true expressive depth. Christopher Williams' third instalment in this acclaimed cycle features all first recordings.

Palmgren: Complete Piano Works 5
Jouni Somero
Grand Piano GP908
Release: 10 June 2022
For many years the Busoni student Selim Palmgren was the most frequently performed Finnish composer after Sibelius. With a portfolio of nearly four hundred piano works, his contribution to the prestige of the Nordic repertoire was significant both in scope and creative artistry. This fifth volume of Palmgren's complete solo piano music explores oriental moods in Exotic March, Op 46, and includes two of his best-known and most beautiful pieces, Aftonröster, Op 47, No 1 ('Evening Whispers') and the winter magic of Snöflingor, Op 57, No 2 ('Snowflakes'). The Sonatine in F major, Op 93, marked Palmgren's return to composition after the death of his wife five years earlier and enshrines nostalgia whilst hinting at neo-Classicism.

César Franck: Les oeuvres pour piano
Patrick Dheur, Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Roger Rossel
Stradivarius STR37222 (3 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
The pieces which are comprised in the present collection give a virtually complete idea of Franck’s quality as a piano composer. We have selected from his early works only those which seemed to us to indicate most faithfully that somewhat neglected period in his life, laying aside those which were of slight interest, we have included all the piano compositions of his later years. From the early works we have chosen the Grande Sonate op 10 (unpublished) written at the age of thirteen years, the Eglogue (1842), the Grand Caprice (1843), the Ballade (1844) and Trois petits riens (1846) (unpublished) preceding them with César Franck’s three first efforts in composition. The mature style of the master is shown in his four most important piano works, the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1884), Les Djinns for piano and orchestra (1884), Variations symphoniques for piano and orchestra (1885), the Prelude, Aria and Finale (1886), and also in two short pieces, Plaintes d’une poupée (1865) and Danse lente(1885),written for special occasions. Though the latter are simple in style and technique, they show none the less the unmistakable stamp of Franckian melody.

Dimitri Shostakovich: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2
Eugenio Catone
Stradivarius STR37224
Release: 10 June 2022
Continue the Complete Piano Works collection of Dmitrij Dmitrievič Shostakovich, one of the most influential, praised and widely performed composers of the twentieth century: his unmistakable style has left an indelible mark on the aesthetic taste of the modern listener and on the DNA of the contemporary orchestra. Considering his outstanding ease of writing and well-proven ability to compose music under all kinds of circumstances – even unfavorable ones –, Shostakovich’s piano production for piano appears relatively small and, above all, sporadic. These pages are not less extraordinary because of that. On the contrary, many of them show a degree of ambition and depth of purpose that are not second to those of his chamber and symphonic masterpieces.

The SWR Recordings: Christian Ferras plays Violin Concertos and Chamber Music
Christian Ferras, Pierre Barbizet, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, Hans Müller-Kray, Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Gielen
Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Maurice Ravel, Alban Berg, Peter Tchaikovsky, George Enescu, Claude Debussy, Johannes Brahms
SWR Classic SWR19114CD (4 CDs)
Release: 10 June 2022
Christian Ferras will most likely be remembered as the violinist who was filmed shedding tears at the end of the slow movement of Sibelius’s Concerto in 1965, and who, after a dramatic downturn in his career, took his own life at the age of 49. And, of course, as the child prodigy from the French provinces who became – at the height of his fame – Herbert von Karajan’s favourite violinist. His artistic personality was shaped by his utter, though humble, devotion to the music, demonstrated by his appropriate yet lively tone, elegant bowing, effervescent, energetic fingering and considered phrasing. The recordings of Christian Ferras with pianist Pierre Barbizet are of the utmost importance, with the musicians forming an inimitable partnership. The concertos in this collection showcase the violinist as a captivating soloist – Müller-Kray follows his every move in the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky with dynamic sensitivity, Gielen’s analytical expertise within the Berg is unrivalled and Ferras’s partnership with Blomstedt results in a profound interpretation of the Brahms.

 

3 JUNE 2022

Il Tenore
Freddie De Tommaso
Decca Classics
Release: 3 June 2022
Il Tenore is the first recording of opera arias from tenor Freddie De Tommaso following his chart-topping debut album. Il Tenore celebrates some of the greatest hits by Puccini and Bizet, including "Nessun dorma", "E lucevan le stelle," and the "Flower Song" from Carmen.

Jacqueline du Pré: The Complete Warner Recordings
Warner Classics (23 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
In the course of a dazzling career, cruelly curtailed by illness, Oxford-born cellist Jacqueline du Pré shared her transcendent and seemingly instinctive musicianship with the world. Her epoch-making interpretation of the Elgar Cello Concerto – conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, a former cellist who performed under Elgar’s baton – was recorded 57 years ago, when du Pré was just 20. It remains a reference for today’s cellists and audiences. All the recordings have been newly remastered in 192Hz/24 bit from the original EMI tapes, and by mid-June 2022 du Pré’s entire Warner catalogue will also be available in high-definition digital format, with five albums presented in Dolby Atmos immersive sound. Previously unreleased is a recording of Brahms’ Clarinet Trio in A minor op 114, in which du Pré is joined by Gervase de Peyer and Daniel Barenboim. It was originally the audio track of a film made at Abbey Road Studios in 1968 by Christopher Nupen, who directed both Remembering Jacqueline du Pré (1994) and the famous 1969 film The Trout, centred on Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet and memorably aligning du Pré with Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, and Zubin Mehta.

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Ex Tenebris Lux
Ondine ODE-1403-2
Release: 3 June 2022
Recent music for string orchestra and soloists by the critically-acclaimed Lithuanian composer and 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship winner, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (born 1973). This new album features performances by percussionist Pavel Giunter, cellist Rokas Vaitkevičius, and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under the baton of conductor Karolis Variakojis. Three world premiere works are recorded on Ex Tenebris Lux, all composed since 2019. The first two are both responses to the pandemic, but the real subject of the first, Nunc fluens. Nunc stans. (2020) is time. The title is from a passage in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy that reads: “The now that passes creates time; the now that remains creates eternity.” Martinaitytė explains: “Suddenly we all found ourselves having just a present moment. The future was uncertain and therefore irrelevant; it was absurd to even think of it. The past vanished, becoming more and more like a dream. We had only Now, which seemingly lost its flow and stood still for a while. Days were passing and weeks, and there was no change. Only the Now remained.” The composer conceived the work as a diptych, with time flowing in the first part and standing still in the second. The orchestra plays mostly diatonic long tones, punctuated by percussionist Pavel Giunter, whose gradual tour through a variety of instruments from vibes to tubular bell is the catalyst for much of the development. The title track, Ex Tenebris Lux (2021), is the most recent of the album’s three works, and again responds to an aspect of the pandemic. It was inspired by a quote from Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor: “I’ve stopped trying to handle the darkness. I let the darkness handle me instead. … Being in the dark doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. It means I’m alive, and this is part of the deal.” Scored for a total of 18 stringed instruments (eight violins, four violas, four cellos, and two basses), each with a unique part, the piece dwells for a long time on the lowest sonorities of the orchestra. But there is movement in this darkness: the eighteen string parts are doing similar kinds of things, but not synchronized, creating a texture that is fragmented and homogenous at the same time. The work’s Latin title means “from darkness comes light,” and as the “light” of the piece begins to emerge, with melodic fragments hinting at a resumption of normal life just visible on the horizon, the string tremolos progress from a growl to a radiant shimmer. Sielunmaisema (2019) is a work for solo cello and a string orchestra of at least 21 players, written in four movements but intended to be played continuously. The title of the work is a Finnish word which means “soul-landscape.” Martinaitytė relates the idea to her experience of having lived in both Lithuania and America for extended periods, and names the movements after the seasons, so in some sense the subject is still time. As she asks in the program notes: “How many summers does one need to live through to capture the very essence of it?” The immersive beauty of her sonic imagination by turns emulates natural sounds like birds and water and captures feelings like loneliness in the wintertime, but in this work it is primarily in the service of something much more abstract: depicting the sometimes hazy outlines of the past as it appears in imperfect but emotionally resonant memory. The composer adds a telling interpretive comment for the orchestra at the head of the fourth movement, “Autumn”: “with all pervading nostalgia.”

Robert Schumann: The Complete Symphonies
Münchner Philharmoniker / Pablo Heras-Casado
harmonia mundi HMM902664.65 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022

Wieniawski/ Dobrzynsky/ Kurpinski: Concertos & Sym No 2
Alena Baeva; Erich Hoeprich; Orchestra Of the 18th Century
NIFCCD NIFCCD078
Release: 3 June 2022
In 1855, as he set about sketching his Second Violin Concerto in D minor, Op 22, Henryk Wieniawski was only twenty years old, and his career had just taken off. After an extensive tour of Europe, he was hailed as 'the new
Paganini'. That success was based on his phenomenal virtuosity and outstanding gift for interpretation. The young composer's new concerto proved to be a highly mature, profound work, bearing all the hallmarks of his later output. Ignacy Feliks Dobrzynski (1807-1867), a generation older than Henryk Wieniawski, is perhaps the most interesting composer among Fryderyk Chopin's Polish contemporaries. It is almost certain that Chopin became familiar at that time with Ignacy's earlier compositions, including the Concert Overture, Op 1, which some sources say was conducted by Karol Kurpinski at its premiere. Ten years later, around 1831, Dobrzynski wrote his Second Symphony in C minor 'caracteristique', Op 15 ('Characteristic in the spirit of Polish music'). In this work, we find the composer at the peak of his creative powers. Karol Kurpinski takes us back in history by a whole generation. The son of a country organist, in 1810 —the year of Chopin's birth—he was appointed second conductor of the orchestra of the National Theatre in Warsaw, at the recommendation of Józef Elsner. Part of his preparation for taking up that post was a study trip of several months around Europe, undertaken in 1823, during which Kurpinski became acquainted with the foremost musicians of his day.

Friedrich Christian Samuel Morhheim: Cantatas & Arias
Soloists; Goldberg Baroque Ensemble; Goldberg Vocal Ensemble
MDG MDG9022254 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
Friedrich Christian Samuel Mohrheim was educated by the older Bach. The later Kapellmeister at St Mary's Church in Gdansk combines the solid craftsmanship he received from the great Thomaskantor with the elegantly light tone of his time to great advantage. In the tenth installment of 'Musica Baltica', Andrzej Szadejko and his Goldberg Baroque Ensemble again present world premiere recordings, including cantatas from Mohrheim's oeuvre, yet another highlight in this series rich in surprising highlights. Mohrheim must have been very busy in Gdansk; about a hundred works are documented from his pen, most of which he composed before he succeeded his father-in-law Freislich in the position. Today, many of these works are lost or have survived only in fragments. For the great occasions in St Mary's Church, he also composed works for several choirs, such as the magnificent cantatas 'Uns ist ein Kind geboren' (To us a child is born) and 'Ehresei Gott in der Höhe' (Glory to God in the highest).
The double- choir cantatas on this SACD recording gain an almost unbelievable depth, which comes to the fore in an overwhelming way in the three-dimensional reproduction of this high-resolution Super Audio CD.

Brahms: Cello Sonatas & Songs
Antonio Meneses, Gerard Wyss
Avie AV2493
Release: 3 June 2022
This year, legendary cellist Antonio Meneses celebrates his sixtieth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of winning first prize and the gold medal at the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition. Shortly after that triumph Antonio made a renowned recording of Brahms' Double Concerto with conductor Herbert von Karajan. He revisits the composer's music on his eleventh recording for Avie and his first of Brahms' two cello sonatas, generously paired with a selection of lieder arrangements. Antonio mines Brahms' baritonal sound world, extracting the full expressive range of the cello. Similar qualities infuse a selection of seven Lieder in arrangements that sound so effective on the cello that one cannot help but wonder whether somewhere in the back of his mind Brahms had the sound of the instrument – he was, after all, an accomplished player in his youth, and it would remain central to his chamber music output throughout his life.

Violin Odyssey
Itamar Zorman, violin; Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano; Kwan Yi, piano
First Hand Records FHR119
Release: 3 June 2022
The worldwide lockdowns of 2020/21 proved highly fruitful for US-based violinist Itamar Zorman in his quest to seek out new repertoire. A virtual voyage around the world yielded a discovery of many lesser known and rarely played works for violin, which he presented in 2020 as a livestreamed video series entitled Hidden Gems. From this musical treasure trove he selected ten pieces for his new album Violin Odyssey, produced by Grammy Award-winning Judith Sherman. The far-reaching geographical origins of the repertoire, from New Zealand to the United States by way of Sudan, China, Russia, Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Israel and Mexico, reveal a fascinating variety of styles and cultural diversity in these seldom heard works. Two larger works set the framework of the album: Slavonic Sonata (1917) written by Croatian noblewoman Dora Pejacevic and the Second Sonata for Violin and Piano (1927) by Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff. While sharing Eastern European flavour, the two sonatas, written only ten years apart, are worlds apart stylistically. These particularly dramatic works are complemented by a programme of shorter pieces with evocative titles that suggest little adventures and encounters on a traveller's journey.

Johann Matthias Sperger: Double Bass Concertos
Jan Krigovsky, Collegium Wartberg 430
Challenge Classics CC72915
Release: 3 June 2022
The first recording of three double-bass concertos by Johann Matthias Sperger (1750-1812), performed by soloist Jan Krigovsky with the Collegium Wartberg 430. Johann Sperger was a double-bass virtuoso who created the first examples of concertos where his instrument is fully used also in its cantabile potential. The performance is entrusted to a specialist and scholar, Jan Krigovsky, and to his period instrument ensemble, Collegium Wartberg 430. To fully accomplish the period reconstruction, the recording took place in the same hall of the same palace in Bratislava where Sperger played them for the first time.The first question to ask must be: how could it possibly come about that certain essential works by a composer which display no flaw or failure in musical conception or compositional execution stayed dormant in libraries for well over two hundred years and had to wait so long for publication and audience attention? Three concertos for double bass and orchestra by Johann Matthias Sperger, who was not just a composer but also the most renowned double bassist of the 18th century, performed and recorded here by orchestra and soloist according to their original scores. The decision was taken here to select, from Sperger's vast legacy of compositions – which includes no less than eighteen double bass concertos – just those early works called No 2, No 3 and No 4.

