News from around the world

New Releases for August 2024 and Later

Browse a selection of new recordings

 

Here is our list of future releases, based on emails received between 25 June and 30 July 2024, ordered by release date.

The list has been prepared quickly. Apologies for any omissions, or if the information is not up to our usual standards, and please let us know if you find any mistakes. To get your new releases into our next list, or to find out how our review process works, look at the information here. Unfortunately we haven't been able to include any albums with a release date earlier than 1 August 2024.

Unless otherwise specified, each item is a single CD.

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

 

1 NOVEMBER 2024

Alexandre Kantorow plays Brahms and Schubert
BIS Records BIS2660
Release: 1 November 2024
Pianist Alexandre Kantorow concludes his Brahms cycle on BIS records. Alexandre Kantorow is one of the most distinguished pianists of his generation. Now in demand at the highest level, Kantorow has become known for his profound artistry and virtuosic flare. In 2019, at the age of twenty-two, Kantorow made history as the first French pianist to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition as well as the Grand Prix, awarded only three times before in the competition's history. With this new album, Kantorow concludes his cycle dedicated to Brahms' piano sonatas, the previous instalments of which garnered the highest praise from music critics and audiences worldwide. By no means Brahms' first composition, the Sonata in C major bears the number 'Op 1' and is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant débuts in musical history. The work is paired with Franz Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, the most virtuosic composition in his output and one that seemingly anticipates the expressive possibilities of Franz Liszt, a composer also featured on the album with his masterly transcriptions of Schubert lieder. Schubert composed over six hundred Lieder during his short life, making him the greatest exponent of this genre - five of these are presented here in Franz Liszt's transcriptions for solo piano. Schubert's skilful musical imagery is transformed into poetry by an arranger who makes full use of the technical innovation of the piano - relished in these performances by Alexandre Kantorow.

 

25 OCTOBER 2024

Andrea Bocelli: The Duets - 30th Anniversary
Decca Records
Release: 25 October 2024
Beloved tenor Andrea Bocelli, the most celebrated classical singer in modern history celebrates his thirtieth anniversary as a global icon with a brand new album, Duets. This definitive collection features all the classic duets with Ed Sheeran, Céline Dion, Sarah Brightman, Dua Lipa, Jennifer Lopez, Giorgia & Edith Piaf alongside new collaborations with Shania Twain, Chris Stapleton, Gwen Stefani, Luciano Pavarotti, Marc Anthony, Matteo Bocelli & Hans Zimmer, Karol G, Sofia Carson & Elisa.

Voices for solo piano: Smyth, Wallen, Alberga, Beamish, Yi
Hanni Liang, piano
Delphian Records DCD34326
Release: 25 October 2024
A pioneer of new concert formats, using music to communicate and bring people together, Hanni Liang was long sceptical about the traditional role of recording in progressing an artist's career. It was her discovery of Ethel Smyth - both as a composer and as a person and a woman, fighting without compromise - that sparked the inspiration that led to Voices. In this album she has created a programme that both champions women's voices that, without the determination of Smyth and others like her, might otherwise have been silent, and allows her to raise her own voice, reflecting both her European birth and upbringing and her Chinese roots.

William Walton: The Complete Songbook
Sian Dicker, soprano; Krystal Tunnicliffe, piano; Saki Kato, guitar
Delphian Records DCD34328
Release: 25 October 2024
'These Walton songs are really terrific', wrote accompanist Gerald Moore; 'everything WW does is impressive - why the devil doesn't he write more songs?' From early experiments, via Edith Sitwell settings that build on the success of Façade, to music for the silver screen and two well-loved cycles heard here in their original intimate versions with piano and guitar, the complete collection fits on a single album. But what an album!  Four decades after Walton's death, three imaginative young artists bring fresh voices to the feast, revelling with infectious enjoyment in the composer's endlessly beguiling inventiveness and sparkling wit.

Tango, mon Amour!
Maria Martinova, piano
Rubicon RCD1121
Release: 25 October 2024
Tango has undergone many transformations, beginning with its roots in Angola, which was later influenced by the Italian canzonetta, the klezmer, the French chanson, Jazz. In the early twentieth century, it seduced Europe after its arrival in Paris. Maria Martinova fell under the spell of Tango whilst a student and has been an advocate of this music for many years. Her new album includes music not just by Piazzolla, but a selection of other composers too.

 

18 OCTOBER 2024

Songs from the North of Ireland: Dorothy Parke | Joan Trimble
Carolyn Dobbin, mezzo; Amy Ní Fhearraigh, mezzo; Iain Burnside, piano; Ingrid Sawers, piano
Delphian Records DCD34329
Release: 18 October 2024
Following the success of their partnership in Calen-O: Songs from the North of Ireland, Carolyn Dobbin and Iain Burnside return to Ulster's rich but undervalued musical heritage with a programme of songs by two twentieth-century women, all but a few of them first recordings. Dorothy Parke is well known for her songs for children but is revealed here as a much more wide-ranging composer, steeped in the folk melody and poetry of Ireland. Joan Trimble, an accomplished concert pianist, left behind only a handful of published songs but a small trove of manuscripts, including her opera Blind Raftery, written for BBC Television in 1957, two arias from which complete this journey of discovery.

Ray Chen: Player 1
Ray Chen, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Cristian Măcelaru
Decca Classics
Release: 18 October 2024
Violinist, entrepreneur, and pioneer Ray Chen celebrates the diverse and ever-evolving sounds of entertainment music. Blending classical music with the immersive world of gaming, the album also comprises a thrilling array of themes from television, Anime, and film including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pokémon and Squid Game. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Cristian Mǎcelaru, these compositions gravitate around the sonic centerpiece of Erich Korngold's Violin Concerto. The Austrian composer was a pioneering twentieth-century classical composer who became one of the first musicians of international stature to score films for Hollywood. Like Ray, Erich was a child prodigy. Like Ray, he was drawn to the dramatic and the cinematic. And like Ray, he understood the thrill of storytelling. Nostalgia looms in surprising and uplifting ways on this album. Ray performs with the 1714 'Dolphin' Stradivarius, which is on loan from the Nippon Foundation. This violin was once owned by Jascha Heifetz, who has been hailed as the greatest violin virtuoso since Niccolò Paganini and who premiered the Korngold Concerto in 1947. Ray is the web that binds everything together. 'Player 1 aims to create a meaningful connection between the past and the present', he says. Ray Chen's mission now is to challenge traditional perceptions of classical music, making it accessible and inspiring. Nintendo consoles, TV dramas, films, anime, soundtracks, and a near-century-old work by Korngold may at first seem like disparate cultural phenomena. But they have one thing in common. They weave fantasies. Player 1 is a contemporary journey into these fantastical realms. Chen also reveals the links that bond classical music and gaming. Both involve interaction and multiplayer experiences. Both have their parameters set by a 'games-master' or composer: one dictates the rules via code, the other via black squiggles on paper. Both bring delight and joy. And both conjure rich worlds in which players can roam, discover, and grow. He is 'Player 1'. You, the listener, are 'Player 2'. By transforming simple eight-bit game tunes into lush symphonic masterpieces, Ray Chen taps into the nostalgia of Generation X and Millennials who grew up with video games, now sharing that joy with a new generation of gamers. Chen remarks, 'This album is for all the kids who grew up. Some of them are starting to have kids of their own, others are like me, still exploring all the side quests of this chapter before moving onto the next. We're all digital natives - those who grew up with and around technology. And while it's easy to get lost in the 'digital' side, and with all the tech imagery that's associated with it, I'd also like to focus on shared feelings of personal growth, of reflection, and looking back to all the progress we've achieved and allowing ourselves to enjoy it.' Chen is redefining what it means to be a classical musician in the 21st century. His social media presence, with 528K YouTube subscribers and 940K Instagram followers, along with his co-founded app Tonic, showcases his innovative spirit. On the album cover, Ray shows us his different guises: entrepreneur, musician, social media influencer and games enthusiast. Ray Chen's Tonic app aims to democratize music education, offering free practice sessions and a supportive community for violin students worldwide. By incorporating game-like elements and digital rewards, Chen ensures that learning music remains engaging and fun. Last May, Chen did a guest performance at Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's Hong Kong concert, where his 'electrifying' performance of Vittorio Monti's rhapsodical concert piece Csárdás (1904) and Chou's pop songs left audiences in awe, making Chen feel like a 'rock star'.

 

11 OCTOBER 2024

Liberosis: Re-mind
Self-released
Release: 11 October 2024
Gifted Korean pianist Iseul Kim presents Re-mind, the second offering of her group Liberosis. An eclectic blend of classical and jazz musicians, the group channels their creative prowess through the lens of Latin music, offering 8 new original compositions that place storytelling at their core while staying true to Kim's habit of composing 'traveling stories'; most of Liberosis' music was composed on the road in Africa and South America, and Re-mind adds New York to that blend of influences. Formed in 2017, Iseul Kim previously presented the first Liberosis release, embracing a culmination of styles and skills among players, hand-picking them for their talents and ability to improvise. The result is a mixture of classical, jazz, and Latin music, blended to perfection in a style rarely performed or heard in the world. Kim works tirelessly towards 'the creation of works used as a vehicle for her improvisational pianism, executed with excellence', Latin pianist Fernando Ottero once said about her.

Rita Strohl, a composer of immensity | Vol 3 - Orchestral music
Marie Perbost, soprano; Lucile Richardot, mezzo-soprano; Orchestre national d'Île-de-France / Case Scaglione
La Boîte à Pépites BAP10
Release: 11 October 2024
Rita Strohl is an atypical figure in the history of music. Attracted to both the Wagnerian universe and symbolism, she composed works of chamber music as well as grand lyrical and symphonic soundscapes. This double CD containing performances by exceptional artists is the first part of a three-part project dedicated to the music of Rita Strohl. It is entirely devoted to her songs, most of which have never been recorded until now. La Boîte à Pépites (The Jewel Box) is a new classical record label launching this September dedicated to releasing music by women composers. Founded by cellist Héloïse Luzzati, the label has ambitious plans to discover and record works by women composers which has rarely, if ever, been heard before 'lost' over the decades. The label launches with a 3CD boxset of the complete works by French composer Charlotte Sohy (released on 30 September) followed by Rita Strohl (released in 2023) with many other women including the British composers Liza Lehmann, Alice Mary Smith and Adela Maddison in the pipeline. A number of world-class musicians have agreed to contribute to future recordings including Bertrand Chamayou, Karine Deshayes, Elsa Dreisig, Marie-Josèphe Jude, Emmanuel Strosser, Delphine Haidan, Xavier Phillips, Stéphanie-Marie Degand, Célia Oneto Bensaid, Fiona MacGown, the Modigliani quartet, the Wanderer trio and many more. The record label forms one part of the 'Elles - Women Composers' project - a project devised by Héloïse Luzzati - which began with the creation of the 'Un Temps pour Elles' music Festival in France and soon followed by the YouTube channel 'La Boîte à Pépites' which today contains more than sixty videos from animated documentaries to a video advent calendar - a goldmine of short videos intended to let everyone have fun discovering the works and the lives of women who remained in the shadows.

 


4 OCTOBER 2024

Emily Sun: Film Fantasia
Korngold, Kats-Chernin, Williams
ABC Classic ABCL0102
Release: 4 October 2024
Fast rising Australian/UK star violinist Emily Sun - now based in London - presents her debut concerto album 'Film Fantasia'. The album centres around the first performance of 'Fantasie im Wintergarten', written by Elena Kats-Chernin for Emily and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, which she premiered last year as the ASO's Artist in Association (2023-2024) receiving five star reviews. Emily will give the first UK performance on 24 October with BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Gemma New. Other pieces on the album are John Williams' 'Theme from Schindler's List' and Korngold's famed Violin Concerto.

Longer shadows, softer stones
Snorri Hallgrímsson
Deutsche Grammophon (LP, digital)
Release: 4 October 2024
The Icelandic composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has collaborated with DG several times in recent years, creating imaginative reworks of 'Idylle' from Satie's Avant-dernières pensées (2021), Víkingur Ólafsson's performance of 'Vogel als Prophet' from Schumann's Waldszenen ('The Plover and the Raven', 2023) and Lili Boulanger's D'un vieux jardin (2024).

Adrian Sutton: Violin Concerto; Five Theatre Miniatures; A Fist Full of Fives; War Horse Suite; Short Story
Fenella Humphreys, violin; BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Michael Seal
Chandos CHAN 20349
Release: 4 October 2024
War Horse composer Adrian Sutton, now living with an incurable cancer diagnosis, releases his new album of orchestral works including a Violin Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic out in October on Chandos. 'How long have I got to live? No idea ... but in my situation, I can't waste time thinking about things I can't change ... and I've never been so productive in my life. Seize the day.' Adrian Sutton

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem
Ying Fang, soprano; Beth Taylor, alto; Laurence Kilsby, tenor; Alex Rosen, bass; Chadi Lazreq, treble; Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon
Harmonia Mundi HMM902729
Release: 4 October 2024
The sublime reflection of a human being faced with his own finitude and what comes afterwards, Mozart's Requiem reaches beyond the realm of music to attain universal resonance. Raphaël Pichon's interpretation of this testamentary work, nurtured by a seminal experience with stage director Romeo Castellucci and punctuated by earlier sacred pieces of Mozart, is overwhelmingly moving.

 


27 SEPTEMBER 2024

Light Stories
Matthew Barley, cello
Signum Classics SIGCD701 (digital only)
Release: 27 September 2024
Light Stories charts Matthew Barley's journey from trauma to recovery through the medium of the cello. Featuring music by Bach, Joby Talbot and Anna Meredith as well as his own compositions, the album is part of a broader multi-disciplinary project that includes performances in the autumn. Matthew Barley is one of the UK's most celebrated cellists. Famous for his pioneering community programmes, his skill in improvisation and combining classical with electronic music have positioned him as an innovative figure in contemporary music.

Rodrigo Ruiz: Venus & Adonis; A Song Cycle after Shakespeare
Grace Davidson, George Herbert
Signum Classics SIGCD876
Release: 27 September 2024
This is the world-premiere recording of a song cycle by Billboard-charting composer, Rodrigo Ruiz. Released to celebrate the 460th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, Venus & Adonis is the first known song cycle written by a Mexican composer. Acclaimed soprano Grace Davidson is one of the most sought-after UK opera singers. She specialises in the historically informed performance of music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. George Herbert is an ex-organ scholar at St John's College, Cambridge, and an experienced accompanist.

Nightfall
Voces8
Decca Classics
Release: 27 September 2024
VOCES8 presents a collection of reflective and transcendent music inspired by the night. Featuring choral classics alongside contemporary arrangements including new choral versions of popular works by Ludovico Einaudi, Sigur Rós, Koji Kondo and Max Richter.

Welcome Joy - A Celebration of Women's Voices
Louise Thompson, harp; Corvus Consort / Freddie Crowley
Chandos CHSA 5350 (SACD)
Release: 27 September 2024
With this programme for women's voices and harp, Freddie Crowley frames works by outstanding female composers with ones by Gustav Holst. Pieces by Imogen Holst and Elizabeth Poston lead us towards more recent generations - Judith Weir, Gemma McGregor, and on to Olivia Sparkhall and Hilary Campbell. The Indian composer Shruthi Rajasekar adds two pieces specially commissioned for the album.

Building Castles: Live Music Now Scotland celebrates 40 Years
Musicians of Live Music Now Scotland
Delphian Records DCD34327
Release: 27 September 2024
Bringing together specially commissioned music from five Scottish composers, this album builds on the similar collection released on Delphian ten years ago to celebrate Live Music Now Scotland's thirtieth anniversary. LMNS's unique approach to commissioning new music fulfils the organisation's twin aims of supporting early-career artists with professional performing experience and at the same time widening access to high-quality live music for people living in challenging circumstances, including children with additional support needs and older people in care. For Live Music Now's important work; Delphian is proud to ally with the organisation again in this exceptional endeavour.

Cello Dreams: Berceuses pour violoncelle et piano
Emmanuelle Bertrand, cello; Pascal Amoyel, piano; Alma Amoyel, violin (tracks 11-12)
Harmonia Mundi HMM902387
Release: 27 September 2024
With this delightful programme of lullabies and a few gentle serenades, Emmanuelle Bertrand and Pascal Amoyel explore the deepest sources of musical emotion: melodies that touch, console, comfort, soothe ... These little pieces of tenderness and love are at once a marvellous entry point to listening to music for the very young, and a treat for experienced music lovers.

André Campra: Messe de Requiem; Les Maîtres de Notre-Dame de Paris
Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé
Harmonia Mundi HMM902679
Release: 27 September 2024
Alongisde Campra's Requiem, Sébastien Daucé and Ensemble Correspondances offer us an opportunity to discover the maîtres de musique of Notre-Dame who, now overshadowed by their brilliant colleague, made no less of a contribution to the development of the 'French style' emblematic of the reign of Louis XIV.

Variations
Joanna Kacperek, piano
Rubicon RCD1197
Release: 27 September 2024
Joanna Kacperek's debut album is a fascinating programme of variations.. Brahms' early Op 18b was dedicated to Clara Schumann. Clara's Op 20 was dedicated to her future husband, Robert. Robert's early set of Variations WoO 31 takes the Allegretto from Beethoven's Symphony No 7 and goes through an extraordinary journey with this famous tune. Beethoven himself is represented by his Op 34 which, along with the 'Eroica' variations were the first of the many sets that he considered special enough to be assigned opus numbers. They, in the composer's words 'have the worth of a work as it is quite a new invention to write variations such a manner as this, as without a doubt none have appeared like this'.

 

23 SEPTEMBER 2024

Daniel Parkinson & Friends: An American in Paris
EP - self-published?
Release: 23 September 2024
First-time recording and release of two Gershwin tracks created for chamber ensemble: American in Paris composed by Iain Farrington and a brand new arrangement of Promenade (Walking the Dog) composed by James Batty, a new venture by Daniel Parkinson & Friends.

 

20 SEPTEMBER 2024

Roberto Alagna 60
Roberto Alagna, Morphing Chamber Orchestra, Giorgio Croci
Aparté AP351
Release: 20 September 2024
France's most famous tenor celebrates not only his sixtieth birthday, but also forty years of an exceptionally rich and varied career. For a man who started out singing in Parisian cabarets, went on to perform on the world's greatest stages, and already has an impressive number of recordings to his name, what could be more natural than to mark the occasion with a new recording, reflecting the richness and diversity that have shaped his unique career? A career spent off the beaten track, constantly regenerated, and showing an insatiable curiosity, a temperament, and an extraordinary vocal timbre. Opera, new works, rediscoveries, religious music, sacred songs, operetta, variety, musicals, traditional Sicilian and international songs ... exploring every genre, Roberto Alagna captivates audiences everywhere. Here, accompanied by the Morphing Chamber Orchestra under Giorgio Croci, he presents a programme that is very much in his own image: showing a contagious passion, an insatiable appetite for the exploration of different repertoires and styles, ranging from opera - French (Gounod, Massenet, Thomas, Adam), Italian and Neapolitan (Verdi, Leoncavallo, Pergolesi), German (Wagner, Flotow), Polish (Moniuszko) and Russian (Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov) - to Italian and French songs, English and South American crossover music.

Music for Strings: Brian Elias
Castalian Quartet, Natalie Clein, Danny Driver, Thomas Kemp, Sophia Rahman, Ann Beilby
Signum Classics SIGCD788
Release: 20 September 2024
Spanning nearly fifty years, this collection of chamber music by contemporary composer Brian Elias arose from a retrospective staged in 2020 by the Music@Malling festival in Kent. This is Brian's first album on Signum. A graduate of the Royal College of Music, Brian Elias is one of Britain's most admired contemporary composers. His music has been performed in the UK and worldwide by outstanding soloists and ensembles alike.

Music for Wind: Brian Elias
Adam MacKenzie, Chamber Domaine, Thomas Kemp, David Zucchi, Nicholas Daniel, Sacconi Quartet, Mark Simpson, Amy Harman
Signum Classics SIGCD796
Release: 20 September 2024
Issued as part of a double launch, Music for Wind is an album of first recordings of music by Brian Elias. Spanning more than thirty-five years, the music includes ensemble pieces, a multi-movement work for solo clarinet and a duet for clarinet and bassoon.

Chamber Music by James Joyce: Volume 1
Choral Scholars of University College Dublin / Desmond Earley; Solstice Ensemble
Signum Classics SIGCD864
Release: 20 September 2024
This is an album of first recordings of music written to accompany the poetry of revolutionary Irish writer, James Joyce. A tenor himself, it was always Joyce's wish that his poetry be set to music. As well as previously existing settings, this album includes new commissions. As the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin release their fourth album on Signum, their reputation for musical excellence and supporting new music is further cemented. The Scholars regularly broadcast on television and radio and tour across Europe and the USA.

 


13 SEPTEMBER 2024

Beethoven: The Middle Quartets
Calidore String Quartet
Signum Classics SIGCD872
Release: 13 September 2024
This is the second in a three-volume, award-winning recording series of Beethoven's quartets by the Calidore String Quartet. Taking influences from its diverse quartet mentors Alban Berg, Emerson and Guarneri, the quartet brings fresh interpretation to these much-recorded works. The Calidore String Quartet mixes mastery of the quartet canon with enthusiasm for contemporary repertoire. Based in New York, it tours the most distinguished venues in the US and is building its reputation abroad with critically acclaimed recordings.

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel (Complete original score)
Nathaniel Hackmann; Mikaela Bennett; Sierra Boggess; Julian Ovenden; Francesca Chiejina; David Seadon-Young; Carousel Ensemble; Sinfonia of London / John Wilson
Chandos CHSA 5342(2) (2 SACDs)
Release: 13 September 2024
Following the success of last year's release of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London turn their attention to Carousel, written by the same team. As in the case of the previous release in the series, this first recording of the complete score features every note of music played at the first Broadway performance, here in the full thirty-five-piece orchestration made by Don Walker for the original production. The outstanding cast, led by Nathaniel Hackmann (Billy Bigelow), Mikaela Bennett (Julie Jordan), Sierra Boggess (Carrie Pipperidge), and Julian Ovenden (Enoch Snow), also features Francesca Chiejina (Nettie Fowler) and David Seadon-Young (Jigger Craigin).

Rita Strohl, a composer of immensity | Vol 2 - Chamber music
Raphaëlle Moreau, violin; Shuichi Okada, violin; Alexandre Pascal, violin; Léa Hennino, viola; Claudine Legras, viola; Héloïse Luzzati, cello; Edgar Moreau, cello; Aurélien Pascal, cello; Lorraine Campet, double bass; Nicolas Baldeyrou, clarinet; Célia Oneto Bensaid, piano; Tanguy de Williencourt, piano; Quatuor Dutilleux
La Boîte à Pépites BAP07-09 (3 CDs)
Release: 13 September 2024
Rita Strohl is an atypical figure in the history of music. Attracted to both the Wagnerian universe and symbolism, she composed works of chamber music as well as grand lyrical and symphonic soundscapes. This triple CD containing performances by exceptional artists is the first part of a three-part project dedicated to the music of Rita Strohl. It is entirely devoted to her songs, most of which have never been recorded until now. La Boîte à Pépites (The Jewel Box) is a new classical record label launching this September dedicated to releasing music by women composers. Founded by cellist Héloïse Luzzati, the label has ambitious plans to discover and record works by women composers which has rarely, if ever, been heard before 'lost' over the decades. The label launches with a 3CD boxset of the complete works by French composer Charlotte Sohy (released on 30 September) followed by Rita Strohl (released in 2023) with many other women including the British composers Liza Lehmann, Alice Mary Smith and Adela Maddison in the pipeline. A number of world-class musicians have agreed to contribute to future recordings including Bertrand Chamayou, Karine Deshayes, Elsa Dreisig, Marie-Josèphe Jude, Emmanuel Strosser, Delphine Haidan, Xavier Phillips, Stéphanie-Marie Degand, Célia Oneto Bensaid, Fiona MacGown, the Modigliani quartet, the Wanderer trio and many more. The record label forms one part of the 'Elles - Women Composers' project - a project devised by Héloïse Luzzati - which began with the creation of the 'Un Temps pour Elles' music Festival in France and soon followed by the YouTube channel 'La Boîte à Pépites' which today contains more than sixty videos from animated documentaries to a video advent calendar - a goldmine of short videos intended to let everyone have fun discovering the works and the lives of women who remained in the shadows.

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No 4, 'Romantic'
Anima Eterna Brugge / Pablo Heras-Casado
Harmonia Mundi HMM902721
Release: 13 September 2024
For their first collaboration on Harmonia Mundi, Pablo Heras-Casado and Anima Eterna explore the world of Bruckner. The first instalment in this series is his tremendous Symphony No 4. An apotheosis of architectural rigour and poetry, this cathedral in sound, thanks to the unique sonorities of the period instruments played by the Bruges orchestra, regains its lightness and elegance in dazzling orchestral colours.

 

6 SEPTEMBER 2024

Bruckner: Symphony No 9
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi
Alpha Classics ALPHA1068
Release: 6 September 2024
Fresh on the heels of winning 'Best Symphonic Recording of the Year' at the 2024 International Classical Music Awards for their interpretation of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony, and their widely praised recording of Bruckner's Seventh, Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich pay tribute to the Austrian composer with this recording of his Ninth Symphony. The orchestra's history has been closely linked to Bruckner since it gave the first Swiss performance of one of his symphonies under Richard Strauss in 1903. Bruckner composed this musical farewell  - he wrote the words 'a farewell to life' in the score - in his final years. Legend has it that he was still working on the symphony on the day he died.

'Sarahbanda'
Sarah Willis & the Sarahbanda
Alpha Classics ALPHA1099
Release: 6 September 2024
Formed as part of the popular Mozart y Mambo project by Sarah Willis of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Sarahbanda explores the captivating Cuban dance rhythms in a way never heard before. How? By featuring an instrument not typically included in traditional Cuban band music — the French horn. The sound of Sarah's horn combined with Cuban grooves played by some of Cuba's most talented musicians creates an exciting and passionate group unlike any other. With their new arrangements of some of Cuba's best known songs such as Chan Chan and Sandunguera, original compositions by members of the band, and some classical-meets-Cuban surprises, the Sarahbanda brings a whole new sound — fresh, innovative, irresistible and one you simply have to get up and dance to!

I Was Glad - Parry Choral Music
The Choir of Christ's College, Cambridge; Julian Collings, organ / David Rowland
Regent Records REGCD580
Release: 6 September 2024
A collection of Parry's best-loved choral works, including 'Songs of farewell' - together with a rarity, the beautiful partsong 'Music, when soft voices die'. For the last twenty years the 'Songs of farewell' have been a repertoire piece for the Chapel Choir of Christ's College, Cambridge, and singers who were former members of the choir during that period were invited to join the current (2023) choir to take part in the recording of the 'Songs' on Saturday 18 March 2023. The following day all Chapel Choir alumni were invited to join them for the remainder of the recording. This choir of over one hundred singers bestow a richness to the larger-scale anthems: 'I was glad', 'Hear my words, ye people', 'Blest pair of sirens', and 'Jerusalem' - the last recorded in Joseph Wicks's transcription for solo organ of Edward Elgar's lavish orchestration heard annually at 'The Last Night of the Proms'. The logistics of finding a suitable venue for making the recording - easily accessible for alumni from across the country, large enough to accommodate the number of singers, with a suitably rich acoustic, and a large English Romantic organ which could do justice to the accompanied anthems, led us to the Church of St Michael, Cornhill, in the City of London. This recording is released as a celebration of the work of the Chapel Choir of Christ's College, Cambridge, and David Rowland, who marks forty years as Director of Music at Christ's College in 2024.

Forgotten Dances
Alessio Bax, piano
Signum Classics SIGCD910
Release: 6 September 2024
For his ninth solo album on Signum Classics, Italian pianist Alessio Bax presents recordings of dances spanning three centuries. Featured composers include Bach, Manuel de Falla, Liszt and Brahms. A champion of the Leeds and Hamamatsu international piano competitions, Alessio Bax graduated from the Bari Conservatory in Italy at the record age of fourteen. He now performs both in recital and alongside leading orchestras on the world's foremost concert stages.

Baroque Piano Collection - Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Frideric Handel, Lodovico Giustini, Domenico Scarlatti, Baldassare Galuppi, Manuel Espona
Andrea Vivanet, Yuan Sheng, Klára Würtz, Alessandro Deljavan, Denys Proshayev, Scipione Sangiovanni, Paolo Zentilin, Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, Andrea Molteni Fernanda Damiano, Melani Mestre, piano
Brilliant Classics 97483 (12 CDs)
Release: 6 September 2024
Masterpieces of Baroque piano literature, in critically acclaimed recordings by pianists with a fine sensibility for the eighteenth century. Recordings made between 2005 and 2023; new booklet essay; an ideal budget introduction to the world of the Baroque keyboard, full of elegant dances and virtuoso playing. This survey of Baroque composers ranges from the high-point of eighteenth-century keyboard writing, the Goldberg Variations of Bach, to little known gems such as the sonatas by Espona, Galuppi and Giustini. It places the three great masters of the Baroque - Bach, Handel and Rameau - in the context of their influential predecessor, Sweelinck, and then those composers such as Galuppi and Espona who write in a new, galant style which overlaps with the Classicism of Mozart. Some of the artists on these recordings are still in their twenties, having grown up with a culture of historically informed performance practice which they then bring to their handling of a modern piano. Others, such as Yuan Sheng and Wolfram-Schmitt Leonardy, have been playing these pieces for many decades, and bring to them a career's worth of experience in teasing out the meaning and rhetoric of eighteenth-century phrasing and harmony on an instrument which none of the composers ever encountered. Handel is represented not by the familiar Eight 'Great' Suites but by an imaginative collection of earlier suites. Scarlatti's fertile invention is generously celebrated with thirty-five of his sonatas. Bach predominates, naturally, with the Six Partitas and the Italian Concerto as well as the Goldbergs, thus representing the stylistic range of his output. Keyboard styles from all over mainland Europe make an appearance, in the Dutch/Italian nobility of Sweelinck, the Hispanic-Italian flavour of Scarlatti, the French accents of Bach and Handel, and native French of Rameau, and the exuberantly Italian flourishes and proto-operatic gestures of Galuppi and Giustini. There is something here for everyone.