Danish String Quartet - Prism IV
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bach
ECM New Series 4857305
Release: 3 June 2022
The Danish String Quartet's Grammy-nominated Prism project, linking Bach fugues, Beethoven quartets and works by later masters, receives its fourth installment. The penultimate volume of the series combines Bach's Fugue in G minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier (in the arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Förster) with Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 132 and Felix Mendelssohn's String Quartet No 2 (composed in 1827). As Paul Griffiths observes in the liner notes, these pieces 'sound all the more remarkable for the exquisite brilliance and precision of the Danish players'. Recorded in the historic Reitstadel Neumarkt, the album is issued as the Danish String Quartet is in the midst of an extensive tour across the United States and Europe.

Egon Gabler: Clarinet Concerto No. 3; Horn Concerto
Robert Langbein; Friederike Roth; Philharmonie Baden-Baden
MDG MDG9012230 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
Concertos for wind instruments with orchestra are a rarity in the late Romantic period. All the greater is the merit that Friederike Roth, Robert Langbein and the Philharmonie Baden-Baden under Pavel Baleff have earned with the discovery of three works by Egon Gabler. The Horn Concerto, Clarinet Concerto and Concert Piece are more than stopgaps, however, for this first recording proves: Gabler knew his craft. An admirer of Wagner and Liszt, the composer's intimate knowledge of the instruments naturally suited him: Gabler served as a clarinettist first in the
military, later in the royal chapel in Hanover. Gabler also learned from the great models in instrumentation. For the comparatively small orchestra, he finds refined sound mixtures.

The Whirlwind Within
Roberto Alvarez, flute; Kseniia Vokhmianina, piano
Odradek Records ODRCD427
Release: 3 June 2022
Composers of the 20th and 21st centuries have done much to explore the flute's sonorities in all their variety, from virtuosity and lyricism to more robust, percussive qualities. The works on 'The Whirlwind Within', conceived and performed by Spanish flautist Roberto Álvarez and Ukrainian pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina, embrace these facets of the flute, combining its naturally melodic capabilities with innovative techniques. Roberto Alvarez and Kseniia Vokhmianina both arrived in Singapore in 2008 and soon became some of the most sought- after musicians in Southeast Asia. They started their musical collaboration in 2017, while preparing students for their performances, and immediately noticed that they shared a similar approach to music. Since then, the duo has been active performing numerous recitals as well as releasing recordings. Roberto and Kseniia have found musical inspiration in the melting pot of cultures in Singapore. Nature, technology, tradition, urban life; all these aspects of life form a whirlwind of diverse influences, hence the title of this album. The duo has worked closely with many of the composers featured here. The album starts with James Rae's Sonatina; the composer responded: "I am absolutely delighted and feel highly honoured to have my Sonatina included on this album. It is a true privilege to have a recording of my music by such world- class performers as Roberto Álvarez and Kseniia Vokhmianina"; their "interpretation was 'exactly' what I had in mind when I composed the work." Daniel Sanchez Velasco wrote his agile yet tender 'Dance Preludes' in 2020 and says of this recording: "... their interpretation of my 'Dance Preludes' has left me speechless. I have no doubt they have improved my work with their artistry." Gonzalo Casielles Camblor arranged his piece 'El vals de la fortuna' for flute and piano at his student Roberto Álvarez's request; Álvarez thus offers a unique insight into this playful piece. The Sonata No. 1 for flute and piano by Elisenda Fábregas features virtuosic outer movements framing a poetic slow movement and lively scherzo; Fábregas has said that these artists "clearly understood the spirit of the music and were able to bring it out with extraordinary musical confidence and precise technique". Jose Elizondo's lilting 'Limoncello' is at once a tribute to Italy and a response to grief. Of this recording the composer has said that Roberto and Kseniia "found the perfect sensitivity and balance. They approach the piece with elegance and grace." We hear three pieces imbued with South American folk styles by Argentine composer Pablo Aguirre, who believes that these artists "add a regional and national touch from other countries" to his music, and the album culminates in the demanding and original Sonata No. 3 by British composer Mike Mower.

Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf: Vocal Music II
Neue Vocalsolisten, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Michael Wendeberg, loadbang, Schola Heidelberg, Walter Nussbaum
Neos NEOS12110
Release: 3 June 2022
The new CD of vocal music by Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf begins with "Dov'è?", a very personal portrait in memory of Mahnkopf's late wife, the Jewish philosopher of religion Francesca Yardenit Albertini. The Neue Vocalsolisten, accompanied by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), sing ten of Albertini's poems written between the age of 17 and 20. The recordings on the CD are live and are also world premiere recordings.Mahnkopf's inspiration for "432 Park Avenue. Hommage à NYC" is a residential building on the edge of New York's Central Park, which for him expresses both classical beauty and elegance as well as capitalist decadence. The texts are taken from the building's website. In addition to three wind instruments, everyday sounds of the city can be heard. For "Astronomica", Mahnkopf used passages from astronomy textbooks with the themes of background noise, black hole, wormhole, ekpyrosis, inflation. "If I had a second life, I would study mathematics and physics to understand how the world is built and most of all where it comes from, why it exists." (Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf)

Klaus Huber: Vocal Works
Katharina Rikus, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Brad Lubman, Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt, Lucas Vis
Neos NEOS12203-04 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
This double CD of world premiere recordings of vocal works by Klaus Huber (1924–2017) is a document of the special artistic partnership between Huber and his daughter, the contralto Katharina Rikus.  Just as she was strongly influenced by her father in her relationship to music, her voice was the inspiration for many of the works recorded here. Singing his music, Rikus says, requires a very precise ear and rhythmic security, combined with great openness in interpretation. "I worked intensively and persistently on the works with him and am grateful to him from the bottom of my heart for his trust in me. "The most important work on this double album is "Umkehr – im Licht sein ..." for choir, mezzo-soprano, speaker and small orchestra, composed in 1997 and a milestone in the creative phase of the late 1990s. It is preceded by another orchestral work: "Oratio Mechtildis" bears the subtitle "Chamber symphony for chamber orchestra with alto voice" – characteristic of Huber's free approach to classical forms and instrumentation. Thus, on the purely chamber- musical second CD there are no traditional piano songs, but duets for voice and viola ("Das kleine Lied"), "Ein Hauch von Unzeit" in the version for voice and accordion and the solo work "Nous!? - La raison du cœur ...", as well as one of Klaus Huber's last compositions, "Intarsioso" for piano, string quartet and alto voice.

Franz Schubert: Complete Piano Trios
Vienna Piano Trio
MDG MDG3422268
Release: 3 June 2022
The debut of the Vienna Piano Trio on the MDG label set a new standard. Their brilliant recording of all of Franz Schubert's piano trios was praised by the BBC as the benchmark: best available version. It is now available for the first time reissued as a double CD at a special two for one price. In addition to the two great trios in E- flat and B- flat, this carefully prepared edition also includes the enchanting Notturno and the original version of the E-flat major finale. As a special treasure, an early sonata movement is heard which the young Schubert may have originally prepared for lessons with Salieri.

Shostakovitch / Smetana: Piano Trios
Trio Alba
MDG MDG9032243 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
Dmitri Shostakovich was only seventeen years old when he completed his piano studies in Petrograd.In the same year he published his first piano trio, nonetheless already as Opus 8. The Trio Alba juxtaposes this youthful work with the Trio Op 67 from 1944, with Bedrich Smetana's Piano Trio Op. 15 thereby expanding the view of the chamber music of the Slavic cultural region. Smetana's music is Slavic although the work has a sad background - Smetana's daughter died shortly before, only four years old. The trio is dedicated to her memory, lamenting phrases and groans express the pain in the music. Shostakovich's Trio Op 67 also commemorates a deceased person; the composer's deep consternation over the sudden death of a friend is expressed like a heart-rending lament. Captured with great sympathy, this new recording - pressed onto the Hybrid SACD in the best super audio quality - convinces with its striking naturalness in imaging and reproduction.

Elias Parish Alvars: Grand Duo Concertant; The Legend of Teignmouth; Grand Fantaisie Brilliante; works by Dussek and Bochsa
Simon Callaghan and Clíodna Shanahan, piano duo
Lyrita SRCD.411
Release: 3 June 2022
A new album of four-hand piano music of Elias Parish Alvars (1808-49), hailed by Berlioz as 'the Liszt of the Harp', alongside works by Jan Dussek and Nicholas-Charles Bochsa. Alvars made his reputation as a harpist, but he was also a virtuoso pianist - the legacy celebrated in this recording by Simon Callaghan and Clíodna Shanahan.

Thomas de Hartmann Orchestral Music: Piano Concerto; Symphonie-Poème No 3; Scherzo-fantastique
Elan Sicroff, piano; Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine / Tian Hui Ng
Nimbus Alliance NI6429
Release: 3 June 2022
A new album of Thomas de Hartmann's orchestral music: Symphonie-Poème No. 3, Piano Concerto and Scherzo fantastique, performed by the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine and pianist Elan Sicroff, conducted by Tian Hui Ng. Elan Sicroff has been the world's leading performer-advocate of de Hartmann's music for almost forty years. A pupil of de Hartmann's widow, Olga, in the late 1970s, Sicroff has recorded many of his works, including the seven-volume Thomas de Hartmann Project, which he initiated in 2006. This now includes a large amount of de Hartmann's orchestral, chamber and piano works, and songs.

William Bolcom: The Complete Rags
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Hyperion Records CDA68391/2 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
Yet another unmissable release from Marc-André Hamelin. From the easy-going elegance of 'Tabby Cat Walk' to the high spirits of 'Eubie's Luckey Day' (and the altogether wilder antics of 'Brass Knuckles'), William Bolcom's lifelong and affectionate homage to - and continuation of - this archetypal American genre is a guaranteed winner.

Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin
Gerald Finley, Julius Drake
Hyperion Records CDA68377
Release: 3 June 2022
Gerald Finley and Julius Drake’s previous recordings of Schubert have been praised as 'faultless' (Winterreise) and 'richly satisfying' (Schwanengesang) - exalted standards which are easily maintained in their new version of 'Die schöne Müllerin'.

Reynaldo Hahn: Poèmes & Valses
Pavel Kolesnikov
Hyperion Records CDA68383
Release: 3 June 2022
The nuanced titles—miniature works of art in themselves—merely hint at the delights to come in Pavel Kolesnikov’s sensitive realization of Hahn’s refined sound-world.

Maurice Ravel: Cantates pour le Prix de Rome
Véronique Gens, Vannina Santoni, Sophie Koch, Janina Baechle, Julien Behr, Michael Spyres, Jacques Imbrailo, Choeur et Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Pascal Rophé
BIS Records BIS2582 (2 SACDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
Between 1803 and 1968, the Grand Prix de Rome marked the zenith of composition studies at the Paris Conservatoire. In Maurice Ravel’s time the competition included an elimination round (a fugue and a choral piece) followed by a cantata in the form of an operatic scena. The entries were judged by a jury which generally favoured expertise and conformity more than originality and Ravel’s growing reputation as a member of the avant-garde was therefore hardly to his advantage, and may explain why he never won the coveted Premier Grand Prix, and the three-year stay at Rome’s Villa Medici that went with it. The present two-disc set brings together all the vocal works that Ravel composed for the Prix de Rome – five shorter settings for choir and orchestra and three cantatas, each with three characters taking part in a plot which followed a more or less fixed sequence of introduction, recitative and aria, a duet, a trio and a brief conclusion. First published more than half a century after Ravel’s death, these test pieces for the Prix de Rome have never acquired the popularity of his other early works, such as Pavane pour une infante défunte, Jeux d’eau or the String Quartet. They are worth more than their reputation as academic exercises might suggest, however, and deserve to be better known, especially when performed by Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and Pascal Rophé and a team of vocal soloists including Véronique Gens and Michael Spyres.

At home with Hugo Alfvén: songs and piano pieces
Elin Rombo, soprano; Peter Friis Johansson, piano
BIS Records BIS2575 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
During his lifetime, Hugo Alfvén became known as one of Sweden’s principal composers of his time, with works that struck a chord with a wide audience. As a result of his popularity, a nationwide collection was held in celebration of his 70th birthday in 1942, with the proceeds used to build Alfvéngården, the composer’s home during his final years. Now, 80 years later, Elin Rombo and Peter Friis Johansson are releasing their tribute to Alfvén’s 150th anniversary, recorded at Alfvéngården using the composer’s own piano. Alfvén is primarily known for his orchestral music –including the ubiquitous Swedish Rhapsody No. 1 –and as a composer of choral music. As befits the setting, the focus of the present disc is on more intimate works, however – namely songs and piano pieces. Some of the pieces are closely related to the venue – Fyra låtar från Leksand (Four Tunes from Leksand) is a piano version of folk tunes collected from a local fiddler and Så tag mit hjerte (‘So take my heart’), Alfvén’s most frequently performed song, was composed there in 1946 as a present to his wife.

Lessons - John Dowland
Jonas Nordberg, lute
BIS Records BIS2627 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
In English Renaissance collections of music, the term 'lessons' is often used to describe instrumental pieces, even though they aren't pedagogical exercises as such. But as Jonas Nordberg writes in an introduction to his new disc 'there remains much in them to be studied'. John Dowland is one of the composers whose music was a driving force of the Early Music revival already at the beginning of the twentieth century. He has also played a central role in the rediscovery of the lute itself, an ongoing process which began more than a hundred years ago. Like many other musicians, Jonas Nordberg is continuously exploring the intimate relationship between a score and the instrument it was written for: 'The pieces by Dowland on this album contain an entire musical universe, in which I have spent many years, discovering new layers of meaning. In that way these lessons – in combination with the instrument on which I play them – have also been my teachers. So it is a great pleasure to invite you to share them with me, and to explore for yourselves the rich combination of melancholy, joy and beauty to be found in these works.'

Without Borders
Bartók, Mitropoulos, Saygun, Enescu
Can Çakmur, piano
BIS Records BIS2630 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, several composers were taking a new interest in folk music. Folk tunes, or imitations of them, had previously mainly been used in order to provide 'local colour' or as a way of catering to nationalist sentiments, but it was now seen as a means to revitalize art music itself, opening up for new possibilities in terms of rhythm and harmony as well as melody. At the forefront of this development was Béla Bartók, who also considered the use of folk elements as a tool to transcend boundaries – to achieve a 'brotherhood of peoples'. For his new recital disc, Can Çakmur has devised a programme which juxtaposes four composers' different responses to folk music. Bartók’s Piano Sonata is followed by Passacaglia, Intermezzo e Fuga with which Dimitri Mitropoulos made a clean break with earlier works in a more nationalistic vein. Next comes Çakmur’s compatriot, the Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun, who in 1936 accompanied Bartók on a field trip in Turkey collecting music. His Piano Sonata was composed some fifty years later, however, and refers to folk music primarily on a theoretical level. Closing the disc is George Enescu’s Piano Sonata No 3 in D major, which Çakmur in his own liner notes describes as 'radiating a natural affinity for the village, without sacrificing the compositional value of the work.'

Trio Zimmermann: A Retrospective
Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Hindemith
BIS Records BIS2677 (5 SACDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
In 2007 Frank Peter Zimmermann was able to realize his long-cherished dream to establish a string trio, together with Antoine Tamestit and Christian Poltéra. Three individually superb string players do not necessarily add up to a top-flight trio – even if they all play on instruments by Stradivarius, as here – but Trio Zimmermann immediately made a name for itself at international festivals and prestigious concert venues. In 2010 the trio released its first disc – with Mozart's seminal Divertimento – to critical acclaim. On following offerings, the ensemble explored the later repertoire for string trio: two discs with Beethoven's contributions to the genre, and a third with works by Hindemith and Schoenberg. For their fifth disc to date the trio went back in time, however, as the three members together prepared a performing version of Bach's Goldberg Variations. These five discs have now been collected into a boxed-set retrospective, offering lovers of chamber music more than five hours of glorious music-making, in top-notch sound and including the original booklets with full documentation.

Conductors in Rehearsal: Mariss Jansons, Vol 2
Beethoven, Sibelius, R Strauss
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Friedrich Schloffer, Mariss Jansons
BR Klassik 900934 (4 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
What does the work of a conductor actually involve? He moves his hands, arms, his whole body, he makes use of his eyes and facial expressions - and he also sings and speaks, but only during rehearsals, of course. Being able to follow a conductor's interpretation makes for an exciting process, and conveys the basic idea behind a work far more vividly at the same time. 'Conductors in Rehearsal' (Dirigenten bei der probe) is a BR-KLASSIK series that takes a closer look at the 'orchestral workshop'. One can experience first-hand how the conductor's wishes and instructions are implemented, how his explanations and his temperament change the resulting sound, and what concepts lie behind the interpretation of the work. Thanks to this series - which also now being released on CD - the special collaboration between Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra can be documented.The second box set presented by BR-KLASSIK documents four rehearsals for concerts in the Munich Philharmonie im Gasteig and the Herkulessaal der Residenz in Munich, taken from different phases of the collaboration between Mariss Jansons’ work with the BRSO: Mariss Jansons rehearses Richard Strauss' 'Ein Heldenleben' with the BRSO. In Strauss's 'Ein Heldenleben', the main character leaps onto the stage, as it were, from the very first bar onwards. In his rehearsals, Mariss Jansons pays great attention to vivid, three-dimensional characters. The maestro also makes use of images and comparisons to inspire the orchestra.Rehearsal for the concerts on March 17&18, 2011 at the Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich. Mariss Jansons rehearses Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No 5 with the BRSO. Making the music speak - that is the goal of Mariss Jansons' rehearsal work with the BRSO. In May 2012 he rehearsed Beethoven's Fifth; in the autumn of that year, a performance of it in Tokyo earned standing ovations from the Japanese audience. Rehearsal for the concerts on May 17&18, 2012 at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich. Mariss Jansons rehearses Richard Strauss' 'Don Juan' with the BRSO. Mariss Jansons elicits the typical élan of the young Richard Strauss from the BRSO here, pointing to his roots in musical romanticism. With his 'Don Juan', Strauss established himself early on as an important representative of the progressive 'New German School'. His tone poems were very wide-ranging and earned him much admiration, but also a reputation as an 'enfant terrible'. Rehearsal for the concerts on February 27&28, 2014 at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich. Mariss Jansons rehearses Jean Sibelius' Symphony No 2 with the BRSO. Mariss Jansons is intensely interested in the images of nature evoked by the music of Jean Sibelius' Second Symphony. He is also meticulous about sound and expression: the music should sound warm and soulful, but also rich in colour and with extreme differences in volume. Working on the sound is the key to expression here. Rehearsal for the concerts on 12 & 13 November 2015 at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich. Each of the four CDs begins with a concise introduction to the respective work by Friedrich Schloffer. The concert versions of the four works rehearsed have already been released on CD by BR-KLASSIK.

Johannes Brahms: Serenade No 1 and Serenade No 2
Linos Ensemble
Capriccio Records C5447
Release: 3 June 2022
Brahms is famous for his symphonies and grand concertos, but many lovers of his music would argue he shines brightest in the chamber works. Indeed, there is almost no work of his that did not start out as chamber music, including his Serenade No 1, which began life as a nonet. It's presented here by the Linos Ensemble in its reconstructed original form. For the Serenade No 2, Brahms scored the work for a chamber proportioned ensemble from the start. Clara Schumann approved: 'What could I possibly tell you about the Adagio? I feel as if there were no words for the sheer joy that this piece brings me. It's marvelously beautiful!'

Charles Koechlin: The Seven Stars' Symphony; Vers la voûte étoilée
Sinfonieorchester Basel / Ariane Matiakh
Capriccio Records C5449
Release: 3 June 2022
Music by the marvelous, but unjustly underrated composer and 'Aural Alchemist' Charles Koechlin is invariably a real discovery. 'Koechlin can daub with notes as Seurat daubed with bright pigments on canvas; [he] could, whenever he wished, bathe his music in the impressionist glories of Debussy and Ravel or give it the delicacy of Fauré and then toughen it up with some Roussel-like grinding rhythms.' (Robert Reilly) He is an impressionist dreamboat. With a title like The Seven Stars' Symphony, and following so closely on the heels of the equally enchanting Vers la voûte étoilée (Toward the Vault of the Stars), one might think the work was some spectacular, colourist, celestial bonanza. In fact, it’s Koechlin’s ode to his favourite film stars – but no less bewitching for that.

Franz & Carl Doppler: Complete Flute Music Edition
Various artists
Capriccio Records C7430 (12 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
The Doppler brothers played a leading role in the Imperial Monarchy’s musical life as composers, conductors, musicians and orchestral soloists. They were on good terms with acknowledged artists of the era, such as Ferenc Liszt and Ferenc Erkel, as well as Jozsef Bajza, director of the Hungarian National Theatre. Catalan flautist Claudi Arimany spent decades researching this project, inspiring many famous musicians to become involved in its realisation. After five years, Capriccio is pleased to have completed the edition, and proud to close another gap in musical recording history.

Elgar, MacMillan, Todd, Desmond, Robertson, Semple, Chilcott
A Meditation - St John Henry Newman
The Sixteen / Harry Christophers
Coro COR16191
Release: 3 June 2022
The five new choral works on this album – by James MacMillan, Will Todd, Anna Semple, Eoghan Desmond and Lisa Robertson – all grew from a meditation by St John Henry Newman. Newman was a theologian of towering stature and broad influence. Canonised in October 2019, Newman's writings represent a rich and thought-provoking legacy and, alongside the new works presented, are immortalised in three well-known hymns and Sir Edward Elgar's exquisite elegy 'They are at rest'. Also included are two of Elgar's psalm settings – 'Great is the Lord' and 'Give unto the Lord'. These are monumental works for choir and organ, full of grandeur and drama, but also inherently simple. The album ends with a Bonus track by Bob Chilcott - also a Genesis Foundation commission - based on Psalm 139.

Georg Philipp Telemann: Oratorium zum Johannisfest
Rahel Maas, Elvira Bill, Mauro Borgioni, Klaus Mertens, Mirko Ludwig, André Morsch, Elena Harsányi, Kölner Akademie / Michael Alexander Willins
cpo 555271-2
Release: 3 June 2022
In the church year 1730/31, Telemann performed a volume of special conception: Regular oratorios were to be heard in the church service. And so the focus of our latest Telemann CD is his magnificent oratorio for the feast of St. John, Gelobet sei der Herr, with expressive texts by the poet and musician Albrecht Jacob Zell. Zell succeeds in imagining dramatic, almost theatrical scenes, thus providing Telemann with models for tone-painting. Not only is the vocal cast extremely lush, including three basses, but the instrumentation is also very rich, including the use of four horns and three transverse flutes. Once again, Telemann unfolds a wide range of expression. The lament of the Egyptians over the slain children, in F minor and chromatic turns, is moving; the depiction of the fleeing people and their pursuers, who cannot reach them, is full of external movement and tension, with chains of sixteenth notes on the one hand and syllabic declamation on the other.

Ferdinand Hiller: Piano Quartet No 3 Op 133 in A minor; Piano Quintet Op 156 in G major
Minguet Quartett, Oliver Triendl
cpo 555312-2
Release: 3 June 2022
Ferdinand Hiller was a figure of European renown during his lifetime, but unfortunately his work and activity were quickly forgotten after his death. The two works recorded here, the 3rd Piano Quartet (1870) and the Piano Quintet op. 156 (1872) represent the mature Hiller's weightiest contributions to chamber music. But despite their initial success, even thesedemanding pieces failed to gain a lasting foothold in the concert repertoire. While Hiller's early works were still clearly in the tradition of Hummel, the late ones clearly reflect the new standard that Schumann had set with his works of the 1840s. For his piano quartet, Hiller chose the key of A minor, which was considered passionate in the High Romantic period. For long stretches, this key determines the work's basic dramatic tone, which only brightens into a radiant A major in the finale. The piano part is too demanding to be performed in the context of house music. His Piano Quintet proves to be more of a lyrical counterpart to the Piano Quartet. The real surprise is that the theme of the final movement turns out to be a variant of the main theme of the first movement, bringing the quintet as a whole closer to a cyclical form.

Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen: Six String Quartets Op 3, 1-6
Lombardini Quartet
cpo 555488-2
Release: 3 June 2022
The Lombardini Quartet is not only named after the Venetian violin virtuoso and composer Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen, but now also recorded her versatile 'Sei quartetti' Op 3 from 1769. Lombardini Sirmen was one of the few women to realise a career as a professional musician in the eighteenth century and, according to sources, the first woman to compose string quartets, at a time when this genre was still extremely young and in the formal experimental stage. The interpreter's highest credo is always the speaking play and the uncovering of all affects in the music, of the finest emotions, which often change so quickly in the quartets - a veritable rollercoaster of feelings. All the quartets are in two movements and enchantwith their variety of colours and richness of form: 'Like a walk through a blossoming spring meadow: It is worthwhile to turn one's gaze very carefully to the many beauties that nature offers to the left and right. We felt the same way about Lombardini's music: many little flowers by the wayside to discover, some large and recognisable at first glance, some very small and easy to overlook. It is fragile music that reveals a rich inner life on closer inspection', says Elisabeth Wiesbauer of the Lombardini Quartet.

The Magic of the Pan Flute - Vivaldi's Four Seasons
Andreea Chira, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim / Douglas Bostock
cpo 555461-2
Release: 3 June 2022
Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a milestone in music. On the one hand, the cycle is firmly anchored in baroque aesthetics, on the other hand, one is already moving in the direction of the galant style. In our new recording, Vivaldi's works have been carefully arranged for pan flute with orchestra by the composer Carlos Pino-Quintana. The great challenge was to maintain or even emphasise polyphonic elements of the original solo part in the new instrumentation, to subtly transfer the technical characteristics of the violin to the pan flute, to find adequate keys, and to balance the resulting contrasts and timbres between solo and tutti in the sense of concerto grosso. In the process, the accompaniment of harpsichord as basso continuo, which otherwise would have appeared only as secco accompaniment in long phrases and sections, is omitted, which opened up new possibilities for the fabric of polyphony and gave the pan flute solo voice greater scope for expression and musicality. And lo and behold, the concertos sound as if they were written for the pan flute. This is of course also due to our interpreter Andreea Chira, who plays a historical pan flute 'Nai' with an unmistakable timbre. An incomparable sound experience!

Boris Lyatoshinsky: Symphonies No 4 & 5
Cracow Philharmonic Orchestra, Roland Bader
cpo 999183-2
Release: 3 June 2022
You could call him the father of Ukrainian music: Boris Lyatoshinsky. The great Soviet music encyclopaedia praises him as one of the most important founders of Ukrainian symphonic and chamber music, also as the creator of the first Ukrainian symphony. He was born in 1895 in Shitomir, studied law at the University of Kiev and also took composition lessons at the conservatory with Reinhold Gliere, whose colourful orchestral writing and affinity with the so-called 'Russian classicism' have consistently shaped Lyatoshinsky's work.

Vagn Holmboe: String Quartets, Vol 2
Nightingale String Quartet
Dacapo Records 6.220717 (SACD)
Release: 3 June 2022
In this, the second instalment of Vagn Holmboe's complete string quartets by the Nightingale String Quartet, the quartet continues convincingly with energetic, precise, yet lively and poetic interpretations of the Holmboe quartets, which stand amongst the most significant contributions to the genre in the twentieth century.

Niels Viggo Bentzon: Wind Quintets
Carl Nielsen Quintet
Dacapo Records 8.226127
Release: 3 June 2022
Prodigiously gifted Danish composer and pianist Niels Viggo Bentzon (1919-2000) wrote nearly 1,000 musical works in every known classical genre and style. He retained a constantly questing and exploratory nature throughout his life, as we can hear in his five known wind quintets recorded here by The Carl Nielsen Quintet: The results are captivating in their own way, stoked by Bentzon’s distinctive, virtuosic language and great ingenuity.

Florence Price Piano Music
Kirsten Johnson
Guild GM2CD7828 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
Following her pioneering set of Amy Beach's complete piano music on Guild, fellow American, Kirsten Johnson turns her attention to the piano music of Florence Price, with this generous selection.

César Franck: Les Éolides; Les Djinns; Rédemption; Variations Symphoniques; Le Chausseur Maudit
Fabio Banegas, piano; Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine / Francisco Varela
Guild GMCD7830
Release: 3 June 2022
Released for this bicentennial year of Cesar Franck’s birth (1822-2022), this recording of the most popular of Franck’s symphonic poems, including Les Djinns and the Symphonic Variations that feature piano, has taken on an additional significance and poignancy with the outbreak of war in the orchestra’s homeland only a few months after these sessions were completed. As a result, Guild will be making a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine appeal for every CD sold.