Frank Martin: Complete Music with Flute
Daniele Ruggieri flute; Monica Bacelli, voice; Aldo Orvieto, piano; Pierpaolo Turetta, organ; Ex NOVO Ensemble: Mario Paladin, viola; Carlo Teodoro, cello; Rosanna Calvi, oboe; Nicoletta Sanzin, harp
Brilliant Classics 97061
Release: 6 September 2024
A unique combination on record of chamber music by the Swiss composer, surveying the development of his voice and career through the medium of the flute. One of music's late starters, Martin grew up as the tenth child of a Swiss pastor and his wife, surrounded by the music of Bach and Mozart. Only once Ernest Ansermet had founded the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande in 1918 did the twenty-eight-year-old Martin begin to discover and become captivated by the sensuality of Debussy and Ravel, and this stylistic dichotomy continued to play out in his own music. Among the most polished and individual of his early works is the set of four love-sonnets composed in 1921 to poems by the sixteenth-century balladeer Pierre de Ronsard. Already the influence of modernism is apparent on the angular and even ascetic shape of Martin's melodic invention, and yet a gentle, atmospheric mood pervades the cycle; this, too, would become a hallmark of his sound-world. In 1939, Martin began what would become a series of instrumental ballades with the competition piece which is still his best-known work for flute. In the same year, he followed it up with a Ballade for alto saxophone which he then arranged for flute; both works are fine examples of Martin's ability to reconcile serialism with tonality. A neoclassical (or rather, neo-Baroque) spirit infuses the Sonata da Chiesa of 1940 with solemn, Protestant gravity, yet the flute part still sings with the lyricism of the early Sonnets. From after the war, the Trois Chants de Noel (1947) distil the mystery of Christmas into three brief settings of texts by the Swiss poet Albert Rudhardt (1894-1944). A trio of Minnelieder (1961) masterfully strips Martin's language to the bone in a distinctive 'late style', where flute and guitar support and punctuate the sung line with an archaically flavoured modernity. Almost all these works have attracted no more than one or two recordings, but gathered together by these expert Italian musicians, they paint a new and compelling portrait of Martin as a spiritually engaged modernist.

Byrd: Organ Works
Pieter-Jan Belder at the Albert Kiespenning organ of the Grote Kerk in Wijk bij Duurstede, Nederland
Brilliant Classics 97125 (2 CDs)
Release: 6 September 2024
In 2023 Brilliant Classics released a 9 CD box of the complete keyboard music by William Byrd, marking the tercentenary of the composer's death. The set was welcomed as a monumental achievement, and a worthy sequel to Davitt Moroney's pioneering achievement on Hyperion. He favors less agogic manipulation and more conservative rhythmic continuity compared to Hyperion's Davitt Moroney. Extracted from that critically acclaimed set, the present album presents all the pieces recorded by Pieter-Jan Belder at the Albert Kiespenning organ of the Grote Kerk in Wijk bij Duurstede. The degree to which any of these pieces was written 'for organ' may remain open to question, when they could be performed, with allowance for some imaginative liberties, on any keyboard instrument, and indeed many contemporary pianists have revived Byrd's music for a new generation of listeners. Whether experienced on a Steinway or a spinet, Byrd is the first great composer for the keyboard, even when producing instrumental versions of choral anthems. Belder includes several such pieces here, which find a natural home 'in church' rather than the domestic setting of the harpsichord. Two versions of Salvator Mundi are effectively forerunners of chorale preludes; likewise three versions of Clarifica me. Several voluntaries lie no less idiomatically on the organ despite their highly florid writing, while the assorted preludes or fantasias and their companion fugues also deserve to be regarded alongside notable pre-Bachian models by Frescobaldi and Buxtehude.

A Tribute to María Luisa Anido
Cinzia Milani, guitar
Brilliant Classics 95954
Release: 6 September 2024
The 'grande dame of the guitar' remembered through a new recording of her own music. María Luisa Anido (1907-1996) was born in Argentina and grew up in a household where the guitar was central. Her father brought home many of the great performers, whom she heard and who heard her. Miguel Llobet, himself a student of Tárrega, became one of her early teachers, though the most important was Domingo Prat. She met Andres Segovia after one of his concerts when she was about ten and he was in his early twenties, and her own recordings rival those of Segovia's for both technical finesse and a natural feeling for the colours and rhythms of the Spanish guitar tradition. Cinzia Milani remarks, in an introduction to her new recording of Anido's own compositions, that 'there are moments when the technical essence of Anido's handing of the fretboard, especially in the higher registers, is so particular that one has the impression of knowing exactly what her hands were like.' Milani concludes her album with Anido's first and perhaps best-known piece, the Barcarola which she composed at the age of twenty. Llobet lavished well-earned praise on her in response: 'I have read and played your Barcarola; the voices are carried magnificently with admirable taste of their natural characteristics; the tone colours are perfect. Bravo, very well done.' This is only the second album ever dedicated to Anido's music, making Cinzia Milani's recording a landmark contribution to guitar music on record, and to the extensive guitar library on Brilliant Classics. The most substantial collection here is a sequence of nine Impresiones Argentinas, which effectively form a survey of the folk music of her native land. Individual movements take up Indian, mestizo, pampan and North-western Creole melodies and rhythms. The Impresiones Argentinas are marvellously relaxed and earthy pieces, speaking unaffectedly of everyday experience, and no wonder that Anido charmed Soviet audiences with them during her 1960s tours, before settling for a while in Cuba. The Aire Norteño and Cancion del Yucatan equally draw on south-American roots, while a trio of Preludios Nostalgicos belong to the repertoire of many modern guitarists. Anido was a major figure on the landscape of the twentieth-century guitar, and Cinzia Milani has made a devoted tribute to her art.

Cilea: Concertante Suites
Enrico Bronzi, cello; Massimo Quarta, violin; I Virtuosi della Scala / Filippo Arlia
Brilliant Classics 96761
Release: 6 September 2024
First recordings of unpublished instrumental works by a master of verismo. Several recent albums on Brilliant Classics have expanded our understanding of Francesco Cilea beyond his status as the composer of: L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. His piano music, chamber music and songs all bear witness to a quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy. Cilea abandoned writing for the stage after the failure of his opera Gloria in 1907, despite the presence of Toscanini in the pit, and his lyric gifts cut against the grain of the prevailing trends of modernism. He turned to teaching, but he did not entirely abandon composition. Instead, he turned back to instrumental music, and the works on this album are among the fruits of this revived inspiration. Apart from Cilea's celebrated melodic vein, the Suite for Violin and the Piccola Suite for Orchestra reveal his (perhaps un-Italian) talent for counterpoint, as well as an approach to tonal harmony that reflects his awareness of innovation, especially among French composers of the period. Cilea orchestrated the Suite in 1946 from his Suite for violin and piano of nine years earlier. The four brief movements are cast in a neo-classical vein, enclosing an elegant minuet followed by an Andante sostenuto in the very un-classical key of C sharp minor. The Piccola Suite (1931) more thoroughly absorbs the idioms of French music of the period such as the early works of Messiaen, with its modal harmony, whole-tone scales and sequences of seventh and ninth chords: again, far from what we would expect from the composer of Adriana Lecouvreur. The arrangement, revision and scoring of the Concerto in D major for cello by Leonardo Leo (written in 1737) bears witness to Cilea's deep connection with the Conservatoire in Naples where he had studied and where he became director until his retirement in 1935. Its generous orchestration, and yet respect for the eighteenth-century idiom of the writing, makes an intriguing and almost unknown parallel to the Cello Concerto in D recomposed by: Schoenberg in 1931 after a 1746 work by Georg Matthias Monn. Completing this unique survey of Cilea's output is a modern work, the first recording of the Canto dell'amore by Raffaele Cacciola, born in 1965. The style of this sinfonia concertante in all but name is a homage to the example of Cilea: tonally unpredictable, yet always melodic. These Milanese musicians draw out its intrinsically Italian character in the tradition of Cilea's verismo.

Dutch Overtures - Johannes van Bree, Johan Wagenaar, Johannes Verhulst, Jan van Gilse
Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra / Jac van Steen
Brilliant Classics 96998
Release: 6 September 2024
In the nineteenth century, the first violin section in Dutch orchestras often contained amateur players. In fact, even the 'orchestra associations' in Utrecht, Rotterdam and Amsterdam were not composed entirely of professional musicians, with a significant number of members being amateurs. This mixed line-up of musicians and a strong leaning towards German and French composers had a profound effect on the choice of repertoire, and a marked preference developed for programmes containing a large number of short and contrasting pieces. This explains the success of the overture, a genre that included both the compressed piece of orchestral foreplay to an opera as well as independent pieces. Dutch overtures differ from those of foreign origin in that they tend generally to be mild in tone and lacking in theatricality. The orchestra often has a transparent sound quality, the major sources of inspiration being Weber, Mendelssohn and Boieldieu. Two fine examples are the two overtures on this album by Johannes van Bree (1801-1857). His output features four independent orchestral overtures, including this one in B minor. Van Bree also composed a number of operas, including Le Bandit, whose overture contains obvious influences from Weber's overtures. On the other hand, the overture in B minor is closer to the French opera overtures of Cherubini and Boieldieu. Johannes Verhulst (1816-1891) was a friend of Robert and Clara Schumann and his music was acclaimed by Mendelssohn. Judging by his overture to Vondel's play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel he had listened carefully to Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides' overture. A series of robust brass chords in a punctuated rhythm also recalls a passage from Schumann's First Symphony. When Johan Wagenaar (1862-1941) embarked on his career, the music of his German contemporaries still played an important role in symphonic concerts, and German influence in Wagenaar's music pervades his entire symphonic oeuvre, which includes a number of overtures. Frithjof's Meerfahrt (Op 5) is Wagenaar's first orchestral work, written around 1884. The later Concert Overture Op 11 'Frühlingsgewaltʼ seems to have been highly coloured by the idyllic nature paintings of Mendelssohn and is striking in its enormous contrasts in tempo and instrumentation. Even more than Wagenaar, Jan van Gilse (1881-1944) was a product of the conservative faction in German music in the decade around 1900. Shortly before the turn of the century he studied at the conservatory in Cologne under Franz Wüllner, also Willem Mengelberg's teacher ten years earlier. Van Gilse's Concert Overture in C minor was written at the end of his conservatory studies. The music begins in a minor key and ends in the major, developing, in Beethovian terms, from darkness to the light. Despite episodes of turbulence in his music, it always displays an often suppressed but sometimes overt longing for liberation and fulfilment.

Johann Ernst Bach: 6 Sonatas for Violin & Fortepiano
Susanna Pisana, violin; Maurizio Paciariello, fortepiano
Brilliant Classics 97021
Release: 6 September 2024
Johann Ernst, the third-born son of Johanna Sophia Siefer and Johann Bernhard Bach, was a musician and organist at the Georgenkirche in Eisenach. He was taught first by his father and then, from January 1737 in Leipzig by his uncle and godfather Johann Sebastian Bach, when he moved there to attend the Thomas schule and later to study law. He was forced to abandon his studies there in 1741 upon being called back to Eisenach to help his ill father, and though Ernst missed the musical activity at Leipzig he was persuaded by Johann Sebastian to remain by his father's side. He eventually succeeded him in the organist post at Eisenach in 1749. J E Bach's six Sonatas for fortepiano & violin are among the few works the composer managed to have published during his lifetime: the first three in 1770 and the remainder in 1772. Although critics deemed them to be 'too modern', they were received so well by the public that a new edition was released in 1775. Their title does not bear the designation 'with violin accompaniment' typical of the time but rather 'sonatas for fortepiano and a violin': the two instruments are afforded equal importance. In the final three sonatas, the structures become more complex and reveal inspiration from early proponents of classicism like C P E Bach. Although Johann Ernst was known as an organist and harpsichordist, the writing in the fast movements and the lyricism of the slow sections, as well as his inclusion of dynamic markings, suggest that these works were designed for the newly invented fortepiano. All six sonatas are divided into three movements, alternating fast-slow-fast in line with Italian symphonic style.

Gervais-François Couperin: Sonatas, Variations & Rondo
Simone El Oufir Pierini, fortepiano
Brilliant Classics 97190
Release: 6 September 2024
This first recording of a selection of Gervais-François Couperin's keyboard works aims to give an overview of the youngest member of the Couperin family with works that have survived to the present day. The son of Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789), to whom Brilliant Records has also dedicated a release featuring his complete harpsichord works (see BC 95459), G-F Couperin (1759-1826) is the last known musician in the line of the greatest French musical dynasty of its time. The selection of pieces presented here is meant to demonstrate his compositional exploration of the fortepiano. The four most employed forms in Couperin's keyboard oeuvre are the variations, the sonata, the rondo, and the piece in free form. This programme features the most important examples of these four types. The Two Sonatas Op 1, issued in 1788, were most probably intended to officially present the young composer to the French connoisseurs. They were conceived pour le clavecin ou forte-piano, with accompaniment of violin and cello ad libitum. Both sonatas consist of three movements, the first one in a large sonata form. A slower movement follows, the one in the second sonata consisting of a theme with 7 variations. A final movement in rondo form closes both sonatas. Stylistically, they are relatively close to other sonatas of the time, although they feature quasi-symphonic writing in the first movements. The highly virtuosic style exemplified in the two Sonatas Op 1 becomes even more evident in two single pieces, strictly related to one another: Les Incroyables Op 6 and Les Merveilleuses Op 7. The two pieces refer to adherents of a fashion trend highly favoured by the aristocracy in Paris during the French Directory (1795-99). The men were called Incroyables ('incredible') and the women Merveilleuses ('marvelous'), and they greeted the new regime with an outbreak of luxury, decadence, even silliness, perhaps as a reaction to the Terror period. The two pieces are in free form, with a ritornello in the first, shorter part. However, this form actually owes much to the rondo, which Couperin had already proved to master, both in his sonatas and in a short individual Rondo presented here, published in the Journal de Clavecin in 1782. This short and elegant piece, which may possibly be the first piece ever published by Couperin, is the closest one to the classical period, with its almost-Viennese flavour. Two sets of variations both published in 1790, together with the slow movement of the Sonata Op 1 No 2, show Couperin's adeptness with this genre. It is worth noting that while the first set is based on one of the most emblematic of Revolutionary songs, 'Ah! Ça ira', the second is based on a royalist song, the Complainte béarnoise, a troubadour's protestations at King Louis XVI being housed in the Palais de Tuileries at the beginning of the revolution.

Boccherini: Complete Duets for 2 Violins
Igor Ruhadze, Daria Gorban, baroque violins
Brilliant Classics 97260
Release: 6 September 2024
The name Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) does not immediately bring to mind such modest works as violin duos, but alongside his large output of trios, quartets and quintets for stringed instruments, Boccherini's oeuvre also features two sets of six pieces for two violins. One set was composed at the beginning of his compositional career, in 1761 - that is, before his twentieth birthday - and published some years later, in 1768, in Paris by Louis-Balthazar de La Chevardière, under the title Six duos pour deux violons, with the opus number 5. Later, the same collection is described by the composer as his Opus 3. And then there is a second, much later collection with arrangements for two violins of other compositions of his originally written for three or five stringed instruments. The latter set was published by Ignace Pleyel in Paris in 1799 - just a few years before his death - under the similar title Six duos pour deux violons, with opus number 46. Unsurprisingly, the two sets are very different in character. Boccherini's Duets Op 3 all consist of three movements. Five of them begin with a fast movement, in a major key. Then follows a slow movement in a different key, sometimes major, sometimes minor. And, finally, there is most often a minuet, in a characteristic 3/4 time, with a tempo between slow and fast. The first duet in the set, however, follows a different model: it starts with a slow movement, a fast movement follows and finally there is a light-hearted 'Presto'. We know the year of composition of the Duets Op 3, and we know for sure that they are works by Boccherini. Regarding the Violin Duets Op 46, however, there are still some question marks. We know that they were published in 1799 by the Parisian publisher Ignace Pleyel, but they are missing from the catalogue compiled by Boccherini himself of his own works. That does not necessarily mean that they are not from his hand. Boccherini regularly arranged his own compositions for other instrumental combinations, and these are systematically missing from his catalogue. And these arrangements are not simply reductions of the original compositions for two violins: in many cases they are thorough re-compositions based on the original material. This last aspect in particular contributes to the assumption that the arranger was Boccherini himself: arrangers who are not the original composer usually leave the structure of the composition intact in their arrangements. In the case of Boccherini's Duets Op 46, as it were, new compositions were created. Boccherini's violin duets are perhaps not among his best-known compositions. For the Duets Op 3 one has to go back quite far into the past to find a recording on LP or CD. The Duets Op 46 have never been recorded on LP or CD. It's high time, then, for a CD featuring these charming and melodious works.

Gottfried Grünewald: 7 Partiten
Fernando De Luca, harpsichord
Brilliant Classics 97290 (2 CDs)
Release: 6 September 2024
Gottfried Grünewald (1675-1739) was a successful opera singer in eighteenth-century Germany, based at the theatre in Hamburg for many years, but a familiar figure in German courts and theatres across Germany. When he died in 1739, the composer Christopher Graupner - his colleague in Darmstadt - destroyed most of Grünewald's music, according to an agreement they had apparently made. Only seven keyboard partitas are known to have survived to modern times, and they receive their first complete recording here in the spirited hands of Fernando de Luca, who has done so much to rescue forgotten names from obscurity with his albums for Brilliant Classics. The loss of Grünewald's output becomes especially regrettable once close attention is paid to these Parititas. They reveal a deep knowledge of the instrument's technique and a refined compositional taste. Stylistically close to German composers of the time such as Kuhnau and Fischer, they also bring to mind the suites composed in Germany by the young Handel - preceding the Eight Great Suites - and the music of the young Graupner. Grünewald shows some skill as a contrapuntalist within the restrictions of the suite genre. The preludes of these partitas are not uniform in form; for example, the Prelude in D minor incorporates broad arpeggiated chords, which begin and end a strict fugue but then dissolves into free motivic play. Another is purely figurative, a third mixes movement with short imitations. Grünewald's allemandes build up like intricate etudes, including one example constructed in an organistically contrapuntal manner. The courantes are interwoven with imitative passages, the sarabandes are melodically appealing, sometimes breathing in the spirit of Handel's nobility of gesture. The doubles and minuets almost give the impression of variations. Some pieces have strongly emphasised French rhythms, others avoid it completely. Potentially incomplete, but certainly striking, is the two-movement Fourth Suite, with its spacious Allemande followed by an imposing Chaconne, presenting a complete contrast to the nine brief dances of the Fifth Suite, which find Grünewald at his most French-accented.

Ries: Grande Sonata Fantasia 'L'Infortunée'; Fantasies
Gianluca Faragli, piano
Piano Classics PCL10269
Release: 6 September 2024
New recordings of large-scale but little-known works by one of Beethoven's most influential students. Born like his teacher-to-be in the German city of Bonn, Ferdinand Ries studied with Beethoven in Vienna for several years during the first decade of the nineteenth century. He also worked for Beethoven as a copyist and secretary, and in 1838, shortly before his own death at the age of fifty-three, published the first authoritative account of his master's life. But Ries was far more than a mere amanuensis, as a series of releases on Brilliant Classics has documented, with valuable modern recordings of solo, chamber and instrumental music. Ries' own instrument was naturally the piano, and his catalogue of works for the instrument spans light-hearted miniatures and ambitiously scaled, dramatic sonatas, much as Beethoven's did. In the latter category falls the Grande Sonata Fantasia which Ries composed in 1811 - the same year as Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It is easy enough to hear the turbulent textures and melodic shapes of his teacher's famous 'Pathétique' Sonata in the background, but Ries could exercise his own imagination, which in any case was shaped by travel far beyond the lands around Vienna, unlike Beethoven. The weight of the sonata's singular form falls on the huge Presto finale, making considerable demands on the artist, which Gianluca Faragli conquers with the aid of a superbly conditioned modern Fazioli piano. The sonata's designation as a 'fantasia' indicates that Ries was anticipating the Romantic era's preoccupation with personal expression as the over-riding concern of creative art, and Faragli has coupled Op 26 with three more fantasies. Two of them are based on themes from Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro': display pieces, but by no means frivolous, any more than the darker subject of Schiller's poem 'Resignation' which inspired Ries to compose one of his most inwardly affecting works, written in the south London suburb of Clapham in 1821. In a lighter vein, Faragli adds the gypsy-style Introduction and Rondo composed once Ries had returned to Vienna with his English wife and three children. Thus the album surveys the course of Ries' creative life, as the pianist Alessandro Taverna elucidates in a detailed booklet essay.

Chopin: Nocturnes complete
Vincenzo Maltempo, piano
Piano Classics PCL10312 (2 CDs)
Release: 6 September 2024
Deeply felt new recordings of these landmarks in Romantic piano literature on a modern Steinway grand. By an Italian artist with an active interest in the lineage of piano history. On recordings for Piano Classics ranging from Beethoven to Alkan and beyond, the Italian pianist Vincenzo Maltempo has demonstrated a deeply informed understanding of Romantic piano literature, both in the nuts and bolts of its composition and in the field of its reception. In his own booklet introduction to his latest recording, Maltempo explores the nature of a Chopin tradition, as handed down to us from accounts of the composer's own playing, his instructions to his students, and then the early recordings made by renowned interpreters such as Cortot and Pugno. 'What their recordings share is a relatively free or liberal interpretation of elements in the score that are now treated more rigidly. Their application of rubato is more subtle, their pedal technique does not cloud the sound but clarifies melodies and harmonies. They communicate a wide and infinitely varied dynamic range, and a diaphanous warmth of phrasing, without falling into mannerism or 'sentimentality'.' These qualities, therefore, are the guiding lights to his own playing of the Nocturnes. Maltempo has chosen to record them on an 1888 Steinway piano, distinguished by the clarity of articulation which has always been a Steinway hallmark, but bestowing on these quintessential pieces of nocturnal poetry a softer and more rounded palette than we are accustomed to find on modern pianos. These recordings are, in the best possible sense, 'historically informed', without being bound either to the bar-line or to doctrinal notions of a 'correct' Chopin performance. They are, instead, as free and as personal, yet as imbued with the inner spirit of the score, as it seems the composer wished to find in his performers.

Schurmann: Orchestral Works
Xiayin Wang, piano; BBC Philharmonic / Ben Gernon
Chandos CHAN20341
Release: 6 September 2024
Ben Gernon conducts the BBC Philharmonic in this programme marking the centenary of the birth of Gerard Schurmann. The Concert Overture Man in the Sky and Romancing the Strings reflect his extensive career as a composer of film scores, whilst the Piano Concerto (performed by Xiayin Wang) and Gaudiana were both originally conceived as concert works.

Vladimir Feltsman
A Tribute to Mozart
Nimbus NI 6448
Release: 6 September 2024
In addition to sonatas, variations, and concertos for piano and orchestra, Mozart wrote numerous works for solo piano: fantasias, rondos, adagios, and other assorted pieces of short and moderate length. We don't know exactly why these works were written, but we know that Mozart had to come up with new material for his many public and private appearances as a composer and performer. In those days composers were usually performers as well. Any composition was also a potential source of income from publication and from patrons and friends to whom the works were dedicated. But no matter why these marvellous works were written, we are lucky to have them.

George Benjamin
Picture A Day Like This
Nimbus NI 8116
Release: 6 September 2024
Created in 2023 at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence on a text by Martin Crimp, this lyric fable is British composer George Benjamin's fourth opera.

Nancy Hadden: Chansons musicales, Paris, 1533
Nancy Hadden, flute; Jacob Herringman, lute; Zephyrus Flutes
CRD CRD 3548
Release: 6 September 2024
Through these songs or 'chansons', we are given the chance to be transported back in time to when the word, note, instrument and performer came together to capture the world in which they lived. These songs began as instrumental pieces of music in the Renaissance era and would have been performed in taverns and dwellings in Paris and beyond. Chansons musicales is a world-class researched project and a living and breathing work. This project looked at publications from 1533; selecting and reconstructing tracks that offer a rare insight into the surviving works of composers who took inspiration from contemporary poetry. © Nancy Hadden

Intrigues of the Darkness
Anna Fedorova, piano
Channel Classics CCS47124
Release: 6 September 2024
Anna Fedorova explores the 'Intrigues of the Darkness' in these programmatic and extremely virtuosic works for solo piano. The journey from darkness to light begins with Scriabin's terrifying 'Black Mass' Sonata. The work represents a satanic ritual that is possessed by the spectre of the Mephistophelian Liszt. Ravel described his Gaspard de la nuit as 'romantic and of transcendent virtuosity'. These highly evocative pieces are based on Aloysius Bertrand's prose poems depicting scenes of Ondine's alluring seduction, a hanged man sighing on the gallows and a devilish dwarf. De Falla's Suite from El Amor brujo conjures a mysterious world, full of magic, rituals, and ghost visitations. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition portrays many scenes of darkness but emerges into light with The Great Gate of Kiev, in which triumphant episodes alternate with moments of religious contemplation.

Vaughan Williams: The Grinke Legacy
Frederick Grinke, violin
Albion Records ALBCD061
Release: 6 September 2024
This is an 'archive' recording comprising LP and 78 rpm discs newly remastered for this album by Ronald Grames. Frederick Grinke (1911-1987), soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, was a favourite of Vaughan Williams, one of a handful of violinists for whom he composed works. Grinke was a familiar presence on BBC radio and a frequent soloist on orchestral and recital stages throughout the UK as well as in Australia and New Zealand, Europe, the United States, and Canada. This album includes all four of Grinke's recordings of music by Vaughan Williams. Three of the recordings included in this release were made with the Boyd Neel ensemble, with which Grinke was closely associated. Only the 1939 Concerto Accademico has seen prior commercial digital reissue. The 1955 recording of the Vaughan Williams Violin Sonata, the work the composer wrote for him, is included, as is the Violin Sonatina by Arthur Benjamin, which appeared with it on LP. Though highly praised when they were released, neither has been commercially reissued. Despite Grinke's fame and sizable discography, including many new works, he is primarily remembered today as the highly influential and much-admired teacher of more than a generation of violinists leading the UK's orchestras and appearing in recital halls as soloists and chamber musicians. It is time to redress the balance. The pianist Michael Mullinar (1895-1973) was a pupil of both Holst and Vaughan Williams, who became a close friend and colleague of Vaughan Williams, acting as copyist, arranger and playing new works for private audiences. Despite giving a very large number of broadcasts and performances, this recording of the Violin Sonata with Grinke is the only commercial record of his playing. The album is available both as a CD and digitally, for downloads and streaming. One track will be released in August as an 'Instant Grat,' to encourage the latter. As always, the booklet includes detailed notes and biographical information.

Fantasia
Magdalena Hoffmann, harp
Deutsche Grammophon  
Release: 6 September 2024
For her second DG recording, Fantasia, the harpist has traveled further back in time to focus on the music of the Baroque period. Here she showcases her instrument in a selection of fantasias and preludes originally written for keyboard or lute by Johann Sebastian Bach, his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, and his contemporaries Handel and Weiss.

 

30 AUGUST 2024

Grieg - Franck - Shor-Pletnev - Shostakovich
Daniel Lozakovich, violin; Mikhail Pletnev, piano
Warner Classics 5021732285829
Release: 30 August 2024
Violinist Daniel Lozakovich makes his album debut on Warner Classics with a recital recorded with pianist Mikhail Pletnev. Featuring Grieg's Violin Sonata No 3 and Solveig's Song, Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major, Shostakovich's Romance from The Gadfly, the album also includes a new sonata co-written by Alexey Shor and Pletnev himself.

Dvorák: Symphony No 9 'From The New World'; American Suite
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus / Nathalie Stutzmann
Erato 5021732263797
Release: 30 August 2024
Nathalie Stutzmann first made her name as a contralto and recorded some of her earliest albums for Erato. Her first Erato release as a symphonic conductor is a live recording with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble she leads full-time as Music Director. The programme, featuring Dvorák's 'New World' Symphony and American Suite, has special significance for Stutzmann - she describes it as 'a lovely tribute to my amazing commitments across the Atlantic, but also to the new horizons opening up for our exciting collaboration.'

Hans Otte: The Book of Sounds (B-sides)
Carlos Cipa, piano
Warner Classics (digital only)
Release: 30 August 2024
Hans Otte described his minimalist work, The Book of Sounds, as a musical pendulum movement of one hour in twelve 'pieces' - chords and melodies repeat themselves, following each other in harmonic cadences in a timeless back and forth. This is pianist-composer Carlos Cipa's first recording of music by another composer, a testament to the influence this work has had on him as an artist. To help shape the tonal characteristics of the work, Cipa chose to record these twelve pieces on three different pianos - a Steinway grand, a Yamaha, and a Yamaha CP-70, an early electric piano.

Douce France: Mélodies & Chansons
Benjamin Bernheim, Carrie-Ann Matheson
Deutsche Grammophon
Release: 30 August 2024
A new album from the artist of the year at the 2024 Victoires de la Musique Classique, French tenor Benjamin Bernheim imaginatively couples famous melodies by three leading lights of nineteenth-century French Romanticism with famous chansons by three leading lights of twentieth-century French popular music. Benjamin is accompanied by his long-standing recital partner Carrie-Ann Matheson.

A Ballet Through Mud
RZA
Platoon
Release: 30 August 2024
RZA is a true multifaceted artist - rapper, record producer, composer, actor, and filmmaker. He revolutionised American hip-hop with the release of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and went on to compose the scores for Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill odysseys. RZA has now turned his hand to the classical genre, composing an exquisite symphonic ballet - the culmination of a lifelong musical evolution, over a career spanning three decades. RZA began working on his first classical project during the pandemic, inspired by the rediscovery of lyrical notebooks he'd filled as a teen. He drew inspiration from composers Sergei Prokofiev and Leonard Bernstein, and cites Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk and Isaac Hayes as being influential to his creative process. His first classical work evolved into a refined orchestral composition, featuring characters named after Greek modes, weaving tales of Buddhist monks and a journey 'through mud' into a poignant coming-of-age story that delves into the complexities of love, friendship, and personal growth. A Ballet Through Mud was premiered with the Colorado Symphony last year, brought to life on stage by dancers and a 60 piece orchestra. RZA said of the project - I have been composing my whole life, although I didn't know initially that was what I was doing. The inspiration for Ballet Through Mud comes from my earliest creative output as a teenager, but its themes are universal—love, exploration, and adventure. I hope people use it to score their own lives, to transform a drive to the grocery store or sharing a meal with loved ones into something magical, to be inspired and let their imaginations take them into a different chamber, if only for a moment.

Bach: Preludes, Inventions & Sinfonias
Mahan Esfahani
Hyperion CDA68448
Release: 30 August 2024
A collection of miniatures centred around the sets of Inventions and Sinfonias which Bach wrote principally as teaching aidsof an extremely superior kind, it should be notedto encourage any young keyboard player 'keen to learn'. These joyous, enthralling accounts from Mahan Esfahani prove that there is a great deal more to them than that.

Obrecht: Scaramella
The Binchois Consort / Andrew Kirkman
Hyperion CDA68460
Release: 30 August 2024
The challenges and rewards of performing early music are here vividly illustrated by The Binchois Consort, as creative scholarship comes to the aid oftwo substantialbut fragmentaryworks by Jacob Obrecht, and an audacious recorded sound attempts to recreate the experience of the original performers five hundred years ago. An album set to attract huge interest from critics and Renaissance scholars alike.