Vaughan Williams: The Complete Symphonies
The Hallé / Sir Mark Elder
Hallé CDHLD7557 (5 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
This boxed set includes all nine Vaughan Williams symphonies, attractively packaged and released at a special price to mark the occasion of the composer's 150th anniversary. These award-winning performances are accompanied by an extensive booklet, including new material charting the Hallé's historic relationship with Vaughan Williams, and featuring material drawn from the orchestra's archives.

Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos 7 & 9
The Hallé / Sir Mark Elder
Hallé CDHLD7558 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
Premiered by the Hallé under Sir John Barbirolli in 1953, the Sinfonia antartica originated in Vaughan Williams’ score for the film 'Scott of the Antarctic'. With a highly original scoring (including solo soprano, wordless women’s chorus, organ, piano and extensive percussion section), the work depicts the struggle of man over nature, as epitomized in Captain Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. The symphony is characterized with heroic themes, evocative orchestral effects and music which is at turns emotive and powerful. In contrast the Ninth Symphony depicts the more philosophical challenges of mankind. Initially receiving a luke-warm reception it has come to be seen as a work imbued with what Vaughan Williams authority Michael Kennedy described as 'a new richness of sound'. This enigmatic work is scored for standard orchestral forces, with the addition of saxophones and flugelhorn which add orchestral colour. This was the composer's last symphony and was premiered just four months before his death in 1958. In construction it stands as the culmination of his compositional career, with elusive and constantly developing themes and evocative depictions of a wide range of emotions. The symphonies are coupled with two orchestral works, Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 and The Lark Ascending, which were previously released as part of an English music mixed composer collection.

John Cage: Choral Works
Latvian Radio Choir / Sigvards Klava
Ondine ODE 1402-2
Release: 3 June 2022
This new album release by the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Klava on Ondine is devoted to choral works by the legendary American composer and music pioneer John Cage (1912–1992), one of the most iconic figures in twentieth century avant-garde music.

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Ex Tenebris Lux
Pavel Giunter, Rokas Vaitkevicius, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra / Karolis Variakojis
Ondine ODE 1403-2
Release: 3 June 2022
This second Ondine recording of music by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (born 1973) is devoted exclusively to works scored for string orchestra, all of which were composed in the last three years. These works are performed by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, one of the most internationally well-known orchestras from Lithuania, conducted by Karolis Variakojis.

Brahms: Tragic Overture; Variations on a Theme by Haydn; Symphony No 2
National Symphony Orchestra / Rimma Sushanskaya
Quartz QTZ2146
Release: 3 June 2022
This disc of works by Brahms was recorded during the height of covid restrictions whereby social distancing in studios was a requirement for British orchestras, representing huge challenges for both performers and recording engineers alike. The recording is a tribute to the indefatigable efforts of our conductor, musicians, producer Michael Ponder and sound engineer Adaq Khan and the supportive staff at Henry Wood Hall, all who managed to keep the candle burning for music and musicians when almost all artistic activity fell silent.

The Poor Branch – Nineteenth-century guitar music by Ivan Klinger
James Akers
Resonus Classics RES10302
Release: 3 June 2022
Devoted to the music of Ivan Klinger, this album of premiere recordings from guitarist James Akers highlights works from this relatively unknown composer. Klinger’s seeming anonymity belies the composer’s substantial and high-quality oeuvre. Born in 1818 in Seltz near Kherson (today’s Ukraine), Klinger was one of the few guitarists to devote himself to the Western style six-string guitar. Featuring both original compositions and arrangements of other works, Klinger’s playful and serious, virtuosic and challenging music here receives the attention that is long overdue.

Paul Juon: Chamber Music for Viola
Basil Vendryes, Igor Pikayzen, William David
Toccata Classics TOCC 0389
Release: 3 June 2022
Paul Juon was born in Moscow, of Swiss parents, in 1872, studying there with Arensky and Taneyev; Rachmaninov, a fellow student, dubbed him ‘the Russian Brahms’. At the Hochschule der Musik in Berlin, Woldemar Bargiel, Clara Schumann's half-brother, was his main teacher before Juon himself became a respected member of the staff. There are indeed echoes of Brahms in Juon’s early music but there is also a fondness for Russian folksong and a mastery of counterpoint, which all feed into his urgent, late-Romantic lyricism.

Josef Schelb: Chamber Music, Vol 2
Stéphane Réty, Nicolas Cock-Vassiliou, Isabelle Moretti, Alexander Knaak, Jean-Eric Soucy, Denis Zhdanov, Roglit Ishay
Toccata Classics TOCC 0548
Release: 3 June 2022
The Karlsruhe-based Josef Schelb (1894–1977) is one of the better-kept secrets of twentieth-century German music. His output was substantial: he lost most of his early music in a bombing raid in 1942, but – as if to make up for lost time – wrote some 150 more works after that. In the four chamber works recorded here Schelb’s contrapuntal mastery is given a bucolic twist under the influence of French Impressionism, the two traditions combining to invest these pieces with a freewheeling energy and downright sense of fun.

Jan Novák: Orchestral Music, Vol. 1
Alice Rajnohová, Vilém Veverka, Lucie Schinzelová, Kristýna Znamenáčková, Ensemble Opera Diversa, Gabriela Tardonová
Toccata Classics TOCC 0551
Release: 3 June 2022
The music of the Moravian composer Jan Novák (1921–84) – a natural successor to Bohuslav Martinů, with whom he briefly studied – is nothing less than life-enhancing: it has Martinů’s rhythmic charge and his unflagging energy. And although Novák had such difficulties with the authorities in Communist Czechoslovakia that he chose to emigrate, there is an infectious optimism, a joie de vivre, in these three works that is instantly communicative.

Axel Ruoff: Complete Works for Organ, Vol. 3
Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson, Marko Ylönen, Olli-Pekka Tuomisalo, Darren Acosta, Petri Komulainen, Jan Lehtola
Toccata Classics TOCC 0610
Release: 3 June 2022
The organ works of Axel Ruoff, born in Stuttgart in 1957, constitute one of the most important contributions to the literature for the instrument by any composer since Messiaen, with Ruoff often using its unparalleled resources to write music of extraordinary power and dramatic flair. This third volume in Jan Lehtola’s complete recording features the organ in the unusual role of duo partner in chamber music – but it is chamber music conceived on a symphonic scale. Here these five muscular duo works are separated by a series of weighty chorale preludes.

Paul Wranitzky: Works for Oboe
Vilém Veverka, Sylvie Schelingerova, Wranitzky Kapelle , Marek Štilec
ArcoDiva UP0235
Release: 3 June 2022
The new ArcoDiva CD presents oboe music of 'a Moravian in Vienna', Paul Wranitzky (1756-1808). You can enjoy the world premieres of Wranitzky's Works for Oboe, delightfully interpreted by Wranitzky Kapelle (Marek Štilec - conductor). The oboe parts are brilliantly interpreted by Czech oboist Vilém Veverka.

Antonín Dvořák - Unreleased
Tomáš Víšek, piano
ArcoDiva UP0240
Release: 3 June 2022
New unique CD of Dvořák's unreleased pieces. Despite the fact that at the moment there are many recordings of piano works by Antonín Dvořák, for whatever reason some compositions have never been included into these releases. We are now gladly presenting you those pieces for the first time on a publicly released CD. All of the compositions are played by one of the most significant Czech pianists of his generation - Tomáš Víšek.

André Tchaikowsky: Concerto classico; Giya Kancheli: Libera me (Quasi-Requiem)
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Men’s Choir, Ilya Gringolts, Magdalena Schabowska, Andrzej Boreyko, Bartosz Michałowski
CD Accord ACD293
Release: 3 June 2022
'Despite the rather numerous and diverse orchestral line-up, the idea of concertare has a more chamber-like character in André Tchaikowsky's Concerto classico. The soloist is usually not directly confronted with the massive sound of a full orchestral tutti, but rather is involved in dialogues and interactions with small groups of instruments. With exceptional naturalness, André Tchaikowsky managed to achieve in this concerto a balance between solo violin and a full-scale symphony orchestra, employing textures of a linear, quasi-polyphonic character – enriched, however, by intense and refined harmony and contrapuntal devices drawing on the Baroque tradition. In his final composition, the 'Quasi-Requiem' Libera me, written in the Autumn of 2018, Giya Kancheli bypassed the Latin Responsory from the Catholic Office of the Dead which had inspired composers from Verdi and Fauré to Britten and Penderecki. He chose, instead, to freely set words by two of his country’s greatest poets: Vazha-Pshavela (1861–1915) and Galaktion Tabidze (1892–1959). For most of his life, Kancheli had maintained a respectful artistic distance from these Georgian masters, dazzled by their brilliance, by the 'intrinsic musicality' of their poems, loving them too much, in fact, to draw too close. Near the end of his life, however, Kancheli set reticence aside and allowed the sentiments and revelations of Tabidze and Vazha-Pshavela to influence his imagination and guide him to new music. The text of his Libera me is drawn almost entirely from their work, with the exception of the thirteenth verse, written by the composer to form a bridge between the two poets.'- Étienne Dulac

Emil Hartmann: Scandinavian Folk Music – freely arranged for Piano, Op 30, Vol 2
Cathrine Penderup
Danacord DACOCD 936-937 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
Danish pianist Cathrine Penderup herself made a detective work locating all the solo piano works plus several unpublished manuscripts by the Danish late romantic composer Emil Hartmann. The music is very well constructed for the piano and is full of beautiful tunes and harmonies. Volume 1 had all the original works for solo piano and in this final volume 2 is the first recording of the Scandinavian Folk Music, Op 30, a collection of danses and melodies arranged for solo piano. A release not to be missed.

Poetic Narratives - works by Frédéric Chopin
Viacheslav Apostel-Pankratowsky, piano
Genuin Classics GEN22558
Release: 3 June 2022
He was the king of the piano, and his homeland was the land of poetry: Frédéric Chopin. And a new Genuin CD by Viacheslav Apostel-Pankratowsky is dedicated to his compositions. The young pianist has chosen a fine selection of nocturnes and waltzes, prefacing them like an overture, so to speak, with the famous Military Polonaise. The carefully thought-out program takes us on a poetic journey through Chopin's world; tonal relationships create new perspectives and approaches to seemingly well-known works. Apostel-Pankratowsky's fine piano playing traces the intricacies of these incredible miniatures with extreme precision and detail!

Songs of Rain
Karolina Errera, Lilit Grigoryan
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, John Dowland, Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev, Johannes Brahms
Genuin Classics GEN22769
Release: 3 June 2022
A cloudy sky and raindrops beating on the window: this itself is practically music, and for centuries, the sound of rain from the clouds has inspired not only painters but also poets and composers. On her debut Genuin CD, violist Karolina Errera and her piano partner Lilit Grigoryan present a selection of highly emotional music from John Dowland to Benjamin Britten. The prizewinner of numerous international competitions has placed a wide range of original works and arrangements on the program of this CD – moving works that are best suited by both the warm sound of viola and piano, as well as the playing culture of the two interpreters!

Rudolf Moser: Works for String Orchestra
Marc Lachat, oboe; Chamber Orchestra I TEMPI / Gevorg Gharabekyan
Genuin Classics GEN22773
Release: 3 June 2022
With its third CD on the Genuin label, the dynamic chamber orchestra I TEMPI brings an unjustly forgotten Swiss composer into the limelight. Rudolf Moser, the pupil of Max Reger and teacher and artistic partner of Paul Sacher, created a manifold oeuvre in numerous genres. I TEMPI, an ensemble that performs each work using appropriate, authentic instruments, now presents works by Moser for strings, including pieces featuring the oboe and the harpsichord. Both combinations lead to distinctive timbres, and conductor Gevorg Gharabekyan leads his musicians with prudence and delicacy. Moreover, the orchestra has an equal partner and soloist with the young, multiple award-winning oboist Marc Lachat!

Scent of a Dream
Ivan Galić
Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Ivo Maček
Genuin Classics GEN22780
Release: 3 June 2022
The young, aspiring pianist Ivan Galić carries us off into a world of dreams on his debut Genuin CD. Rarely heard works by the Croatian composer Ivo Maček are heard alongside incredible repertoire by Schubert and Brahms. Ivo Maček's music, with its subdued and sensual sound of classical modernism, fits well with the works of the two Romantics: Galić earns great merit by raising the flag for this qualitative and gripping music! He plays the late works of the idiosyncratic Brahms just as he plays the worldly Schubert with remarkable clarity and transparency.

petite MORT
Natalia Labourdette, Victoria Guerrero
Alban Berg, Gabriel Fauré, Samuel Barber, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Francis Poulenc, Joaquín Turina
Genuin Classics GEN22782
Release: 3 June 2022
Natalie Labourdette (soprano) and Victoria Guerrero (piano) make up an internationally award-winning art song duo that has released its debut CD on Genuin. The tracklist includes twentieth century vocal music based around the experience of 'la petite mort', as the French language refers to the climax of lovemaking. This is an existential experience, the desire to 'linger', deep loneliness, and happy union! Alban Berg, Gabriel Fauré, Samuel Barber and other great composers of classical modernism created miniature masterpieces – and the two young musicians dedicate themselves to this repertoire with a great sense of tonal color and interpretive clarity!

Missing Link: Emilie Mayer
Newly discovered piano trios
Klaviertrio Hannover: Katharina Sellheim, Łucja Madziar, Johannes Krebs
Genuin Classics GEN22790
Release: 3 June 2022
The Klaviertrio Hannover lands a real coup with its world premiere recording of three piano trios by the composer Emilie Mayer, who has long received too little attention! The works, newly discovered by the ensemble's pianist Katharina Sellheim and specially edited by the trio based on manuscripts, rank with the great piano trios of the nineteenth century. They are works by a composer whose symphonies were performed throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century and whose work secured her a firm place in the contemporary music world. Through its editorial work and inspired interpretation of these three trios, the Hannover Piano Trio provides an essential piece of the puzzle to complete our understanding of the Romantic era!