Angele Dei
Latvian Radio Choir
Skani LMIC163
Release: 30 August 2024
This is the third album that the Latvian Radio Choir has released on the SKANI label with new choral music by Latvian composers. This programme was created with the intention to record trends and the state of music in 2023 as a kind of time stamp. Not quite a survey of everything that has been recently composed, it stands instead as a testimony to the creative collaboration between the Latvian Radio Choir and composers, which exists at the same time as a part of the Latvian musical space. These are new contributions to the repertoire that are of interest to professionals and all those interested in contemporary choral music. Almost all of these works are united by their sacred texts and some higher idea, which each of the composers has brought to life by remaining faithful to his or her own style, be it multi-layered microtonality, echoes of spectral music, branching polyphonic textures, detailed explorations of sonic and rhythmic formulas, or the new simplicity and the four-part texture of the chorale. These Latvian composers seem to have a unique quality: however far they go in their experimentations with sound and reinventing the boundaries of the choir as an instrument, their compositions never lose their spiritual aspect or emotional message, approaching the revelation of the text with great sensitivity and creating a natural musical flow.

Keel Road
Danish String Quartet
ECM New Series 4875884
Release: 30 August 2024
The Danish String Quartet's new album is a 'retracing of musical pathways across the North Sea, a journey through the sounds of traditional music from Northern Europe, taking us from Denmark and Norway to the Faroe Islands, and to Ireland and England'. It follows on from Last Leaf, the Danish String Quartet's much-loved 2017 release. Keel Road underlines the group's statement that 'folk tunes are not just a part of our repertoire, but an important element of our identity as musicians.' Subtly integrated into the flow of the recording, alongside the traditional material, are original compositions by Rune Tonsgaard Sorensen and Fredrik Schoyen Sjolin, eloquently expressive in a folk idiom. Other highlights include the DSQ's beguiling arrangements of four compositions by Turlough O'Carolan, legendary harper from Ireland's County Meath. In total, the journey illuminates musical affinities as well as distinctions, for while folk music 'represents local traditions and local stories, it is also the music of everywhere and everyone.' Keel Road was recorded at Copenhagen's Village Recording Studio in November 2022, and mixed at Munich's Bavaria Musikstudios in March 2024.

Seven: Works by Andrea Casarrubios
Andrea Casarrubios
Odradek Records ODRCD457
Release: 30 August 2024
Following the success of her Odradek releaseCaminante, award-winning Spanish cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios returns with Seven, which features seven of her most recent chamber works, all in first recordings. Alongside works for solo cello or cello and piano, the recording features a Chicago Symphony Orchestra commission for the distinctive combination of clarinet, violin, viola and cello, and culminates in Casarrubios's Piano Quintet, a tender tribute to California's Central Coast. Together, the mesmerising pieces on this album encompass a truly significant period in history: the years before and after 2020. At the heart of this collection lies SEVEN for solo cello, a piece that has become central to Casarrubios's life as a composer. The title alludes to the 7pm tribute offered to healthcare workers during lockdown. Through the music, she sought to explore the contradiction between solitude and community; that unique emotional complexity precipitated by the overwhelming challenges of 2020. SEVEN received its Carnegie Hall premiere in 2021 and has been performed in more than thirty-six countries since. Other highlights of the album include Armadura, inspired by artist FridaKahlo; Silbo, reflecting the unique beauty of whistled languages; and Mensajes del agua, which traces the intricate patterns found in unpolluted frozen water.

Tre
Lise Vandersmissen
Etcetera KTC1826
Release: 30 August 2024
TRE is a bridge between old and new: this album contains both Early Music and brand-new original compositions inspired by Folk and Early Music. Since there isn't a lot of solo repertoire for the triple harp, Lise has transcribed and arranged existing pieces (instrumentation in the Baroque period was flexible) and added her own compositions. TRE means 'three' in Italian. The Italian triple harp was invented at the end of the sixteenth century in Naples, and has three rows of strings that are strung parallel to one another. Today, the instrument is mainly played in an accompanying role as part of the continuo section. Intrigued by its unique timbres and technical possibilities, it has become Lise Vandersmissen's goal to reintroduce the triple harp as a solo instrument. Lise Vandersmissen (born Belgium, 1996) travels with her modern pedal harp and her Italian Triple Harp to perform across Europe and Asia. She has been awarded Prizes in international competitions including the First Prize at the International Harp Competition in Slovenia and the Second Prize at the Szeged International Harp Competition in Hungary, and she won the Belgian Supernova Competition with her Aglica Trio. TRE is Lise's second solo album: her debut album 'TRANSFORMED' with her own transcriptions for the modern pedal harp was released in 2023. Lise lives with her harps on a blue houseboat on the London canals and rivers. When she is not playing the harp, she loves to knit jumpers and run along the canal.

Concerto Grosso
Ataneres Ensemble, Kugoni Trio, Pieter Schuermans
Etcetera KTC1809
Release: 30 August 2024
Ataneres Ensemble and Kugoni Trio here present Concerto Grosso, their first joint album, in which the saxophone, violin and piano of the Kugoni Trio enter into a uniquely adventurous dialogue with the strings of the Ataneres Ensemble. The two ensembles offer a contemporary interpretation of the concerto grosso, an instrumental genre from the Baroque period in which a group of solo instruments interact with an instrumental ensemble. The Kugoni Trio and the Ataneres Ensemble aim not only to promote classical music in innovative ways but also to spotlight new works by Flemish composers. Astor Piazzolla's Concierto del Angel is therefore placed alongside works by Piet Swerts, Jeroen D'hoe and Pieter Schuermans which were initially created as collaborations with or commissions by the Kugoni Trio and which were arranged for this occasion. The work that opens this CD is by the Flemish composer Erik Desimpelaere, who has worked closely with both ensembles on many occasions.

Koppel, Schmidt & Bentzon: Clarinet Concertos
John Kruse, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra / Fredrik Burstedt
Orlando Records OR0054
Release: 30 August 2024
Three masterful compositions that highlight Denmark's rich musical heritage. John Kruse, the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and conductor Fredrik Burstedt present the fascinating world of Danish clarinet concertos. This album features Herman D Koppel's Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra, which showcases his distinctive blend of influences from jazz to classical. Ole Schmidt's Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra from 2007 offers a vibrant mix of jazz and classical styles, highlighting his imaginative orchestration. Finally, Niels Viggo Bentzon's Chamber Concerto for Solo Clarinet and Small Instrumental Ensemble, revised by his son, presents a unique, transparent musical language across four movements.

Michelle Lou: Near Distant
Distractfold, Ensemble Inverspace, gnarwhallaby, line upon line percussion, scapegoat, Trio K/D/M, WasteLand
Kairos Records KAI0022301
Release: 30 August 2024
Near Distant by Michelle Lou explores the intricate interplay of stasis, time and perception. Lou's compositions challenge conventional interpretations, presenting music as a constantly evolving landscape. Through 'static' or 'stasis-variation' she reveals the complexity within seemingly unchanging sounds, inviting listeners to explore subtle transformations in pitch, timbre and dynamics. This album embodies Lou's unique approach, emphasizing our active role in perceiving and transforming the infinite essence of music.

Yu Kuwabara: Sounded Voice, Voiced Sound
Marco Fusi, Hidejiro Honjoh, Shungo Mise, Awai-Za
Kairos Records KAI0022202
Release: 30 August 2024
In the heart of 21st-century Japan, Yu Kuwabara emerges as a composer of remarkable versatility and resilience. Inspired by Japanese mythology, Buddhist chants, and Edo songs, Kuwabara explores the energy of the Japanese language through her compositions. Her works, such as Bai and Dharani and Toward the Brink of Water Or the Verge of Dusk, blend Western classical influences with traditional Japanese elements. Kuwabara's research in traditional arts fuels her innovative approach, capturing the fluidity of 'awai' - the in-between state of being.

Camilo Mendez: Distant Fragments
Roberto Alonso Trillo, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble
Kairos Records KAI0022038
Release: 30 August 2024
With 'Distant Fragments', Camilo Mendez presents an album of solos and duos that showcase his most intimate and reflective works, creating a rich sound tapestry. While Mechanical Resonance I: Iridescent Resonance explores cloud luminescence through prepared violin and viola, Five Fragments deals with the themes of variation and polyphony. Cancion de la Distancia, on the other hand, reflects the fleeting nature of memory and time, inspired by Arturo's poetry. Recorded by Roberto Alonso, Linus Fung, William Lane, Angus Lee and Charles Ng, this album offers a subtle and complex musical contemplation.

 

23 AUGUST 2024

Jörg Widmann Piano Music
Yubo Zhou, piano
MDG MDG 904 2320-6 (SACD)
Release: 23 August 2024
One of the most intriguing composers of the 21st century, Jorg Widmann writes music that is both sophisticated and deeply moving. The highly talented and versatile virtuoso, Yubo Zhou, delves deep into Widmann's world of sound with these four stirring piano cycles, revealing a whole cosmos of allusions and associations. 'Zirkustanze' ('Circus Dances') is a fascinating kaleidoscope of emotions and parodies filled with a danger the tightrope-walker may fall. Zhou takes us through unexpected twists and turns with the necessary lyricism and irony whether fanfare, boogiewoogie, waltz or Venetian gondoliers' song. The finale makes a mockery of a parade-ground march whose weird distortions Zhou hurls at the audience with overwhelming virtuosity. 'Elf Humoresken' is a connotation-rich yet aesthetically self-contained transfer of Schumann's language into the musical idiom of the 21st century. Pieces such as 'Fast zu ernst' ('Almost Too Serious'), 'Lied im Traume' ('Song in a dream') or 'Waldszene' ('Forest scene') echo Schumann's 'Kinderszenen' and 'Waldszenen' with an imaginative mix of ingenuity and melancholic irony. 'Intermezzi' is Widmann's tribute to his love of Brahms. By way of a familiar melodic flourish, harmonic sequence or a tiny fragment of a motif, the allusions are yet remote from the nineteenth century and expressed in a tonal language of their own. 'Idyll und Abgrund' is a nod to Schubert, more reminiscence than pastiche, sometimes extremely vague, sometimes quite specific, and always distinguished by compositional and tonal extremes.

Giuliani and Paganini - Great Virtuosos!
Rainer Kussmaul, violin; Sonja Prunnbauer, guitar
MDG MDG 603 2329-2 (2 CDs)
Release: 23 August 2024
Two world-class virtuosos, Rainer Kussmaul, on a Stradivarius from 1724, together with guitarist Sonja Prunnbauer, perform a sensational selection of great virtuosic duos by Niccolo Paganini and Mauro Giuliani. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Paganini and Giuliani both sought their fortune in Vienna, a city that later consecrated them as great virtuosos and founders of the Italian violin and guitar school. Paganini, AKA the 'devil's violinist', was an uncanny idol and heartthrob to countless fans who also had a masterful command of the guitar. Giuliani was the premiere guitarist of his day and also had a great understanding of the violin. His nickname, 'the Paganini of the guitar' helped intensify the bond between the two and further sealed their friendship and mutual esteem. Paganini's gently flowing 'Sonata concertata' is a dialogue between equals, with each instrument serving up themes for the other. The heart of the work is romantically elegiac with broad melodic lines full of harmonic elaboration. His 'Grand Sonata a chitarra so/a' is brilliant in its technique and full of scintillating musical ideas. It begins with an extremely difficult passage in the highest range, followed by a sentimental romanza with a grand sweeping melody and concludes with a light, bubbling melodic theme with a series of bravura variations. Theme and variations was an extremely popular form in Vienna at the time and Giuliani was also fond of it. He had a remarkable ability to weave a melody into a passage with musical effect while remaining true to the idiom of the instrument. Giuliani pushed the boundaries of what had previously been possible on the guitar and fascinated his contemporaries with a diverse range of compositional techniques.

Chopin & Szymanowski
Jonathan Fournel, piano
Alpha Classics ALPHA1064
Release: 23 August 2024
Pianist Jonathan Fournel, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition at the age of 27 and already an important figure on the international stage, releases this programme of two great Polish masters that he has performed extensively in concert. His debut recording on Alpha Classics of Brahms' Piano Sonata No 3 and the Handel Variations received lavish praise in the international press, and his Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 18 & 21 in the Next Generation Mozart Soloists series were lauded for their natural fit and fluidity.

Fauré: Requiem; Gounod: Messe de Clovis
Le Concert Spirituel / Hervé Niquet
Alpha Classics ALPHA1014
Release: 23 August 2024
While Fauré's Requiem is a monument of French sacred music, Gounod's Messe de Clovis is much less well known. It was composed from 1891 onwards as a tribute to Clovis who, like Joan of Arc, had become an iconic figure after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The two works share a reflective and intimate character that gives the impression of a return to the purity of Gregorian chant, although this does not detract from the jubilant character of Fauré's Requiem: 'this warm, luxuriant sound leads to an elevation of the spirit', says Hervé Niquet. The work is recorded here in its 1893 version, in an orchestration that uses neither violins nor woodwind; a later version with full orchestra was published in July 1900. O salutaris by Louis Aubert (1877-1968) for soprano, violin, harp, organ and choir and L'Adagio for violin and organ by André Caplet (1878-1925) complete this programme, a co-production with the Palazzetto Bru Zane and performed with fervour by Le Concert Spirituel under Hervé Niquet, with vocal guest stars Emőke Baráth and Philippe Estèphe.

Robert & Clara Schumann: Works for Oboe and Piano
Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake
Chandos Records CHAN 20295
Release: 23 August 2024
Oboist Nicholas Daniel and pianist Julius Drake present a fascinating programme of chamber works by Robert and Clara Schumann. Most of the repertoire was composed for other instruments: transcribing for another instrument (in this case the oboe) is not only in keeping with performance practise of the time, but also presents these works in a new light.

American Road Trip
Augustin Hadelich, Orion Weiss
Warner Classics 5021732287908
Release: 23 August 2024
Violinist Augustin Hadelich's latest solo album is a homage to the US. Born to German parents, Hadelich moved to study at New York's Juilliard School at the age of nineteen and became an American citizen in 2014. This album, recorded with pianist Orion Weiss, spans two hundred years of American music from the nineteenth century to the present day, encompassing Romanticism, blues, jazz and more. Featured composers include Copland, Bernstein, Ives, Adams, Beach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and Daniel Bernard Roumain.

John Williams Reimagined
Sarah Andon, Cécilia Tsan, Simone Pedroni
Warner Classics 5054197942426 (2 CDs)
Release: 23 August 2024
Legendary film composer John Williams welcomed and praised this new set of arrangements of his most famous scores, transcribed for a trio of flute, cello and piano by Simone Pedroni. The two CD compilation includes selections from the Star Wars saga, Schindler's List, E T The Extra-Terrestrial, The Fabelmans, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, A I Artificial Intelligence, The Witches of Eastwick, Jurassic Park, The Accidental Tourist, Dracula, The Sugarland Express, Jane Eyre, War Horse, Hook, The Patriot and more.

Petrichor
David Orlowsky, clarinet
Warner Classics 5021732390028
Release: 23 August 2024
An album of eleven original compositions by clarinettist David Orlowsky, each inspired by a distinctive smell which, in Orlowsky's words, 'release something special inside us'. Orlowsky believes that smell and music are intricately connected - 'It is certainly no coincidence that we talk about the notes of a perfume, the colours of sounds and the tones of colours. Colours, sounds and smells transcend our capacity to describe things in words.'

Fluid Dynamics
Rachel Lee Priday, violin; David Kaplan, piano
Orchid Classics LC20037
Release: 23 August 2024
Partnering with oceanographer Georgy Manucharyan and six visionary composers, violinist Rachel Lee Priday embarks on a musically rich project that blends classical music with the visual poetry of fluid dynamics experiments, including a new album, Fluid Dynamics, with pianist David Kaplan out Friday, August 23, 2024 on Orchid Classics. The album features world premiere recordings of works commissioned specifically for this project by Gabriella Smith, Paul Wiancko, Cristina Spinei, Timo Andres, Leilehua Lanzilotti and Christopher Cerrone. Liner notes have been contributed by Katy Hamilton. The genesis of this ambitious project traces back to an unexpected encounter in 2019 when Priday, newly appointed to the University of Washington's School of Music, crossed paths with Georgy Manucharyan of the School of Oceanography, who studies what he describes as 'the physics of the ocean - how currents move, and what causes their motion.' Fascinated by Manucharyan's research on ocean currents and fluid dynamics, Priday recognized a unique opportunity to synergize their disciplines. Manucharyan's experiments, captured in visually captivating videos available to the public this fall, became the canvas upon which the composers crafted evocative musical responses. 'In talking to him more,' Priday explains, 'I found it interesting that every time he does the same experiment, it comes out differently: even though the principles are the same, you just never know what's going to happen. And I related that to what a performer does - to performance and interpretation, chance and timing, how every time we play is different.' The live world premiere of these works with their multimedia accompaniment takes place on 8 October 2024 at the Meany Center for the Performing Arts in Seattle, WA, USA. There was, importantly, no fixed brief: just the chance to view some of the videos, decide what might work and consider how the music and film footage might interact. And gradually, as more and more composers eagerly took up the challenge, a larger project - of this album, and of live musical performances with visuals - was born. Each composer approached the project with a distinct perspective, from Smith's dynamic exploration of wind and water in Entangled on a Rotating Planet to Spinei's precise synchronization with fluid movements in Convection Loops and Wiancko's energetic response to swirling vortices in Waterworks. Manucharyan expressed his delight at the unexpected musical interpretations, sharing how the composers' perspectives expanded his own understanding of the experiments, creating a rich tapestry of artistic and scientific exploration, remarking, 'It was completely new! Full of suspense and very sharp transitions'.

Trace of Time
Apollo Chamber Players
Azica Records ACD-71352
Release: 23 August 2024
Tango and spiritual-infused reflections on diverse cultures and the passage of time, featuring Apollo commissions from Hector del Curto and Adolphus Hailstork, plus Works by Julia Smith, Jessie Montgomery, Astor Piazzolla and Agustín Bardi. In this project featuring works by Héctor Del Curto, Julia Smith, Jessie Montgomery, Adolphus Hailstork, Astor Piazzolla and Agustín Bardi, Apollo brings together a diverse patchwork of cultural stories seen partly through the lens of how they linger in our memories as time passes. Of the seven pieces featured on the album, three were commissioned by Apollo Chamber Players with the request that each composer craft a piece reflecting their heritage - yielding an album capturing influences ranging from Argentine Tango music to West African drumming patterns and African-American spirituals. Houston-based Apollo Chamber Players, the core string quartet ensemble consisting of Matthew J. Detrick and Anabel Ramirez Detrick, violins; Aria Cheregosha, viola; and Matthew Dudzik, cello - are joined on select tracks by renowned bandoneon performer Hector Del Curto and guest violists Melissa Reardon and Ashleigh Gordon. In Trace of Time, Apollo continues its mission of storytelling through music, celebrating diverse cultural experiences and bringing communities together. Their previous album, Moonstrike (Azica Records, 2022) was praised by Take Effect for 'inestimable, multi-cultured, rhythmic chamber sounds that we could never tire of'. For this new album, the thematic and cultural ideas in the music are accented by vibrant artwork created digitally on an iPad by Houston-based artist Lynn Lane, including portraits of each featured artist and composer along with cover art depicting an Argentinian street lamp, known as a 'farole'. This captivating image evokes the passage of time in one of the album's key settings while hinting at other historical references - including the use of lamps as guideposts signaling freedom on the Underground Railroad. On the new recording, Apollo Founder, Director and violinist Matthew J Detrick said: 'A journey of musical discovery and cultural connections, Trace of Time builds upon what Apollo does best - fostering the creativity of composers and creatives who reflect the dynamic and beautiful world in which we live. We hope our expanding discography will continue to create cultural harmony for generations to come'. The album's title track, Trace of Time, commissioned by Apollo from Argentine bandoneonist Héctor Del Curto, combines key musical styles from Argentina's Rio de la Plata - the Tango, the Milonga and the Waltz - while reflecting influences from his mentors and longtime collaborators Osvaldo Pugliese, Astor Piazzolla and Pablo Ziegler. (As a teenager, Del Curto was a member of Piazzolla's band.) Composed during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many shared the feeling that time had 'stopped,' the work emerged as a musical memento of that surreal period. As Del Curto wrote in his composer's note: 'This piece will, perhaps, serve me as a trace to find myself in the future when recollecting this challenging time for human history.' A second Apollo-commissioned piece by Del Curto, Bien Curiosa ('Very Inquisitive') is also featured on this album. Composed in the Milonga rhythm - a lively, upbeat style that has remained nearly unchanged since the origins of Tango music - the piece charts its own course through dissonance and chromaticism, bringing an adventurous new twist to the traditional rhythm. On the inspiration for the piece, Del Curto writes, 'This piece is dedicated to my son, Santiago Del Curto, whose innocence and curiosity led him to become an exceptional musician.' Composer Adolphus Hailstork was also commissioned by Apollo to compose a work for the ensemble's expanding new music catalog and album projects, yielding his work Deep River: Rhapsody for String Quartet. Like Astor Piazzolla, Hailstork was a student of famed Parisian pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, who encouraged both composers to embrace the music of their heritage. Deep River: Rhapsody for String Quartet is a culmination of Hailstork's love of spirituals and the gift of musical craftsmanship instilled by his teacher. Adapting a favorite spiritual, Deep River, Hailstork draws on an image of hope for enslaved people, who envisioned the crossing of a river (the Ohio, in particular) as a journey to freedom - though too often, a journey they could only imagine. 'This idea carries with it a sense of energy, of freedom, even joy and the humor they imagine upon deliverance,' Hailstork writes in his composer's note. 'A sudden interruption by the whip brings them back down to the cruelty and sadness of the situation. Eventually, sadly, they recover, and quietly embrace again the distant vision they hope to realize someday.' Julia Smith's Quartet for Strings, composed in 1964, was selected for this album for its musical themes reflecting the character and landscapes of Texas, home state to both Smith and Apollo Chamber Players. Composed in three movements - Allegro Ritmico, Lento Espressivo and Allegro Giocoso - this eclectic work captures the majesty of the Lone Star State. Its musical architecture moves from frenetic energy - with a pizzicato accompaniment evoking the sound of banjos - to melancholic dissonance to a buoyant mixed-meter dance. Apollo's performance represents the first contemporary recording of this lost work. Jessie Montgomery's Voodoo Dolls captures West African drumming patterns and lyrical chant motifs in a work commissioned and choreographed by the Jump! Dance Company of Rhode Island. A suite of dances choreographed for the piece depicts traditional dolls from around the world, from the voodoo dolls of the title to Russian Matryoshka dolls, ragdolls, marionettes and Barbie dolls. Associated with the genres of 'Nuevo Tango' and 'Avant-Garde Tango,' Argentina-born Astor Piazzolla was a protégé of both Alberto Ginastera and Nadia Boulanger. His work Tango Ballet was first recorded as a film score in 1956 (for a dance film since lost) before being re-recorded and popularized in 1964. In addition to its original arrangements for string quartet and string orchestra, the piece has been arranged throughout its history for solo piano and other instrumentation. The work unfolds across six continuous movements in a slow-fast-slow progression reminiscent of Gershwin's An American in Paris. As with Smith's Quartet for Strings, Apollo's recording represents the first contemporary rendition of this version of Tango Ballet.  Celebrated Tango composer Agustín Bardi's piece Gallo Ciego was an iconic piece in the repertoire of Osvaldo Pugliese's orchestra through much of the twentieth century. Composed in 1927, the piece was arranged for a 1959 recording by Víctor Lavallén - and reorchestrated by Jisoo Ok in 2020, yielding the new version heard on this album.

Anna Clyne: Shorthand
The Knights
Sony Classical
Release: 23 August 2024
Anna Clyne and orchestral collective The Knights, led by Eric Jacobsen, announce the release of a new album, Shorthand, in Dolby Atmos format, recorded by close collaborator, audio engineer Jody Elff. The album features performances by an illustrious group of soloists including mandolinist Avi Avital, violinists Colin Jacobsen and Pekka Kuusisto, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Shorthand brings together a host of internationally acclaimed artists and presents a collection of Clyne's compositions, including its title-track, Shorthand, for cello and string orchestra recorded here with Yo-Yo Ma. Three Sisters is performed by its dedicatee mandolinist Avi Avital, and Clyne's double violin concerto Prince of Clouds places violinists Colin Jacobsen and Pekka Kuusisto in the spotlight. With works spanning more than a decade, Shorthand presents musical conversations between the soloists and the ensemble, as well as within the ensemble itself. The album also features Clyne's most personal work, Within Her Arms, written as a tribute to her late mother. Scored for fifteen individual string parts, the music is shaped around a simple motif which grows and moves around the listener throughout the piece. The title is taken from a poem by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh. Poetry, art and music are reflected throughout the album, with Prince of Clouds drawing on Baudelaire's poem L'Albatros. Three Sisters reflects on three stars found in the constellation of Orion, whilst Shorthand muses on Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata and the novella by Tolstoy of the same name, taking its title from his statement, 'Music is the shorthand of emotion'. The album also features the first recording of Shorthand (Redux), a reimagining of Clyne's thoughtful work. Composer Anna Clyne and The Knights' artistic directors Colin Jacobsen and Eric Jacobsen, say: 'Shorthand represents over two decades of artistic friendships and collaborations - each of the artists on this album has played an important part in our artistic lives. It has brought together so many creative spirits and it has been an honor to record these works with them all. Over the span of two years, starting at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts to Power Station Studios in New York City, we have come together to create this special album that we are excited to share with you.' Boldly bringing a contemporary take to classical music through cross-genre collaborations and new technology, Anna Clyne's forthcoming year sees major instrumentalists and orchestras presenting her music to audiences across the globe, with highlights including the first performance of Palette - a Concerto for Augmented Orchestra by the St Louis Symphony Orchestra (14 February 2025); and further performances of her new solo instrumental concertos across the world - Weathered for clarinetist Martin Fröst, Glasslands for saxophonist Jess Gillam and Time and Tides for violinist Pekka Kuusisto.

Alfredo Campoli - The Bel Canto Violin
Australian Eloquence ELQ4846278
Release: 23 August 2024
Collected for the first time and newly remastered, the complete Decca and L'Oiseau-Lyre recordings (from 1931 to 1978) of Alfredo Campoli, including unpublished tracks and the classical 78s (newly remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn). Limited Edition. Born into a family of professional musicians in 1906, Campoli rapidly took to the violin, and before he turned eighteen, he was already secure in eleven major concertos. He subsequently toured with celebrated singers of the day including Nellie Melba and Clara Butt, before turning his attention to light music. During the 1930s he became a household name in the UK, known simply as 'Campoli', for his many recordings and broadcasts, especially with his Salon Orchestra. Campoli's impeccable technique and showman's instincts were combined with a rare purity of tone and beauty of phrasing, often likened to bel canto singing. He began recording for Decca in 1931, and these 78rpm discs have rarely been issued since, but they present the violinist on typically characterful form, in miniatures and arrangements which capture the essence of romantic violin-playing. Several tracks previously unpublished on Decca from a session in June 1940 include transcriptions of Chopin, Grainger and Stephen Foster, where Campoli turns on the charm in quintessential style. Decca captured the full range of Campoli's musicianship, from salon-orchestra serenades and Baroque-era sonatas to the first recording of the concerto which Sir Arthur Bliss wrote for him. He brought a special warmth and unmannered pathos to the Violin Concerto by Elgar, under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult in 1954, which stands out as a highlight of his legacy on record. This Eloquence set presents Campoli's legacy in largely chronological order, restoring the original LP couplings, and presenting for the first time on CD stereo versions of Saint-Saens's Violin Concerto No. 3, the Kreisler/ Paganini Violin Concerto No 1 and pieces by Sarasate and Wieniawski. First-issue covers and many rare photographs are complemented by a new and illuminating essay by Andrew Dalton, who recalls Campoli in concert in the early 1960s: 'I was instantly captivated, for a Campoli performance was never routine'.

Brahms & Mozart: Geza Anda live 1963 & 1974
Geza Anda; Karl Bohm; Wiener Philharmoniker; Philharmonia Orchestra
Prospero Classical PROSP0100
Release: 23 August 2024
The art of the Swiss pianist of Hungarian origin Geza Anda, which is as unmistakable as it is elusive, is revealed even more impressively in the concert recordings of his career spanning almost thirty-five years than in the studio recordings, many of which have remained a reference. The numerous recordings that have survived paint a picture of an artist who is committed to unconditional dedication and great expressivity. This is impressively demonstrated by the live recordings of Mozart's Concerto K 456 and Brahms' Piano Concerto No 1, released here for the first time, which occupy a special place in Anda's oeuvre. Both concertos are associated with Karl Bohm on the podium: Anda worked with Bohm, as far as is known, three times; two of these stellar musical moments are presented here for the first time.

Giacinto Scelsi: Complete String Quartets & String Trio
Quatuor Molinari
ATMA Classique ACD22849
Release: 23 August 2024
On their latest recording, the acclaimed Molinari Quartet delves into the complete string quartet cycle of iconoclast Italian composer, Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988). An unusual creator known for his experimental approach, Scelsi had two great periods of musical production: the first from 1929 to the mid-1950s, which included a period of refuge in Switzerland, and the second until his death in 1988. During the first period, Scelsi's writing was inspired by the composers of the Second Viennese School, in particular Schoenberg, with whom he studied in Vienna. His works from that period are dodecaphonic, atonal or serial. During the second period, he suffered a serious psychological crisis and stopped composing for several years. When Scelsi finally resumed writing, he concentrated on monody. Melodies gave way to  timbral interplay, which became the focus of Scelsi's musical preoccupations. The album includes Scelsi's most famous and controversial work, his 1958 String Trio in four movements, each centered on a single note. The rhythmic simplicity of this work shifts the focus to musical colors and textures. The Molinari Quartet has established itself as one of Canada's  leading string quartets. A recipient of 27 Opus Prizes, the Molinari Quartet has been described as an 'essential' and 'prodigious' ensemble, even 'Canada's answer to the Kronos or Arditti Quartet'.

Conradin Kreutze: Der Taucher
Soloists; Frieder Bernius; Stuttgarter Kammerchor
Carus CAR83536
Release: 23 August 2024
Under the direction of Frieder Bernius, the Chamber Choir and the Hofkapelle Stuttgart as well as excellent soloists such as Sarah Wegener and Philipp Mathmann (both soprano) bring this opera rarity, which is absolutely worth discovering, back to life and emphatically demonstrate its special musical quality. After two hundred years, a composer who, as a successful opera composer of the Romantic period, is still unjustly overshadowed by Carl Maria von Weber, and even by the actually failed opera composers Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, is once again brought to life. Frieder Bernius with his Hofkapelle Stuttgart and the Stuttgarter Kammerchor introduce the music to us on this dazzling new recording.

Arpeggione - A forgotten Instrument
Martin Zeller; Giorgio Paronuzzi; Victor Castillo Luna
Prospero Classical PROSP0079
Release: 23 August 2024
Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is so famous that many people know the name of the instrument thanks to this work; but very few people are likely to have ever heard it. Even for the first printing of the sonata in 1871, alternative parts for violin or cello were produced because the arpeggione had fallen into oblivion. To mark the two hundredth birthday of the instrument invented in 1823, Martin Zeller, Giorgio Paronuzzi and Victor Castillo Luna have selected works by Schubert, Romberg and Spohr in which the arpeggione plays a leading role.