Goethe Project
Ute Ziemer, Hiroko Imai
Robert Schumann, Josephine Lang, Enjott Schneider, Amy Beach, Anton Webern, Edvard Grieg, Dorothea Hofmann, Giuseppe Verdi, Alban Berg, Richard Wagner, Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Johann Xaver Sterkel, J. M. Kränzle, Fanny Hensel, Richard Strauss
Gramola 99246
Release: 3 June 2022
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was not only one of the greatest and most important of the German poets, but without doubt also the one whose lyrics were most frequently set to music. The album 'Goethe Project' by the German soprano Ute Ziemer and pianist Hiroko Imai provides a lasting impression of the diversity of composers who used Goethe's works as the basis for songs. In addition to popular composers such as Schumann, Grieg, Schubert, Verdi, Strauss, Wolf or Wagner, there are also barely performed works by Amy Beach, Johann Xaver Sterkel, Fanny Hensel, Josephine Lang, Anton Webern or Alban Berg. Even to this day, Goethe continues to fascinate composers as a poet, as shown by the songs dedicated to Ute Ziemer by Enjott Schneider (born 1950), Dorothea Hofmann (born 1961) and Johannes Martin Kränzle (born 1962), which were recorded for the first time for this CD.

Brahms: The Piano Trios
Thomas Albertus Irnberger, Lilya Zilberstein, David Geringas
Gramola 99251 (2 SACDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
For this complete recording of Johannes Brahms' piano trios, the internationally successful Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger chose his usual top-class ensemble partners. Irnberger has long had an intense artistic friendship with the versatile cellist David Geringas, who, like the Russian-born pianist Lilya Zilberstein, can point to a number of CD recordings that are as long as they are impressive. The Piano Trio No 1 in B major Op 8 can be heard here in the revised version, which closes the time gap of almost 25 years to the other two trios (No 2 in C major Op 87 and No 3 in C minor Op 101), since the revision took place after the completion of these works and thus at the peak of Brahmsian compositional art. For the Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano in A minor Op 114, Brahms envisaged the viola as an alternative instrumentation from the very beginning, which is mastered by Irnberger as brilliantly as the violin.

Stanley Grill: And the Song stands bright
Nicholas Spanos, Lisa Rombach, Pandolfis Consort
Gramola 99254
Release: 3 June 2022
The American composer Stanley Grill was strongly influenced in his writing by his passion for music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He has already had a long-standing collaboration with Pandolfis Consort, since a number of his works were dedicated to the ensemble which was founded by the violist Elzbieta Sajka-Bachler. The album 'And the Song stands bright' of Pandolfis Consort presents some works by the composer, who was born in New York in 1954. In a changing line-up with the soprano Lisa Rombach and the countertenor Nicholas Spanos, songs and song cycles based on poems mainly by R M Rilke, but also Heinrich Heine, Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger and Rose Ausländer are interpreted. In addition to these vocal works, there are also three Songs without Words for two violas, violoncello and theorbo on this recording.

Made in Vienna
Bogdan Laketic
Joseph Haydn, Arnold Schönberg, Franz Liszt, Dirk D'Ase
Gramola 99264
Release: 3 June 2022
The accordion has long had a reputation as an instrument for folk music and of street musicians. Its technical and cultural evolutioncan be neatly traced from its very invention in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in his apartment on Vienna’s Mariahilfer Straße, No 43, to this day. The accordionist Bogdan Laketic, who lives in Vienna, dedicates his debut album 'Made in Vienna' to this, 'his' city, choosing works by composers who are also directly connected with Vienna. Thus, the Sonatas for Piano in A flat major, Hob XVI:46 and in E minor, Hob XVI:34 by Joseph Haydn, the Six little Piano Pieces Op 19 by Arnold Schoenberg and the Soirées de Vienne, S 427 No 6 by Franz Liszt are interpreted in his own arrangements. Also based in Vienna is the Belgian composer Dirk D'Ase, who in 2011 composed Figuren/Induktionen, in which the diversity of the accordion's sound once again comes into play.

Nachtschattengewächse (Nightshades)
Stefan Neubauer, Severin Neubauer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Gerald Resch, Dora Cojocaru, Yuki Morimoto, Severin Neubauer, Zdzislaw Wysocki, René Staar, Francis Poulenc, Gregory Wanamaker
Gramola 99271
Release: 3 June 2022
Under the title 'Nachtschattengewächse', the Duo Neubauer with Stefan Neubauer, clarinet, and Severin Neubauer, saxophone presents both well-known and new works which reflect all that is abysmal and inscrutable of the night in art, especially in music. 'Life starts when fear ends', is what Severin Neubauer wrote beneath the score of Rush, in which he depicts various states of anxiety. Life will be wonderful again once the fears dissipate. Yet, on closer inspection, neither such ostensibly gloomy titles as 'Repast' (Yuki Morimoto), 'Elegie' (Gregory Wanamaker), 'Shadow' (Dora Cojocaru), and 'Moon' (Gerald Resch), nor the aforementioned fears turn out anything near as dark as one might think. Instead, they are transformed into a beacon of light for all things new, which come in the shapes of a bouquet, the Blumenstrauß ('Hanataba'), a reunion (Réunion 2), and an upbeat dance tune (Francis Poulenc). Night leads to day. That’s life! In that spirit, let’s celebrate life – and while we’re at it, let’s celebrate the night, too! - Stefan Neubauer

Cello on Fire
Peter Hudler, cello
Giovanni Sollima, Giuseppe dall‘Abaco, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ernst Reijseger, Pēteris Vasks, Sulkhan Tsintsadse, Svante Henryson, Claude Debussy
Gramola 99272
Release: 3 June 2022
The program put together by the Viennese cellist Peter Hudler for his album 'Cello on Fire' aims to create a space for passion, freedom, but also for poetry that the cello can express more than almost any other instrument. This spark of passion can be ignited in all sorts of styles and genres, as this bridge between folk, classical, jazz and crossover perfectly illustrates. So it happens that a movement of a Bach suite for solo cello stands next to Syrinx by Claude Debussy, a Baroque Capriccio by Giuseppe dall'Abaco next to a piece by the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks. In between there are Celtic and Scottish folk songs, a Spanish Fandango, but also pieces like Kiev 3 by John Zorn and Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix. An important part is dedicated to the so-called Contemporary Cello, whose best-known representatives – the Italian Giovanni Sollima, the Swede Svante Henryson and the Dutchman Ernst Reijseger – come into their own with some of their original compositions and express the proverbial burning for their instrument – just like Hudler himself – sometimes with virtuosity, sometimes with experimental techniques and improvisations.

Erwin Schulhoff: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra Op 11; Der Buerger als Edelmann
Michael Rische, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln / Israel Yinon; Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Gerd Albrecht
Hänssler Classic HC21042
Release: 3 June 2022
Another discovery of the internat ionally renowned pianist Michael Rische, with which he significantly enriches the musical life. Erwin Schulhoff went through many stages in his emergence as pianist and composer. Antonin Dvorak recommended the seven-year-old to the conservatory of his native city of Prague, then at 14 the boy moved to Leipzig to learn composition from Max Reger. While there, he gained valuable insights into the piano from Robert Teichmüller. In the last years of his course of study (from 1911) Schulhoff moved yet again, this time to the Cologne Conservatory, where his teachers were Fritz Steinbach for composition and Carl Friedberg for piano. Immediately upon graduating in 1913, Schulhoff succeeded in obtaining a few lessons from a normally student-shy Claude Debussy.

Hans Heller: Piano Works and Songs
Jascha Nemtsow, Tehila Nini Goldstein
Hänssler Classic HC22002
Release: 3 June 2022
After Hans Heller's death on 9 December 1969, and after the end of Ingrid Heller's pianistic career, his name disappeared altogether from the music scene. To this day, his oeuvre has been largely ignored by musicological research. It is to be hoped that Hans Heller's work will soon be finally accorded the recognition it deserves, both on the German and international music scene. His musical quality and originality, his humanistic message and its contemporary relevance are the best preconditions for that to come about.

Haydn 26
Symphonies Nos 107, 11, 32, 15
Heidelberger Sinfoniker / Johannes Klumpp
Hänssler Classic HC22019
Release: 3 June 2022
The chronological journey through Haydn's surviving symphonies, which began with Vol 25, continues with Symphony No 107. Composed around 1760/61, this is a work from Haydn's early days, before his time at Esterházy Palace. It was undoubtedly commissioned by Count Morzin - Haydn's employer at the time. This CD is a 'journey with Haydn' from his time in the service of Count Morzin to his days at Esterházy. Symphony No 15 marks his arrival at this destination.

Prussian Blue – Flute music at the court of Frederick the Great
Sophia Aretz, Alexander von HeiBen
Friedrich der GroBe, Johann Joachim Quantz, Anna Amalia von PreuBen, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Hänssler Classic HC22024
Release: 3 June 2022
The soul of the aggrieved monarch was undoubtedly interesting. It is also interesting that there is, so to speak, a guiding 'Ariadne's thread' running through the labyrinthine trials and tribulations of Frederick's life and suffering: a unique passion that he discovered at a young age and never forgot throughout his life: it is the love of music, especially the love of playing the 'flûte traversière'.

Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Gottfried Walther
Concerto Transcriptions
Dónal McCann
Novum NCR 1395
Release: 3 June 2022
This debut recording from Dónal McCann on the organ of New College Oxford explores Bach's relationship with the music of his German and Italian contemporaries. Vivaldi's first major collection of concertos, L'Estro armonico, took Europe by storm in the early part of the eighteenth century, and this disc shows how Bach responded to this new and exotic Venetian voice. Bach's professional and personal life also entwined with his German contemporary, Johann Gottfried Walter, both men sharing an interest in transcription and moving in the professional world of Weimar court music. By focusing on transcription, this disc offers a unique insight into the compositional practices of both men by comparing their responses to Vivaldi. And it also asks fundamental questions about the creative nature of transcriptions: are they tools for education, performance opportunities, or the creative response of one composer to the works of another? This is virtuoso repertoire rarely heard, and performed with dazzling skill by Dónal McCann, on the iconic organ of New College Oxford, whose resources and colours are ideally suited to this repertoire.

George Enescu: Impressions d'enfance
Ensemble Raro, Gilles Apap, Anna-Liisa Bezrodny, Diana Ketler
Solo Musica SM396
Release: 3 June 2022
Impressions d'enfance, Ensemble Raro and Gilles Apap's new CD recording, is dedicated to chamber music works of George Enescu. Piano Quintet in D is one of his earliest compositions. Written in 1896 at the age of fifteen during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, it is certainly inspired by Brahms' chamber works. Enescu himself confessed about Brahms' enormous influence on his development : 'the God of my youthful adoration is Brahms and I wrote my early works in the style of the immortal Johannes in an almost flagrant way'. The Quintet was premiered in 1897, in Enescu's first recital of his own works in Paris at the age of sixteen; Massenet and Cortot were in the audience. The two charming works for Piano and String Trio, Aubade and Serenade Lointaine, illustrate the point that Enescu's beloved teacher Gabriel Fauré expressed very beautifully: 'the greatest technical ability is not worth anything without poetry'. Even in the cleverly constructed short piece Hommage for Piano, which is based on a motive representing the letters of Fauré's name, the poetic, dreamy quality prevails. Enescu's late masterpiece Impressions d'enfance for Violin and Piano takes us back to the very first occasion when three year old George heard a street fiddler for the very first time. Impressions is an evocation of a childhood through a sequence of dreams, memories, imperceptible sensations and sounds. It results in one of Enescu's most glorious climaxes where the old fiddler's tune merges with cosmic piano harmony and the the noble, healing force of music triumphs over all. In Enescu's own words: a man always 'carries the music in himself. In the loneliness of the mountains and plains, it is his comrade; it calms his fears, it helps him sing his dor, that inexpressible nostalgia that breaks his soul'.

Piano transcriptions of Schubert and Wagner
Jean-Nicolas Diatkine
Franz Schubert, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt
Solo Musica SM399
Release: 3 June 2022
Some of Jean-Nicolas Diatkine's singer friends have ended their careers, but their magic is irreplaceable in his eyes, or rather in his ears. He misses them, just as he misses the Schubert, Schumann and Brahms songs they sang. Well, there is only one person who can compensate for this loss, and his name is Franz Liszt. The main aim of transcriptions was to make orchestral works known to a wider audience, at a time when there were far fewer orchestras, and public access to symphony concerts was very limited. But Liszt gives transcriptions a new meaning: he puts the orchestra into the piano, since his style is particularly suited to outsized extravagance. Thus, he opens up unprecedented pianistic possibilities, where virtuosity is no longer mere exhibitionism but rather transformed into the art of illusion. His arrangements of Wagner are so convincing that they become his own personal creations. Laurent Bessières, piano tuner at the Paris Philharmonic, suggested for this recording a Schiedmayer piano of 1916 made in Stuttgart, which he had completely rebuilt in collaboration with Antoine Letessier-Salmon, director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and Stephen Paulello, piano maker and inventor of the strings that bear his name. This instrument has almost never been used in concert, however excellent work by Laurent Bessières convinced us to try it out in this very special repertoire.

Franz Schubert: Winterreise
Gerhard Siegel, Gabriel Dobner
Stone Records 5060192781199
Release: 3 June 2022
The internationally-renowned German tenor Gerhard Siegel is joined by acclaimed pianist Gabriel Dobner to produce this wonderful performance of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise. Detailing the despair of a broken heart, the songs trace the singer’s decline as he takes his winter journey away from the house of his beloved towards a void of desperation. Gerhard is a singer ideally equipped to portray such a dramatic scenario in song. He has sung much of the German operatic repertoire, including roles by Wagner, Berg and Richard Strauss, with a dramatic intensity and precision that has made him one of the most in-demand tenors of his generation. In his native Germany he has sung at opera houses in Berlin, Munich, Köln, Bayreuth and Dresden, and internationally he has performed in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Montpellier, Vienna, Bregenz, Salzburg, Zurich, Geneva, Madrid, Amsterdam and Tokyo.