Fortuna - Old and New Versions of an Italian Song
Consort Mirabile
Prospero Classical PROSP0104
Release: 23 August 2024
Fortuna Desperata was the most popular Italian song of the fifteenth century, indeed of the entire Renaissance. It was widely used, was intabulated for both one and two lutes, for keyboard instruments as well as for viols and served as inspiration for six masses as well as at least thirty-eight other derived settings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The recorder ensemble Consort Mirabile has compiled versions from various centuries through to contemporary compositions and recorded them with changing recorder instrumentations.

Amadeus et L'Imperatrice
Elisabeth Pion; Arion Baroque Orchestra
ATMA Classique ACD22885
Release: 23 August 2024
The dazzling pianist Elisabeth Pion joins Arion Baroque Orchestra conducted by Mathieu Lussier in exploring rarely performed works by French composer Helene de Montgeroult (1764-1836). A contemporary of Mozart, this artist fascinates modern listeners both for her trailblazing career and for her contribution to the development of the French piano repertoire. Mathieu Lussier has transcribed Montgeroult's Overture by 'augmenting' piano and piano/voice pieces into a work for orchestra. The Overture 'L'Imperatrice' (the Empress) was arranged for this album and borrows its title from the nickname some admirers gave Montgeroult. Montgeroult composed her Piano Concerto No 1 by transcribing parts of two violin concertos by her friend Giambattista Viotti, which she adapted for piano. Her process of recomposition involved both the left and right hand on the keyboard, and considerably modified Viotti's original orchestration. Elisabeth Pion's new recording also includes Mozart's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No 24, a selection of five Montgeroult piano studies, as well as Romance sans paroles, a pianoforte and strings arrangement by Mathieu Lussier to the very moving Etude No 26. An enquiring and innovative artist, pianist Elisabeth Pion leads an imaginative career as a soloist, chamber musician, and artistic collaborator. A cornerstone of Montreal's music scene for over forty years, Arion Baroque Orchestra is a pioneer in the Canadian world of early music on period instruments. Artistic Director and conductor of Arion Baroque Orchestra, Mathieu Lussier devotes considerable time to chamber music as a member of ensemble Pentaedre de Montreal and Associate Professor at the Music Faculty of the Universite de Montreal.

Art Choral, Vol 1: Renaissance
Ensemble ArtChoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA Classique ACD22420
Release: 23 August 2024
ATMA Classique, Ensemble ArtChoral and Mecenat Musica are proud to present Art choral, Vol 1: Renaissance with Ensemble ArtChoral under the direction of Matthias Maute. Volume 1 surveys choral repertoire by Renaissance composers such as Cristobal de Morales and Tomas Luis de Victoria (Spain), Andrea Gabrieli and Cipriano de Rore (Italy), Clement Jannequin and Josquin des Pres (France), and Thomas Tallis and William Byrd (England), in music that reflects the flowering of vocal polyphony in Renaissance Europe. The Art Choral series is a unique and ambitious project surveying the history of choral singing over six centuries, from the Renaissance to the present day. Consisting of fifteen volumes, the series will roll out over seven years and will feature works by seventy composers from the sixteenth to the 21st centuries, as well as fifteen webcast concerts and a-hundred-and-fifty videos. Ensemble ArtChoral (formerly Ensemble vocal Arts- Quebec) is a professional choir whose mission is to present the great tradition of choral singing in Quebec, Canada, and abroad. Conductor Matthias Maute has achieved international renown as a conductor, recorder and flute player, and composer.

Haydn: Cello Concertos / Hetu: Rondo
Cameron Crozman; Les Violons du Roy
ATMA Classique ACD22851
Release: 23 August 2024
Cellist Cameron Crozman returns with a new recording of Joseph Haydn's Cello Concertos Nos 1 and 2 and Jacques Hetu's Rondo for Cello and String Orchestra, Op 9. He joins Les Violons du Roy conducted by Nicolas Ellis. Long thought lost, Haydn's Cello Concerto in C was rediscovered in 1961 at the National Museum in Prague. According to the eminent Haydn scholar H C Robbins Landon, it is 'a major discovery of our time, and surely one of the finest works of the period'. The concerto in D major was long attributed to Anton Kraft, and it wasn't until 1951 that the discovery of an autograph manuscript finally did justice to Haydn, its true author. Completed in 1965, Jacques Hetu's Rondo for Cello and String Orchestra, Op 9, was premiered on Radio-Canada by cellist Arpad Szomoru and the Orchestre de chambre de la Societe Radio-Canada de Quebec. The Rondo is the first concerto work by Jacques Hetu, then aged 27. It demonstrates Hetu's taste for classical forms, his ability to highlight the strings, and his solid contrapuntal skills. Cameron Crozman regularly appears in recital and as a soloist with major orchestras in North America and Europe and shares the stage with world-renowned artists, including James Campbell, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, and Andre Laplante. Les Violons du Roy takes its name from the celebrated court orchestra of the French kings. Established in 1984 by Bernard Labadie, it continues to explore the boundless repertoire of music for chamber orchestra in performances aligned as closely as possible to the period of each work's composition.

Wagner: An Introduction to 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'
Deryck Cooke, Georg Solti; Vienna Philharmonic
Australian Eloquence ELQ4846918
Release: 23 August 2024
Long out of print, Deryck Cooke's invaluable 'Introduction to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen' reappears on CD, with its original LP couplings of Siegfried Idyll and Kinderkatechismus.Almost as soon as it reached completion with the release of Die Walkure in 1966, the Decca Ring cycle conducted by Sir Georg Solti was recognised as the greatest achievement in the history of recorded sound. Three years later, the cycle was issued complete for the first time, and it came with a significant appendix: a three-LP introduction to the music-drama, written and narrated by Deryck Cooke. An English writer on music, Cooke had come to international attention through his completion of Mahler's sketches for the Tenth Symphony. He was a friend of the Decca Ring's producer, John Culshaw, who invited him to make this introduction. No academic, but a broadcaster on the BBC's Third Programme and a pioneer in what might be called popular musicology, Cooke presumed no prior knowledge on the part of his listeners, only a willingness to immerse themselves in the world of the Ring and in its universal themes of love, power, self-knowledge and tragedy. Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic recorded many excerpts especially for this introduction - played slower or extended or without voices, to aid comprehension. (Some of these excerpts may have been recorded during rehearsals for various orchestral sections.) Countless listeners have since had their understanding of the Ring immeasurably enhanced by engaging with Cooke's introduction. In complement to Decca's recent remastering of the original recording, Eloquence now reissues Cooke's introduction on CD, presented just as it was in the original box. Unlike previous digital-era issues, this set also includes the recordings of the Siegfried Idyll, led by the Vienna Philharmonic violinist Walter Weller, and the charming Katechismus which Wagner composed as another birthday present for his wife Cosima.

Yann Tiersen: Die fabelhafte Welt der Amelie, EUSA, Kerber
Michael van Krucker, piano
Etcetera KTC1613
Release: 23 August 2024
This CD presents a musical cross-section of French musician and composer Yann Tiersen's life, from his time in Paris - to quote Tiersen himself, 'I hate Paris', 'the city is a shithole' - to his retreat many years ago to the island of Ushant / Ouessant, about thirty kilometres distant from Brest and the westernmost point of metropolitan France off its Atlantic coast. Yann Tiersen combines many different musical forms in his music: Traditional French music such as folk and chanson as well as avant-garde rock and pop music. It is also striking that most of his works are recorded entirely by himself, as a kind of 'one-man orchestra'. His instrumental studio releases often feature electric guitar, piano, synthesiser, violin, but also melodica, xylophone, harpsichord and accordion. His music can probably be categorised as 'neoclassical', in which the fields of classical, pop, jazz and electronic music intermingle. There is also a connection to minimalism/minimal music, a musical style in which the repetitive aspect and the reduction of the material used are the strongest. Michael van Krucker has given concerts over the years throughout Europe and Asia as well as in South America and the USA. He has also performed at many renowned festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, Heidelberger Fruhling, Festival de la Roque d'Antheron (France), Pomeriggi Musicali (Italy), and the Julius Rontgen Festival Den Haag (The Netherlands). He has made CD recordings for RCA Red Seal, Sony/BMG, Koch Schwann, Berlin Classics, NCA and NM Classics, as well as Etcetera Records. Michael van Krucker also appears regularly as a member of the Trio Ostwestinato with Kayako Bruckmann and Rene Berman.

The Privileged Oboe - Oboe Quartets
Emma Black; Zoe Black; Anne Harvey-Nagl; Peter Trefflinger
Ars Produktion ARS38596
Release: 23 August 2024
Unfortunately, the oboe quartet genre has never attained the status of the clarinet quintet in the public's favour. Yet it is no less appealing a combination, and in the eighteenth century in particular there was an abundance of quartets with oboe, of which only Mozart's virtuoso oboe quartet achieved fame. The oboist Emma Black and her colleagues set two pieces by Mozart's contemporaries alongside this famous work, which, not least thanks to the all-round convincing realisation, arouse curiosity for further compositions in this instrumentation.

Opus V - Works for Harpsichord
Ines Moreno Uncilla; Minue Ensemble
Ars Produktion ARS38660
Release: 23 August 2024
Johann Christian Bach was one of the very few contemporary composers whom Mozart sincerely appreciated, even revered. His Sonatas Op 5, published in 1766, apparently appealed to Mozart so much that he reworked three of them into harpsichord concertos a few years later. Ines Moreno Uncilla presents these sonatas Op 5, taking into account Mozart's arrangements of Sonatas 2-4.

Hope - Traditional Gospels and Spirituals
Duo Praxedis
Ars Produktion ARS38668
Release: 23 August 2024
At a time when the world situation is changing drastically and fear, worry and negative thinking reign, many people feel tired and overwhelmed. With their new album Hope, the Duo Praxedis would like to set an antipole to let hope and confidence flow into people's hearts. To this end, they perform twenty-three spirituals and gospel songs in their own versions for harp and piano.

The Voice of Piano
Carmen Stefanescu, piano
Prospero Classical PROSP0098 (2 CDs)
Release: 23 August 2024
The idea behind Carmen Stefanescu's latest double album starts with the piano. The Voice of Piano focuses primarily on the vocal qualities of the instrument. But it is also about the diverse interrelationships between the singing voice, between orchestral or piano song and the piano. This new double CD contains the artist's favorite pieces, almost exclusively song transcriptions of works by composers such as Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius and Strauss.

Paolo Litta: A Triptych of Life and Death
Guido de Neve, Jan Michiels
Etcetera KTC1715
Release: 23 August 2024
Despite the fascinating life Paolo Litta led and the intriguing works he left behind, he and his music are still familiar only to a small number of musicians and musicologists. Litta was born illegitimately in Stockholm in 1871, at which time an Italian man acknowledged him as his son. Whilst little is known about his childhood years, he seems to have studied in Germany before moving to Geneva, where he studied at the Academie de Musique with two remarkable pianists: the first of these was the eccentric Olga Janina, a pupil of Franz Liszt, with whom she maintained a troubled relationship; the second was Alfred Veit, an American who had studied with Antoine Francois Marmontel in Paris and with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. Since the Academie de Musique in Geneva was founded in 1886 and Janina and Veit had left the Academie in 1886 and 1889 respectively, it is clear that Litta must have studied there during those few years. He then enrolled at the Conservatoire Royal in Brussels in September 1889 and began a period of intense involvement with Belgian cultural life. Litta obtained a premier prix in piano with pianist-composer Arthur De Greef there in 1890 as well as a further premier prix in counterpoint and fugue with Hubert Ferdinand Kufferath one year later. These awards brought him concerts, initially in Belgium and soon in neighbouring lands as well. He also began to present himself more and more as a composer: not only was he the soloist in Liszt's Concerto in E flat with the orchestra of the Kursaal in Blankenberge on 26 July 1891, but the orchestra also performed a new orchestral suite by him in the same concert. Litta became involved in the Brussels avant-garde artists' collective Les XX, an organisation that organised exhibitions and concerts between 1883 and 1893, and with whom he appeared as soloist in Rimsky-Korsakov's Piano Concerto Op 30 on 18 February 1892. His concerto repertoire included not only works by Beethoven and Liszt but also the Symphonie sur un chant montagnard francais by Vincent d'Indy, whom he had met at Les XX. Litta would perform several times with d'Indy, whose Poeme des montagnes was to become one of Litta's warhorses.

 

16 AUGUST 2024

Piper of Dreams - Ruth Gipps Chamber Music
Juliana Koch, oboe, cor anglais; Julian Bliss, clarinet; Michael McHale, piano
Chandos CHAN 20290
Release: 16 August 2024
Acclaimed solo oboist Juliana Koch leads this exploration of chamber music for oboe and cor anglais by the English composer Ruth Gipps - who was for many years principal oboe of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (as well as a fine concert pianist and educator).

Marc Harris & Jo Reeves: Symphony No 2 - Aurora Nova
Independent MHCD95884
Release: 16 August 2024
The first recording of the Harris/Reeves three-movement 'Symphony No 2 - Aurora Nova' for orchestra & choir - beautiful, expressive and evocative - a major work.

Robert Burns Arnot: Molokai - A Treacherous Crossing
Wiener Klassische WK95133
Release: 16 August 2024
The first recording of three Orchestral works by Robert Burns-Arnot, his one-movement 'Symphony No 2 - Molokai', the four-movement 'Symphony No 3 - Birth of the Romantik' and his 'Symphony No 4' - The Birth of Rock and Roll' -  beautiful, tonal music, performed by the Czech Studio Orchestra.

Mark Hodgkin: Duets for Flute and Guitar
Independent MHCD 002
Release: 16 August 2024
The first recording of ten works for flute and guitar by composer Mark Hodgkin - tonal, imaginative music with a great harmonic and expressive richness.

A Dream So Bright
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Reference Recordings FR-756
Release: 16 August 2024
Two first recordings of works by Jake Runestad. His choral/orchestral work, Earth Symphony, with poetry of Todd Boss, was commissioned and premiered by True Concord in 2022. Dreams of the Fallen, Runestad's prize­-winning work for solo piano, chorus & orchestra, features pianist Jeffrey Biegel and includes texts of the poet Brian Turner, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Turner states: 'When the music lifts to its peak, when the choir sings into the high cathedral of the human experience — the hairs on the back of my neck take notice, my own heart takes notice, and I am moved once again by the fusion of sound and story. Dreams of the Fallen is a compassionate, emotionally­ layered, elegant, and poignant work of art that I am proud to be a part of.

Alikeness
Mark Fewer, violinist and conductor; Deantha Edmunds, first Inuk classical soloist and recording artist in Canada; Aiyun Huang, percussion; Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia
Leaf Music LM296
Release: 16 August 2024
Alikeness is inspired by the human capacity to learn, adapt and collaborate. This album encourages listeners to find their own 'alikenesses' within the music while fostering a deeper connection with one another. The album opens with the world premiere of Deantha Edmunds' Angmalukisaa ('round' in Inuktut), a personal composition about human connections. Next is Épisodes by Serge Arcuri, written for the Montreal Baroque Orchestra in 1998, blending the baroque 'concerto grosso' form with modern elements. Followed by Matt Brubeck's The Simple Life, newly arranged for strings. The third movement, 'C' from B-A-C-H by Robert Carli, after J S Bach's surname, was composed in 2013 for the Sweetwater Music Festival. The album concludes with Alikeness, Yoshiaki Onishi's arrangement of an eight-movement suite by Jaroslaw Kapuściński.  The suite was originally composed in 2015 for the St Lawrence String Quartet and Aiyun Huang.