Giovanni Antonio Piani: 12 Sonate a Violino solo e Violoncello col Cimbalo opera prima, Parigi 1712
Labirinto Armonico, Pierluigi Mencattini, Galileo di Ilio, Matteo Coticoni, Sergio Basilico, Francesco Savorelli, Walter D'arcangelo, Stefania Di Giuseppe
Tactus TC 671690 (2 CDs)
Release: 3 June 2022
Poised between the Italian and French styles, the Piani sonatas are accompanied by various graphic marks on the score that the composer is using for suggesting dynamic expressions or articulations as explained within the 'Avvertimenti' (Warnings) addressed to the performer, and to which the Ensemble 'Labirinto Armonico', led by Pierluigi Mencattini, pays the correct attention for obtaining an interpretation that fully respects the intentions of the author.

Antonio Bazzini: String Quartets Nos. 2, 4, 5
Quartetto Bazzini
Tactus TC 810204
Release: 3 June 2022
With this album the Quartetto Bazzini completes the recording of Bazzini's string quartets (originally printed in the nineteenth century) started in 2018 with the previous CD. The new album includes quartets No 2, No 4 and No 5, shorter than the monumental No 1 and No 3 of the previous CD, and testifies - as the composer Arrigo Boito reminds us - a great intelligence by years of performances and studying of the great German quartets, an experience that allowed him to remain, unlike many contemporaries, independent of the dominant melodramatic context.

Diego Conti: Musica per violino e percussioni
Laura Marzadori, Laura Mancini, Gianni Maestrucci
Tactus TC 950303
Release: 3 June 2022
In this new album by violinist and composer Diego Conti, the minimalist ensemble (violin and percussion) becomes a mean and a pretext to search new effects in the simplest and most primordial forms of sound. The extreme contrast between the frequencies, the timbres and the different 'attacks' of the sounds of the instruments create atmospheres with which the composer gives life to imaginary planets.

Wolfgang Rihm: Grat / Edge
Friedrich Gauwerky, Alexandra Greffin-Klein, Axel Porath, Florian Uhlig
Wergo WER 74022
Release: 3 June 2022
Wolfgang Rihm is one of the world’s most performed and prolific composers. In 1972, he not only graduated from high school but also completed Germany’s state examinations for composition and music theory. Rihm and the cellist Friedrich Gauwerky (who is one year older) met in 1968 when they were roommates for a week at a competition for young musicians in Erlangen. This was the beginning of a life-long friendship. Gauwerky has performed his friend’s music throughout his career, especially the “wild and unbridled” virtuoso solo work, “Grat”. Like Rihm, Friedrich Gauwerky quickly became an internationally celebrated star: as a soloist for works by the New Complexity composers and also as a member of distinguished ensembles such as Ensemble Modern (as principal cellist) and the Elision Ensemble in Australia. Gauwerky has taught at a number of German music universities as well as at the Darmstadt Summer Courses. Gauwerky says of his friend Wolfgang Rihm, “As a composer he almost always comes up with something unexpected, unpredictable, and new. This may be because he is so open and curious, unlike some composers who continue to churn out the same material because they once had success with it. I have tried to illustrate the broad spectrum of his compositional activity with the works on this CD.” To celebrate Wolfgang Rihm’s 70th birthday on 13 March 2022, Gauwerky recorded a very personal tribute to his friend in the studios of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne, including an early unpublished and never-recorded string trio influenced by Alban Berg’s lyrical twelve-tone writing.

J S Bach: The Cello Suites, Vol 1 – Suites, 1, 2 & 5
Lynden Cranham
Willowhayne Records WHR075
Release: 3 June 2022
Lynden Cranham's earliest memories of Bach were overwhelming, sitting in the huge and resonant space of Westminster Cathedral listening to an organ recital. She subsequently became fascinated (as a listener and a player) by the Bach Cello Suites. It was especially poignant for Lynden, as part of the orchestra during John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, not only to play near the font where Bach had been baptised, in the Georgenkirche in Eisenach, but also to play in Köthen, where he probably composed the Cello Suites. The idea of recording the Suites had been at the back of her mind for most of her career, and when playing part of one of them in a chamber-music concert a few years ago she realised that she'd found an ideal venue for doing such a recording: the beautiful small church of St Peter and St Mary in Fishbourne, West Sussex, complete with its warm, intimate acoustic. As one concert after another was cancelled it gradually became clear to the recording engineer, the producer and myself that, dire as this situation was, it provided the perfect opportunity to begin recording the Suites. So, braving the cold (and maintaining strict social distancing), Suites 1 and 2 were recorded in the church in December 2020. Soon after that, in April 2021, Suite No. 5 was recorded in its original scordatura version; this needed to be recorded alone, as in that way Lynden was able to keep the cello with the A string tuned down to G. Those three Suites make an interesting contrast – the first two relatively conventional in sonority, the fifth introducing something entirely different.

Scenes in Tin Can Alley
Piano music by Florence Price
Josh Tatsuo Cullen, piano
Blue Griffin Records BGR615
Release: 3 June 2022
Josh Tatsuo Cullen: 'I chose these works not only because they deserve to be heard, but because they spoke to me as an artist. As a person of mixed Japanese and European descent, I feel a strong connection to Price’s desire to honor and elevate the marginalized people of her own mixed-race heritage personified in Scenes in Tin Can Alley, Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman, and Three Miniature Portraits of Uncle Ned.' The composer Florence Price (1887–1953) is the first African-American woman to have an orchestral piece played by a major American orchestra: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor in 1933. Born in Little Rock, Ark., and educated at the New England Conservatory, her career blossomed after she moved to Chicago in 1927. Her music received widespread recognition beginning in the 1930s. Price wrote over 300 works, and her arrangements of spirituals were often performed by Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price and other singers.

 

27 MAY 2022

Battle Cry: She Speaks
Helen Charlston, Toby Carr
Delphian Records DCD34283
Release: 27 May 2022
Delphian Records bring you Helen Charlston’s gripping recital ‘Battle Cry: She Speaks’, which seeks to re-balance epic stories from the female perspective. Partnering with lutenist Toby Carr in Crichton Collegiate Church - a space in which magic happens, Helen’s voice translates music from Purcell to Owain Park into aural Gold.

Precious Things: Choral Music by Bernard Hughes
The Epiphoni Consort
Delphian Records DCD34289
Release: 27 May 2022
The Epiphoni Consort bring us a new choral voice in May as they present 'Precious Things: Choral Music by Bernard Hughes'. This choir's trademark luxuriant sound sits perfectly with a composer for whom effortless musical style grows naturally out of the provenance of his commissions and their chosen texts.

Pause (almost equal to) Play
Akira Kosemura
UMG Japan
Release: 27 May 2022
Renowned composer/pianist Akira Kosemura's new EP Pause (almost equal to) Play is a collaborative project with acclaimed fashion house TAKAHIROMIYASHITATheSoloist and contains four pieces which were featured in their 2022 Spring & Summer collection. Recorded with a string quartet, the EP showcases the diversity and dynamics of Kosemura's musical talent.

Figments Vol 3
Jacob E Goodman, Gary D Belshaw, Andrew Lewinter, Thomas Mann Jr, Elliott Miles McKinley, Eleanor Alberga
Navona Records NV6419
Release: 27 May 2022
The imaginations of composers Jacob E Goodman, Gary D Belshaw, Andrew Lewinter, Thomas Mann Jr, Elliott Miles McKinley and Eleanor Alberga are brought to life in a dynamic breadth of emotional performances, from soothing to exhilarating and natural to mythical. A dynamic assortment of contemporary chamber music, fantasy and reality collide to bring forth exhilarating stories spanning scenes from Greek Mythology to those of spirited animals and surreal scenic portraits. Universal melodies and rhythms find their form, short sketches evoke seasonal qualities, and fantasies float into reality in this collection.

Last Notes
Eric Biddington
Navona Records NV6431
Release: 27 May 2022
An album tracing the musical footprint of composer Eric Biddington's compositional history through revived works of the past. Some written nearly thirty years ago, the unearthed gems featured on this album speak in a fresh tone, effusing elegance and thoughtfulness across varied orchestrations and moods. From the tender sentiments teeming in Peace for Julie to the playful nature of A Little Dance and his deeply moving passages for bassoon and piano, Biddington covers a wide gamut of expression in these chamber works.

Michael Murray - Passages
Navona Records
Release: 27 May 2022
Passages brings the words of iconic 19th and 20th century poets to life through stirring music for solo soprano and instruments. Murray has selected poetry from the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Walt Whitman, with poems detailing childhood adventure, hope, and tragedy. Celebrated soprano Genevieve Fulks performs throughout; most of the music heard on the album was written specifically with her voice in mind. Murray’s music has been lauded for its meticulously crafted yet ultimately approachable style. Through familiar themes and time-honored poetry, Murray invites listeners to engage with, and even be challenged by, this collection of thoughtful compositions.

Beethoven: String Quartet No 15, Op 132; String Quartet No 16, Op 135
Ehnes Quartet
Onyx ONYX4227
Release: 27 May 2022
This is the final volume in the series of Beethoven recordings from the Ehnes Quartet.

Solitude
Joo Yeon Sir, violin
Rubicon RCD1076
Release: 27 May 2022
Solitude was the state I found myself in, along with the rest of the world, in March 2020. Concerts were suddenly postponed indefinitely and, like so many other musicians, I was left by myself at home. Lockdown was, for me, a time of self-reflection, discovery and growth. With recital and concerto programmes no longer on my mind, and being separated from my fellow musicians, I turned to solo violin repertoire, to new works and also revisited my favourite classics. These pieces became my new companions in this strange and disrupted world, and form the basis of this new recording. Whilst on my way to the first recording session for this album, I was taken aback by the vast emptiness as I walked through an unusually deserted London. It felt strangely unfamiliar to be leaving home with my violin again – and what a sense of purpose I suddenly felt! The recording process felt also particularly intense and offered a welcome release for some of the emotions that I had been suppressing for a long time during the pandemic. It is relatively rare for violinists to appear completely alone. We find ourselves more often in the company of a duo partner, a chamber ensemble, or with an orchestra. Despite the single-mindedness attributed to the soloist in our imagination, musicians enjoy the extra support of fellow musicians as much as they need it. A solo recital is a fundamentally different experience. Being on stage on your own can be absolutely frightening, but it also presents a different degree of freedom and responsibility. I think that the experience of complete solitude can be linked to the situation composers encounter, envisioning their creation to be performed and brought to life by others while writing it down on a blank page – a collective endeavour that seeks active engagement from the performer and the audience. Listeners play a vital role, and it is during their private listening to a recording that they get to meet both composers and performers. This pandemic imposed an uncharted level of solitude on most of us, and it is my hope that this album can be the medium through which we get to meet in our current circumstances. The programme presented in my new recording aims to create new companions from a wide range of times and styles: the classics of the solo violin repertoire by Biber, Paganini, Kreisler and Ysaÿe sit alongside contemporary works by Roxanna Panufnik, Fazil Say, Laura Snowden and myself. Laura Snowden, a close friend, composed Through the Fog specifically for this album, with the theme of solitude in mind, and it receives its world premiere here. Inspired by the love letters sent between Chris Barker and Bessie Moore during the Second World War, my own piece, My Dear Bessie explores three primary emotions: longing, fear and hope. The wartime separation endured by Chris and Bessie is in many ways parallel to our own recent experience – something reinforced by Her Majesty The Queen in her speech in April 2020, which ended with a nod to Vera Lynn’s evergreen 1939 song, We’ll Meet Again, a song that provided the groundwork for my own composition.

NEO
Oda Voltersvik, piano
Rubicon RCD1059
Release: 27 May 2022
Scriabin: Fantasy in B minor, Op 28; Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No 2 in D minor, Op 14; Shostakovich: Piano Sonata No 2 in B minor, Op 64; Gubaidulina: Chaconne

Laudon Schuett: Dedications: New Works for the Lute
Laudon Schuett, lute
Navona Records NV6422
Release: 27 May 2022
from early music specialist and lutenist Laudon Schuett celebrates the history of the lute while contributing fresh music to the instrument’s centuries-old repertoire. In this album, Schuett imagines himself a well-traveled and long-lived lutenist, composing and performing works that range in period and style; some pieces may sound Italian from the 1530s while others sound English from the 1590s. Schuett’s performances include contrapuntal fantasies, dances, and grounds, giving listeners the chance to more fully understand the instrument’s history and sheer versatility. In Dedications: New Works for the Lute, Schuett is both a performer and an educator, opening up the world of early music for connoisseurs and new fans alike.

Fading Sounds - Guitar music of Georges Raillard
David William Ross, guitar
Navona Records NV6426
Release: 27 May 2022
Composer Georges Raillard turns a creative eye towards the simple wonders of the world with a deep appreciation for the fleetingness of each moment. The aptly titled album presents ten works for solo guitar, each of which take full advantage of the instrument's tone and timbre. As the pieces conjure images and memories of landscapes, experiences, and thoughts, every cheerful chord, harmonic passage, and lyrical progression inevitably ends with a haunting resonance that leaves the ear wanting more. The compositions are dexterously played by guitarist David William Ross, whose gentle confidence on the instrument lets Raillard's musical ideas ring out with clarity and precision.

 


21 MAY 2022

John Cage: Music for [4] (1984)
Zeitgeist: Jay Johnson and Joseph Holmquist, percussion ; Robert Samarotto, clarinet and saxophone; Gregory Theisen, piano
Neuma Records (digital/Bandcamp only)
Release: 21 May 2022
Spirits change with the times but, in the case of Zeitgeist new music ensemble, some elements have stayed constant over the last 45 years: their quartet instrumentation (always keyboard, reeds, two percussion) and their commitment to exploring what’s just around the musical corners. Having commissioned over 400 works (from icons to unknowns), St. Paul-based Zeitgeist’s broad repertoire for its idiosyncratic combo chronicles American musical ideas in many stripes and shades, and is as relevant today as ever. So it’s high time to revisit a concert they gave with John Cage (1912-1992) in Croatia in 1985. This was the occasion of the premiere of Music For [the title completed by the number of players in the group, in this case, 4]. Zeitgeist had commissioned the work with three other groups — the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Cincinnati Percussion Group – and this was its international premiere at the illustrious Zagreb Biennale. There is no full score, just precisely notated, but loosely synched, parts. This kind of coincidental polyphony parallels the way Cage was working with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. It banked on serendipity as much as it saved on group rehearsal time. During that April evening, Cage also, in his own inimitable way, performed two of his new text works, Mushroom et Variationes and Muoyce (involving some of his favorite topics, mushroom hunting and Finnegans Wake). In the spirit of authenticity, these have been randomly recombined with the instrumental music for the present thirty-minute recording. The result is an incantatory, haunting, wistful, linguistic-tonal-melodic mix; mysteriously both of its time and out of it.

 


20 MAY 2022

Live From Vienna
phil Blech Wien, Olivier Latry, Anton Mittermayr
UMG Austria
Release: 20 May 2022
In April 2019, the brass ensemble phil Blech Wien joined forces with Olivier Latry to present an extraordinary program chosen to bring the tradition of Viennese sound to a wider appreciation through the merging of two sound worlds. After a hugely successful first performance in the sold-out Kulturpalast Dresden with its new Eule organ, the concert was repeated and recorded a week later in the Great Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna: Olivier Latry on the 6,138-pipe, 81-stop Rieger organ and the 17 other musicians create an atmosphere with the beauty and power normally associated with large orchestras.

David Tudor: Rainforest IV
Composers Inside Electronics
Neuma Records
Release: 20 May 2022
2023 will be a special anniversary in certain circles.  It will have been 50 years since pianist-turned-composer, David Tudor, passed on the concept of his renowned Rainforest work to participants at a summer new music festival in New Hampshire. There, in a barn in bucolic Chocorua, a group of eager young musicians, composers, circuit benders, and maverick solderers learned Rainforest. Rather than signifying an end — letting go of his five-year touring performances of creating music by amplifying tiny tabletop objects for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company to dance to — Tudor ended up germinating his own family of collaborators that grew into Composers Inside Electronics (CIE).

Impressions of Spain
The Great Necks Guitar Trio
Albéniz, Ravel, Granados, Turina, Falla
Navona Records NV6430
Release: 20 May 2022
This critically acclaimed guitar trio enchants and excites with their performance of Spanish-influenced works from master composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Arranged and adapted for guitar trio by Gregg Nestor, the unexplored repertoire of five composers cascades across guitar frets in this recording, communicating themes of love, poetry and literature, spanish dance, and the spirit of Spain itself through music. Experience the works of Isaac Albéniz, Maurice Ravel, Enrique Granados, Joaquín Turina, and Manuel de Falla through a new and virtuosic voice.

Ji Liu: Sonata Fantasy, The Book of Moments
Ji Liu, piano
Heresy Records (digital)
Release: 20 May 2022
Epic eighteen-hour piano work 'Sonata Fantasy, The Book of Moments' composed & performed by Steinway Artist Ji Liu honoring frontline pandemic workers. 'Sonata Fantasy, The Book of Moments' which premiered live from 7am on 31 December 2020, until 1am on 1 January 2021 in Qinhuangdao, a town on the east coast of China at the Wave Lounge, Seatopia Cultural Community, concurrently streamed live on YouTube.  Recipient of Guinness World Record’s longest officially released instrumental work, the young Chinese artist is recognized as one of his generation's foremost concert pianists and is also active as a composer.  Ji Liu holds a PhD from Kings College, London in music composition and performance. The Book of Moments is structurally a Sonata Fantasy, comprised of twenty-one chapters with an exposition, development, recapitulation and a coda bridging contemporary/new classical and minimalism forms.  Sections where the pianist is free to improvise on the thematic musical material are also present.  Throughout the 18 hour and 9-minute-long piece, the listener perceives unstructured open chorale endings with long silences and pauses that reveal their unfinished form.  These contrast with those chapters with finite and complete endings, while seamlessly connecting and retaining their own musical attributes. The studio recording presented here was recorded on 29 and 30 May 2021 at the Concert Hall of Shenzhen University.

Ottoman Splendours
Lamia Yared, Ensemble Oraciones
Analekta
Release: 20 May 2022
Inspired by classical music from the Middle East, singer and musician Lamia Yared invites us to discover the universe of Sephardic, Greek and Turkish songs all the way from Spain to Turkey with this second album, Ottoman Splendours, accompanied by the quartet which she is a member of, the Oraciones ensemble. Born in Lebanon, Lamia Yared  lives in Montreal. Passionate about classical Arabic, Ottoman and Persian music, she has trained over 16 years with renowned masters of music and singing in Lebanon, Greece and Turkey. She was thus able to deepen her knowledge of oriental singing and her practice of the oud.  Accompanied by musicians and groups from various cultures, Lamia Yared has a vast repertoire of songs from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Turkey. Since 2014, she performs regularly in the Maisons de la Culture in Montreal, and in prestigious festivals, such as the Vancouver Island Festival, Caravan World Rhythms, Sunfest, Accès Asie, the Festival du Monde Arabe in Montreal, the Festival des Traditions du monde de Sherbrooke ...

Carl Vine Complete Piano Sonatas
Xiaoya Liu, piano
Dynamic CDS7931
Release: 20 May 2022

The Lost Art of Frances Cole
Parnassus PRN 96080
Release: 20 May 2022
The untimely death of harpsichordist Frances Cole at age forty-five in 1983 came as a shock to the Baroque music community in New York City and the vicinity. Cole had rapidly gained a high reputation among harpsichordists and other musicians in her field. She had served for a time as a music commentator on the long-running television series ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ and made two appearances during which she played her instrument on ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ a landmark television program for children.  She taught at Westminster Choir College and Queens College. Her late colleague Kenneth Cooper called her "a superb player. Fran was a spicy, adventurous and unconventional lady, sharp-witted and very generous, much fun to be with. She had to be well-loved and well-respected to have attracted such an assemblage of genius, all, probably, gratis.” After hearing some of the material on this CD, Cooper added, “It is amazingly adventurous and fearless playing, a most unusual feature at this moment in musical history. She and her playing are very much missed." Her legacy was almost forgotten, but Parnassus Records' executive producer Leslie Gerber writes, "Having heard a broadcast of Cole’s playing in the late 1970s, I have been chasing some recording of her playing ever since. This decades-long quest has been facilitated by quite a number of people. Librarian Randye Jones enabled my contact with Westminster Choir College librarian Kenneth Kauffman, whose tapes I was able to bring to audio wizard Steve Smolian for preservation and restoration." Cole's repertoire was surprisingly wide and eclectic, ranging from Baroque masterpieces to György Ligeti's "Continuum", heard here in what is one of the first American performances - if not the first - of this enormously challenging postwar masterpiece. "The Lost Art of Frances Cole" is one of the first in Parnassus Records' "Black Swans" series, showcasing rare classical recordings by Black artists.

 

18 MAY 2022

L-Ror (Víctor Miranda Ormachea): The Presence and Absence of a Swerve Heart in the Birth of Evil
Bandcamp AST - 010
Available: 18 May 2022
Víctor Miranda Ormachea is an amateur Peruvian composer who has published his first album independently. 'My work consists of combining non-musical elements with minimalist and even pop melodies, with certain doses of Andean baroque elements, avant garde electronics and noise. It is also an album of academic music made by a musical layman, an ignorant of music theory who only creates his works based on his emotions and imagination.' - Víctor Miranda Ormachea

 

17 MAY 2022

Alistair McGowan: The Piano Album Vol 2
Release: 17 May 2022
The new collection features seventeen short piano pieces by composers including Debussy, Grieg, Satie, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky.  'My own return to music has been incredibly mindful, and the music on both albums is very restful. Each piece is like a crossword puzzle or a jigsaw, learning how it's constructed and then putting it together is an almost constant joy. That feeling that comes through your fingers also travels through your soul and into your heart.' - Alistair McGowan. At the age of forty-nine, Alistair went back to the piano (having reached Grade 2 as a nine-year old), achieving a No 1 Sony album that grew into successful live concerts with a difference.

 

13 MAY 2022

Finzi & Brahms Music for Clarinet and Piano
Helen Habershon, clarinet; John Lenehan, piano
Divine Art DDA 25226
Release: 13 May 2022
Helen Habershon teams up once again with the successful pianist and arranger John Lenehan, following their March 2022 release ‘Found in Dreams’ – a wonderfully diverse collection of romantic lighter pieces.  ‘Found in Dreams’ included beautiful arrangements of some of their favourite pieces; a couple of short movements from the Brahms and Finzi works played in full on this latest album, and some delightful new compositions of their own. This new ‘Finzi & Brahms’ album includes Brahms’ first Clarinet Sonata, partnered by two songs and two of his Intermezzi, all arranged by John Lenehan for clarinet and piano. As counterpoint we have the Five Bagatelles by Gerald Finzi, a composer in the English post-Romantic pastoral tradition (with Vaughan Williams, Delius etc).

Blue Sounds: Piano Music by Camden Reeves
Tom Hicks, piano
Metier MSV 28604
Release: 13 May 2022
Blue Sounds is a set of meditations on a colour - from its abstractness as an electromagnetic wave to Blues as a scale, a genre and a harmonic structure. All three works were written for Tom Hicks and mark a growth in fluency and an experimental approach to the sonority of the piano. Camden Reeves has written for several instrumental groupings but the piano has been a vital part of his life since the age of 5. Included amongst his many activities, he was appointed Composition Fellow with the Hallé orchestra at the age of 22 and is currently Head of Music and Senior Lecturer in Composition at the University of Manchester.

Edward Cowie: 24 Preludes for Piano
Philip Mead, piano
Metier MSV 28625
Release: 13 May 2022
Originally recorded for the University of Hertfordshire’s UHR label, this recording has been restored to the catalogue as part of the quickly-growing Cowie collection on Métier Records. The composer feels strongly that the individual works in the Bach ‘48’ and Debussy’s Préludes (for example) were a series of linked parts creating a greater whole.  In his own ‘24’ Cowie has taken that principle but expressed it in his unique way – music that is impressionist, pictorial, descriptive and above all evocative… of place, time, flora and fauna - experiences of both natural and man-made phenomena. The Preludes follow the ‘Bach cycle of keys’ but at the same time are grouped into four books representing the ancient ‘Four Elements’.

Perspectives
Third Coast Percussion
Cedille Records CDR 90000 210
Release: 13 May 2022
Third Coast Percussion, the Grammy Award-winning quartet that’s been nurturing new concert repertoire throughout its career, presents world-premiere recordings of works by film composer Danny Elfman and electronic music artist Jlin, a collaborative composition with flute duo Flutronix, and their own arrangement of a Philip Glass piece for solo piano. Perspectives includes Elfman’s Percussion Quartet, written for Chicago-based Third Coast at the behest of Glass; the ensemble’s own arrangement of Glass’s Metamorphosis No. 1; Jlin’s Perspective, commissioned by Third Coast; and Flutronix and Third Coast’s Rubix. 'This album really captures where our ensemble is at this moment and also captures the incredible range of potential that a percussion ensemble has as an expressive vehicle for lots of different kinds of music creators', Third Coast ensemble member Robert Dillon says in a Cedille podcast interview about the album with label founder and president James Ginsburg. 'Each of the pieces really came through a different creative process.'

Klezmer Fiddler On The Roof
Stephen Pearl and The Klezmer Fiddler on the Roof Band
Music Concepts MCS 998
Release: 13 May 2022
Musical Concepts is excited to release Klezmer Fiddler on the Roof! Set in Eastern Russian in 1905, Fiddler on the Roof has been played by an orchestra of various sizes – but if you lived in the village of Anatevka, you  would have been listening to a small group of musicians known as Klezmorim who played what we call today traditional Yiddish music. Producer Stephen Pearl re-orchestrated and recorded a version of Fiddler on The Roof with a Klezmer Band for his Stage Stars label, which features original and unique releases of major Broadway musicals of the present and past in two-disc sets - one with singers, and the other an orchestral disc that aspiring artists and fans of theater music can sing along to. This release features the instrumental-only 'karaoke' program, which brings a new dimension to the music of this Broadway classic.

Peter Dayton: Stories Out of Cherry Stems
Katie Procell, soprano
Navona Records NV6424
Release: 13 May 2022
An album of original vocal chamber music with carefully curated texts spanning multiple centuries. Soprano Katie Procell and numerous selected performers navigate a persistent tension between simplicity and complexity delicately threaded throughout the program, providing a solid stage for the texts of notable poets including Pablo Neruda and Oscar Wilde. The strengths of vocal and instrumental chamber music merge into a cohesive powerhouse in this recording, brimming with sung stories that compliment Dayton’s compositional style.

Brass Tacks - Music for Brass
Compositions by Brian Belet, Nathan Wilson Ball, Janice Macaulay, L Peter Deutsch and Andrew Lewinter
Navona Records NV6428
Release: 13 May 2022
Brass Tacks offers far more than the fundamental idioms of classical music. While the works featured on this album pay homage to great classical and romantic composers, subtle contemporary flairs shine throughout this collection. Odd meters, blue notes, ferocious brass writing, and imaginative deviations from traditional song structures seamlessly push the envelope for brass repertoire. Delve into the rich sound of brass soloists and ensembles in this compelling multi-composer album.

Richard E Brown: Voices of the Night and other works for orchestra
Royal Scottish National Orchestra / David Watkin; Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava / Stanislav Vavřínek
Navona Records NV6425
Release: 13 May 2022
Richard E Brown introduces a formidable set of works to American orchestral repertoire. His lush orchestration gives his works depth and texture, while individual instruments cut through to create musical narratives that whisk listeners through lyrical passages and dancelike rhythms. While his pieces thrive on the suspenseful and dramatic, they are by no means a pure emotional onslaught—for every build and crescendo, Brown returns to calmness and simplicity. His ability to wrest control of the orchestra from rafter-shaking crests to gentle melodies provides each piece with breathing room, making them all the more powerful.

 

6 MAY 2022

Sefi Carmel: Let's Go to the Movies!
Posthaste Music
Release: 6 May 2022
London-based composer and sound designer Sefi Carmel releases Let’s Go to The Movies!, a collaborative album with musical contributions from world-renowned musicians. Posthaste Music, known for providing music for television and motion pictures including Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Academy Award winning titles, is distributing the album. Carmel’s album of 14 tracks is a treasure trove of musical collaboration from world class musicians. Richard Harwood, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s principal cellist, a long-time collaborator with Carmel on film scores, features prominently on the album. Hannah Pedley’s powerful mezzo soprano brings ethereal colour to the album. Gani Tamir’s soulful jazz vocals, Roberto Mannes’s virtuoso violin playing, and California based rapper King Joseph’s vocals bring an array of sonic textures.  The album an exploration of a newly emerging musical form – The Trailer. The tracks feature the sonic syntax and structure one would expect from high octane trailers for blockbuster Hollywood films, or A list games. Ominous drones, huge drums and orchestral strings building to a huge crescendo, juxtaposed with hip hop vocal hooks and ad-libs. The album is designed primarily for the media industry’s most valuable tool, trailers and commercials. However, the album is also being released on Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music, as a commercial release available for a wider public to enjoy. True to Carmel’s two decades of sound design and mixing feature films, the album is mixed in Dolby Atmos, for a truly immersive, cinematic aural experience, and is available in Apple’s Spatial Audio.

Martin Ptak | Martin Eberle, Momentum
Col Legno
Release: 6 May 2022
Martin Ptak and Martin Eberle are two musicians who are an integral part of the international music scene. Both are part of the Soap&Skin ensemble: Martin Ptak is a co-founder of Takon Orchester and Velvet Elevator and worked with Steve Bernstein, Elliot Sharp, Willi Resetarits and many more. Artists and project associated with Martin Eberle are Die Stottern, 5/8erl in Ehren, Uri Caine, Velvet Elevator, Studio Dan, 5K HD and others.  Momentum is a combination of organic sounds expanded with electronic elements. The music speaks a narrative and pictorial language that is carried off into wide and spherical soundscapes.  The starting point of the cooperation is the project 'Ganymed Nature' at Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Ptak and Eberle composed a piece (Twilight Train) inspired by Pieter Bruegel's painting 'The Glooby Day'. Outgoing of this special performance and due to the positive feedback, they continued the work they had started. While the pieces 'Appassionata', 'Hymn', 'Momentum' and 'Juno' were composed by both musicians together, 'Rain Song', 'Ringo' and 'Earth' were penned by Martin Ptak, and 'pARaMios' and 'Beginning' by Martin Eberle.

Strauss - Andris Nelsons
Yuja Wang, Yo-Yo Ma, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Boston Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons
Deutsche Grammophon (7 CDs)
Release: 6 May 2022
As part of the multidimensional artistic alliance established between his two world-class orchestras, visionary conductor Andris Nelsons has recorded all the major orchestral works of Richard Strauss with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester. The BSO is joined by legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma in Don Quixote, while star pianist Yuja Wang appears with the Leipzig players in Burleske. The two orchestras join forces on the recording of the Festliches Präludium for large orchestra and organ, made with organist Olivier Latry in Symphony Hall in November 2019 while the Gewandhausorchester was on tour in Boston. Their 7-CD anthology is set to be issued by Deutsche Grammophon on 6 May 2022. The recordings will also be released digitally, and will be the first Strauss orchestral cycle available in the immersive Dolby Atmos format.

 

5 MAY 2022

Hidden Treasures from an Epoch Year
Hillary Herndon, viola; Wei-Chun Bernadette Lo, piano
MSR Classics MS1701
Available: 5 May 2022
'In 2017, viola historian David Bynog contacted me with a request to perform as part of a presentation he would be giving at the 2018 American Viola
Society Festival regarding the famed 1919 Berkshire Festival Competition, its being somewhat of a fascination among violists. Although we know of the infamous “tie” between the Bloch Suite and the Clarke Sonata, the two works now being mainstays of our repertoire, there have been numerous inquiries into what other works had been submitted. In answer to that question, Bynog unearthed a list of works that provided numerous clues but just as many questions. While preparing music to be performed at a recent AVS Festival presentation, Wei-Chun and I conceived of an exciting idea: to present a recreation of the 1919 competition in recital form. On the first half of the program, the audience would hear movements from seven unidentified works that were likely part of the 1919 competition, and asked to vote for the work they would like to hear in its entirety. After an intermission vote tally, the second half would begin with the revealing of works and composers, followed by a performance of the “winning work” in its entirety. To date, we have presented this program more than a dozen times to captivated audiences, and with remarkable results: every piece has won at least once! The works heard on this CD are our own favorites, along with the third movement of Granville Bantock’s Sonata in F major as a bonus.' - Hillary Herndon

French Music for Piano Duo
Baron & Navarro Piano Duo
MSR Classics MS1732
Available: 5 May 2022
Michael Baron and Priscila Navarro perform a wide range of music for two pianos and piano–four-hands with energy and character to critical acclaim. Formed in 2013, the Duo has been praised for their technical brilliance and innovative programming. An award-winning pianist on his own, Michael Baron performs more than forty concerts a year, including engagements in Europe, South America, Asia and the United States. Equally at home as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra, Baron commands a diverse repertoire, consisting of works from from Baroque right up to new works of our time. A Steinway Artist, his virtuosity and musicianship garner consistent critical acclaim. As an educator, he has presented master classes and workshops at schools, festivals and universities and regularly serves as a jurist at regional, national and international competitions. Baron, who received his doctorate in piano performance from Ohio State University, serves as the Myra and Van Williams Distinguished Professor of Music and Head of Keyboard Studies at the Bower School of Music. He is also Honorary Professor of Music at Yantai University and Hubei University in China. Peruvian-born pianist Priscila Navarro is the first prize winner of several competitions, including the Liszt-Garritson International Competition, Beethoven Sonata Competition, Chopin International Competition, Artist Series of Florida and the Imola City competition. Navarro received a Special Prize for her performance of music by J S Bach at the International City of Vigo Competition in Spain, where she was a finalist out of four hundred participants, with a jury presided over by Martha Argerich. Early in life, Navarro studied music at the National Conservatory of Peru, and later earned her DMA in piano performance and pedagogy at the Frost School of Music, where she also completed Masters and Artist Diploma degrees. Navarro, who graduated from Florida GulfCoast University where she studied under Michael Baron, is a passionate pedagogue, being a jury member at numerous international competitions.

Ruminations - Chamber Music for Oboe
Alyssa Morris: Four Personalities for Oboe and Piano (2007); Forecast for Oboe and Four Percussionists (2009);
Ruminations for Solo Oboe (2021); Parable of a Stormy Sea for 2 Oboes and English horn (2016); 27-72 for Oboe and Piano (2019)
Alyssa Morris, oboe; Heather Baxter, oboe; Sara Renner, cor anglais; Amanda Arrington, piano; KSU Percussion Ensemble
MSR Classics MS1729
Available: 5 May 2022
Alyssa Morris is lauded for being a player of exceptional and soulful musicianship. Currently principal oboist of the Topeka Symphony Orchestra, she has appeared as soloist on stages throughout the United States and Europe. She has also performed as concerto soloist at the Kennedy Center and a recitalist at International Double Reed Society conventions in 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2021. Morris is a founding member of the Aglow Trio (which is comprised of herself, flutist Karen Large and pianist Amanda Arrington), which seeks to amplify the works by underrepresented composers, thus encouraging the growth of repertoire for the instrumental combination. Aglow was a featured ensemble at the 2021 NACWPI conference and the 2021 World Flutes Festival. Regarding Morris’ impactful work as a composer, her music is performed around the world. A recent Composer-In-Residence for the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and the recipient of an LDS Barlow Composition Commission, she has been commissioned to compose for numerous artists and ensembles, including the Richmond Symphony, US Air Force Woodwind Quintet and Carolyn Hove, the principal English horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Morris earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in oboe performance at Brigham Young University. She earned a DMA in oboe performance with a cognate in composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Morris is currently Assistant Professor of Oboe and Music Theory at Kansas State University.

 


3 MAY 2022

Mahler: Symphony No 1 in D Major
Utah Symphony / Maurice Abravanel
Vanguard VGD 320
Release: 3 May 2022
Musical Concepts' Series of Vanguard Super-HD Audio reissues from the Abravanel/Utah legacy continues with Mahler, Symphony No 1. Made available in a stereo transfer from the original 4-channel master in accordance with Seymour Solomon's original mix. Maurice Abravanel's pioneering Mahler symphony cycle for Vanguard Classics was the most ambitious such undertaking in Vanguard Records' history - and a recording landmark for a label that had established itself as a champion of the composer from the earliest years of the LP. Producer Seymour Solomon and his recording team spared no expense to capture the work, recorded in the excellent acoustics of the Mormon Tabernacle, in audiophile-quality sound for both stereo and quadraphonic release.

 

29 APRIL 2022

Kevin Volans: Cover him With Grass - In memoriam Bruce Chatwin
Musical Concepts MCS 9242
Available: 29 April 2022
Musical Concepts presents the digital release of music by Kevin Volans. 'Cover Him with Grass - In Memoriam Bruce Chatwin' was first released in 1990 on CD and has become an elusive collector's item among new music enthusiasts. The recording also includes not one but two performances of 'White Men Sleeps', in a riveting, energized recording by the Smith Quartet and in a hyper-percussive arrangement for harpsichord, viola daamba, and percussion. Kevin Volans is a pioneer post-minimalist composer - a contemporary of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Mike Heath and Louis Andriessen who does not identify as a 'minimalist' per se but whose music includes elements also associated with the musical style that exploded in the 1970s and 80s. Included is this digital/streaming release is the previously unissued, world premiere recording of 'Matepe' for harpsichords and percussion. A must-hear for fans of new and avant-garde music.

Endre Wolf plays Bach and Brahms Concertos
Featuring Violinist Endre Wolf
Toblach TOB 41771
Available: 29 April 2022
Endre Wolf was one of the most important violin soloists to emerge in the years following World War II, but despite regular concert and radio appearances through the 1980s, recordings were and still are rare. The recordings featured here – of the Bach E major Violin Concerto and the Brahms Violin Concerto Op 77 – have been carefully remastered in high definition sound for the first time and reveal his enormous technical gifts along with a unique interpretive approach and startling clarity.

Schubert: Lieder (Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise)
FS Records FSR211
Release: 24 April 2022
Franz Schubert set two cycles of poems by Wilhelm Müller during the last decade of his short life, both of them in their own way exploring themes of inexorable motion, of hope, of joy and pain, of longing, revelation and concealment, all very possibly an analogue for the composer's own feelings. On this double album, bass-baritone Jeremy Leaman and pianist Beate Toyka bring a wealth of linguistic and musical experience to their thoughtful and assured performances of these well-known songs – works that still resonate two centuries on.

 

26 APRIL 2022

Beethoven: Complete works for cello and piano
Sung-Won Yang & Enrico Pace
Available: 26 April 2022 ?
Recorded in September 2021 in Neumarkt, Germany, this new album of Beethoven's Complete Works for Cello and Piano transports the listener straight into the heart of the composer’s artistic world. This journey will unveil uncharted territories of the great master.  Sung-Won Yang presents here his second recording of complete Beethoven works, following his 2007 recording. Joined by pianist Enrico Pace, the wild, yet blissful soul of the immortal genius is brought to life by this exquisitely recorded album, very close to a live recital, with 3D sound. 'One could wonder the reasons which inspired us to record this complete album again; We grew up with Beethoven's music and continue to grow with it. Interpreting his music is a reflective process, an inner research that we carry out throughout our performing career and beyond.' - Sung-Won Yang

To Speak to Our Time - Choral Works by Samuel Adler
Gloria Dei Cantores / Richard K Pugsley
Available: 26 April 2022 ?
Samuel Adler believes 'life is a gift'. The risk-taking composer of 400 published works taught for sixty-three years at Juilliard, and Eastman, and has given masterclasses and workshops at over 300 universities world-wide. Having studied with Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Randall Thompson, and more, he knows just about everyone on the twentieth-century American music scene and has received numerous awards including ASCAP’s 'Aaron Copland Lifetime Achievement Award'. He believes that one should compose in the 'energy of his time' and he is without doubt one of the greatest living composers and conductors. Sixty years of his compositions are represented on this album – from A Hymn of Praise to several works written in the last five years. Known for his optimism and 'life-affirming spirit', he is uniquely positioned to speak to our time.  At age ten Samuel Adler narrowly escaped Nazi Germany during Kristallnacht, the 'night of broken glass'. As he and his father collected sheet music in the loft of the synagogue, saving all that they could on that terrifying night, soldiers heard them from down below. It was the sudden collapse of the pipe organ that allowed Adler and his father to run and escape through an underground tunnel. His family took the last train out of Germany with their bags full of sheet music, paving the way for Adler to study and nurture his musical gifts in America. At age ninety-four, he continues to compose, sharing his prolific musical gifts.


24 APRIL 2022

Ruutsu (Roots)
The Girls in The Magnesium Dress - debut album
Anna Astesano, harp; Valentina Ciardelli, double bass
Release: 24 April 2022
Double bass and harp duo introducing works from Zappa, Gliere and more.

 

8 APRIL 2022

Reactions - Songs and Chamber Music by Margaret Brouwer
Eliesha Nelson, viola; Shuai Wang, piano; Sarah Beaty, mezzo-soprano; Mari Sato, violin; and Brian Skoog, tenor
Naxos 8.559904
Release: 8 April 2022
Margaret Brouwer is a composer who wears her heart on her sleeve. Her new album is a collection of chamber music and songs that explicitly express the composer’s emotions, moods and unique view of the state of affairs of the world. The centerpiece of the album is Declaration, for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano. This set of four songs has texts ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Brouwer herself, which address the fundamental issues and effects of violence and war and the equality of all people. In Rhapsodic Sonata, for viola and piano, Brouwer expresses a more personal, and no less deep, emotion: the joys and difficulties of love. The most recent work on the album is “I Cry – Summer 2020” for violin and piano. It’s the composer’s response to the pandemic, isolation, loss, and racial injustice that she, and much of the rest of the world, suffered in 2020. Brouwer effectively fits all of it into this compact four minute piece. The collection concludes with comic release, persuasively performed by Mari Sato as both violinist and narrator. “All Lines Are Still Busy" dramatizes a “please hold” moment that we all can relate to.


4 FEBRUARY 2022

Grieg & Enescu: The Piano Concertos & Solo Works
Luiza Borac, Radio National Orchestra Bucharest / Ncolae Moldoveanu
Profil PH21039 (2 CDs)
Release: 4 February 2022
Hailed by the international music press as a 'virtuoso of astonishing brilliance' and a 'thoroughly poetic artist', Luiza Borac has established herself as one of the most charismatic artists of her generation. With this album, she presents Edvard Grieg and George Enescu, who, despite all the differences in their origins and biographical data, have one thing in common: their attachment to the music of their home countries Norway and Romania.

 

Posted 26 May 2022 by Keith Bramich

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