War Poems
Maria Narodytska, piano
Somm Recordings SOMM 0689
Release: 16 August 2024
SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce the new solo piano album War Poems by phenomenal Ukrainian pianist Maria Narodytska. With this, her debut album on SOMM Recordings, she makes a bold and impassioned, yet inclusive artistic statement, using solo piano works of various historical periods, written in the midst of conflict - our own included - to ask listeners to reflect on the ravages of war and safeguard the flickering flame of hope in peace. As the vastly talented composer of a work on this recital, Narodytska writes as a Ukrainian, but performs her programme as a member of the artistic community and a world citizen. Her recital unites her own composition and that of another contemporary Ukrainian composer, Artem Liakhovych, with the war-time work of past masters: Poland's Szymanowski, who was born in the centre of modern-day Ukraine and sheltered there as he wrote his Masques near the end of World War I; his compatriot Chopin, who wrote his Opus 40 Polonaises from a new home in Paris after the Revolutions of 1830; and Shostakovich, whose Second Piano Sonata he began during a family evacuation amid the Siege of his native Leningrad (St Petersburg) in World War II. Maria Narodytska plays six of Artem Liakhovych's 24 Postludes for solo piano, his 'War Notebook', composed in the wake of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In Liakhovych's words: 'This cycle is my reaction to the war in Ukraine, written during the evacuation in Uman. It covers all tonalities, but in a contrary motion - to the circle-of-fifths key sequence in Chopin's 24 Préludes, for example. This is due to the importance of the postlude as an epilogue, an afterword, encoding a certain ending of time, even a reversal of it.' Of Narodytska's own composition, After, she says: 'I wrote this piece shortly before the recording, and for me it is a direct reflection of the war in Ukraine. While writing it, I was imagining what happens after one gets a call that no one would want to get or reads the news that no one would like to read. It's the kind of 'after' as in: 'life got divided into before and after'.' A prize winner of the Takamatsu, Santa Cecilia and WorldVision International Music Competitions, Maria Narodytska has also achieved wins in many more major competitions while continuing to give concerts worldwide and serving as a much sought-after teacher and jury member.

Holst: Sāvitri, The Planets, The Perfect Fool Ballet Suite etc.
Somm Recordings ARIADNE 5030-2
Release: 16 August 2024
SOMM Recordings is pleased to release this set of delightful never-before-released recordings of the music of Gustav Holst in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. Here are works of grand and intimate scale, for orchestral and chamber forces, with and without singers, offering a vivid sampling of his oeuvre in meticulous restorations of recorded live performances given in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Chronologically, the earliest recordings are those on Disc 2, curated by Producer Lani Spahr. The live performances of The Perfect Fool Suite and The Planets were recorded from New York's Radio City Studio in 1945 and Boston's Symphony Hall in 1946, respectively, with British conductors leading orchestras from 'across the pond', where Holst had devoted much time in his later years conducting, lecturing and teaching. The recordings on Disc 1 are in various ways the result of Imogen Holst's championing of her father's music. A composer in her own right, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist and festival administrator, it was in the last capacity, especially, that she came to work at Benjamin Britten's side on his annual Aldeburgh Festival, becoming co-artistic director in the season of 1956. This recording of Gustav Holst's chamber opera Sāvitri dates from that summer and comes from the collection of Music Preserved. Nearly a decade later Imogen Holst, who by then was acclaimed for her founding and leadership of the Purcell Singers, a choir whose performances became a regular fixture at Aldeburgh, curated a series of broadcasts on BBC's Third Programme to feature works by her father and other composers. Some of the Gustav Holst pieces, like the Third Group of Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda and Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo for orchestra, were broadcast live from public performances at the Cheltenham Music Festival in July of 1965, Cheltenham incidentally being Gustav's birthplace. Others, like the 4 Songs for soprano and violin and The Evening-Watch for mixed chorus, must have been pre-recorded in closed sessions that summer for use later in Imogen's series of programmes. These two recordings were aired on 31 October 1965. All of the Cheltenham '65 recordings come from the collection of Stephen Crane of ARS Recorded Editions. Disc 1 has been fastidiously polished by Restoration Engineer Paul Baily. His restoration of the recent Sir Adrian Boult Conducts (ARIADNE 5024-2) was honoured with the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Records Critics' Award) in the Historical Recordings category.

Steven Mackey: Memoir
Bridge Records BRIDGE 9601
Release: 16 August 2024
This is the first recording of Steven Mackey's dramatic musical work, Memoir (2021), released as a new album. Featuring the dynamic percussionists of arx duo and the award-winning Dover Quartet, with direction from Mark DeChiazza and narrated by Natalie Christa Rakes, Memoir explores the tumultuous twentieth century as told through the eyes of a first-generation American woman - Elaine Mackey, Steven's mother - charting her own path in search of the American Dream. In his program note, Mackey shares, 'Memoir is an adaptation of my own mother's memoir which gives the process and the product a heightened personal connection. The script is a series of short vignettes which trace Elaine Mackey's life, born in Steel Town USA, coming of age in the Great Depression, escaping an ill-fated Hollywood marriage to work for the Department of Defense in post-war Europe and raising a family in Northern California in the volatile sixties. Against the backdrop of the events of the twentieth century, a la Forrest Gump, there is a touching candor and vulnerability to my mom's stories revealing the tension between her shy nature and her longing for adventure; her 'nice-girl' upbringing and her openness to experience. Familiar themes of love, loss, gender roles, and social mores ensconced in her intense personal struggle with alcoholism and its stigma.' In the seventy-five-minute musical work, Elaine's journey is told through music and narrated vignettes from her own memoir and that of her son, the composer. Mackey added, 'Memoir more directly references her favorite music and the lullaby medley she sang to me as a child. Overall, the musical language of Memoir is a bit simpler and more direct than I would do if I were writing a piece without connection to this text. Her voice, ringing through these stories, asked for something more innocent.' Written for string quartet, percussion duo and narrator, the visually and sonically captivating work spans diverse musical landscapes and characters, from witty and playful to rich and profound. As director Mark DeChiazza points out, 'the narrator is also like the other musicians with whom she shares the stage. The memoir's text is her orchestral part, the narration another instrument in the mix, its rhythms and tones, energies and emotions weaving into the aggregate whole that comprises Mackey's reckoning with his mother's story. The text of Elaine's memoir, and its photos and memorabilia too, provide Mackey his point of entry—a portal through which he conducts a musical conversation with his mother, his engagement with the document she left him imaginative perspectives on her, their relationship, and ultimately himself.'

Amélie Fortin: Aqualudes
Self-released via streaming services?
Release: 16 August 2024
A sweeping collection, Fortin offers us a suite of four pieces for solo piano inspired by the movement of the water. Influences from the jazz and classical worlds run throughout each track, and she takes to the keys with a certain freedom and without constraints. Based in Montreal, Fortin is a multifaceted artist blending classical piano mastery, composition, teaching, and photography. Her explorations are imbued with a boundless creative spirit. Her diverse projects reflect her eclecticism and curiosity, establishing her reputation as an exceptional collaborator. As a multi-award-winning musician known for her unparalleled versatility, Fortin's fingers grace classical, contemporary, and popular music forms. Beyond performing, she inspires as a dynamic educator and collaborates as a composer with various artists. She's also known as the other half of the celebrated classical Duo Fortin-Poirier.  Paired with Marie-Christine Poirier, the duo quickly gained recognition in international competitions, securing 2nd Prize at the 2013 Concorso Pianisto Internazionale Roma and garnering four Opus Prize nominations. Whether on stage or through her photography, Amélie Fortin seeks moments of contemplation, suspension, and wonder—where time fades and magic unfolds.

Boccherini: Chamber Works for Flute
Sally Walker, flute
Avie AV2698
Release: 16 August 2024
Late eighteenth century Italian composer Luigi Boccherini produced a vast catalogue of compositions, several of which were chamber works featuring the flute
Australian flautist Sally Walker, whose first appearance on AVIE was in collaboration with harpist Emily Granger on the album Something Like This, has taken a deep dive into the provenance of Boccherini's works for her instrument to produce a ninety-minute, two-for-the-price-of-one volume of music that is infinitely elegant, virtuosic and beautifully refined. The relatively rare yet imaginative Six Quintets, Op 19, for two violins, flute, viola and cello vary in their configuration, some intimate, others on a grander scale reminiscent of the composer's orchestral music. Also included are the first 'Divertimento Notturno' from the Sextet, Op 38 for violin, viola, bassoon, flute, horn and double bass; and, as a 'bonus' the Quintet G 443 for flute, oboe, violin, viola and cello, a work attributed to Boccherini. Although its authorship is contested, as Sally says, 'it is such a beautiful work that we wanted to include it anyway.'

Faroe Islands: Echoes on the Wind
Daniela Mars & Paul Smith
Voces8 Records VCM160
Release: 16 August 2024
This year sees the release of a first cinematic album by Mars Smith, Faroe Islands: Echoes on the Wind. Daniela Mars and Paul Smith have created this new album of their own music inspired by the stunning natural beauty, stories, myths and legends of the Faroe Islands. The pair visited the Faroe Islands in December 2023 and spent time exploring, writing together, recording and filming different locations around the magical islands. Across their visit, they have captured some scenes of breath taking natural beauty and taken inspiration from the rapidly changing elements around them to craft a 'spellbinding' musical response. Alongside the album, they are releasing a documentary created forLIVEFrom London. Daniela and Paul share their experiences and interweave the cinematically shot music videos that make up the new album, which is being released across 2024 by VOCES8 Records, and they are also thrilled to welcome Lyyra as guest artists on the album. With inspiration drawn from minimalist neo classicism to Brazilian infused vocals, MARS SMITH is a critically acclaimed duo presenting a unique, interactive concert experience with flutes, voices, piano and immersive experiences for audiences. As Mars Smith, Daniela Mars (flutes, vocals) and Paul Smith (piano, vocals) present a concert experience combining their own music with composers ranging from Bach to Tom Jobim. In 2024 their concerts, filming and community projects take them across Europe, to Asia, South America, the US and Australia. As artists, Paul Smith (co-founder of the ensemble VOCES8) and Daniela Mars (an internationally acclaimed ambassador for Trevor James Flutes) give concert performances around the world, appear on film soundtracks, lead outreach and community programmes, and collaborate with leading global artists. They have many millions of online streams between them.

French Sonatas and Fantasies
Eric Speller, Olivier Peyrebrune
Etcetera KTC1817
Release: 16 August 2024
Berlioz describes the oboe in his Grand traite d'instrumentation et d'orchestration modernes (1844) as 'a melodic instrument above all else, one that is rustic in character and full of gentleness. Feelings of naive elegance, quiet innocence, peaceful joy and the sorrow of a gentle nature can all be expressed by the oboe in the happiest of ways'. The first part of this programme introduces us to the oboe's pastoral character by means of a few fantasias and miniatures: their music is light, virtuoso, entertaining and sublimely delicate, but is also filled with melancholy and can be deeply moving. Berlioz then expressed reservations about the oboe's ability to shine when called upon to express 'suffering, violent anger, threat or heroic exaltation. Its voice is small and tenderly fresh, and loses all strength and naturalness in such cases'. Thanks to innovations in the instrument's manufacture since Berlioz wrote these words, I find that the oboe's range of expression now allows it to access these extreme feelings as well; this is what has guided the choice of works in the second part of this programme. It took me some time to decide to record these demanding works, and it's a real pleasure to be reunited with my long- time friend and musical partner Olivier Peyrebrune for the occasion. We have been performing some of these pieces for many years now, but it's always an immense pleasure to rediscover them and to explore them in greater depth. Others are much less well known - one of them is still unpublished - but they seduced us with their virtuosity that is never gratuitous, their refinement and their subtle elegance.

Taken Voice
Sarah Miller, Pieter-Jan Verhoyen, Merriel Plummer
Etcetera KTC1830
Release: 16 August 2024
Folklore and fable, myth and legend, Taken Voice leads the listener down a faery path, twisting and turning the lines of storytelling and music together into a spellbinding program for piccolo, piano and narrator. Meet with mischievous piskies, see Pan with his mournful reed pipe, hear the midnight robin sing, dance the old folk dances, and remember haunting melodies of long ago. With music originating from the British Isles, Sarah and Pieter-Jan use a unique combination of piccolo and piano to revive fireside tales and bardic songs. 'This CD project of Taken Voice has been in the pipeline for around a year, and in the imagination for much longer. It began with a conversation between Sarah and former teacher Peter Verhoyen after graduation. Sometimes you need someone who will suggest crazy ideas as though they are realistic ones. There are not many piccolo albums with music from Sarah's homeland, and so that seemed to be a good place to start. We found that music based on traditional dances and songs from the British Isles fit beautifully with the piccolo's sound, and a love of folklore led us towards a theme surrounding old stories and faery tales.'

Mia Yrmana Fremosa - Medieval woman's songs of love and pain
Triphonia - Ensemble for Medieval Music Berlin
Fineline FL72423
Release: 16 August 2024
Woman's songs, embodying mostly love lyrics, were found throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and reflect a more popular character. The language in these poems tends to be simple and direct. The songs often incorporate aspects of nature: in German songs the linden tree, fields, woods, flowers, and birds are common, whereas the romance- language lyrics tend to utilize the images of the sea, waves, beaches, rivers, and wind. Even in modern the popular traditions of Portuguese fado or French chanson the image of the sea is still prevalent. Other prevailing themes may involve the conflict between the upper and lower classes, strife among married couples resulting in frustrated and dejected wives and suspicious and jealous husbands, dissension between mothers and daughters, as well as discrepancies between sisters, or intimacy between sisters. The woman's song unfolded in a variety of genres: strophic refrain songs, dance songs, ballads, chanson de toile, chanson de malmaree, pastourelles, dialogues, motets, etc. One may ask why a recording of primarily 'woman's songs' would contain no single song actually attributed to a female composer. The category of medieval woman's song embodies lyrics written not necessarily by women, but rather in the female voice - songs seen through the eyes of a woman, spoken by a female speaker. Such songs do not depict the typical male devotion to the lady and do not emphasize the high courtly love tradition of the unattainable lady, but they rather tell more seemingly personal, yet also archetypal stories of the wishes, desires, sorrows, and disappointments of young women. Woman's songs, mainly written by male composers - although many have been transmitted without authorship - could perhaps be thought to reflect the male desire and fantasy about women and their reflection of the female stereotype during the Middle Ages, as well as providing a diversion for an audience more sophisticated than the characters represented in the songs themselves. The trobairitz (female troubadour), like their male counterparts, on the other hand, composed mostly in the more artistic courtly love tradition, and except for a few dance songs, they did not seem to have written songs in the more popular style of the woman's song. This leads to the speculation that the creation of woman's songs could indeed have been a mostly male practice.

 

14 AUGUST 2024

Shostakovich: Symphonies 4, 5 & 6
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä
Decca Classics
Release: 14 August 2024

 

9 AUGUST 2024

Bliss: Music for Brass Band
Black Dyke Band / John Wilson
Chandos CHSA 5344 (SACD)
Release: 9 August 2024
John Wilson conducts Black Dyke Band - one of the UK's most accomplished brass bands - in this album of the music of Sir Arthur Bliss. Kenilworth and The Belmont Variations sit alongside Four Dances from Checkmate and a suite from Things to Come. Three first recordings complete the album: a suite from the ballet Adam Zero and arrangements of Welcome the Queen and The Royal Palaces.

Finger Prints
Paul Guinery, piano
EM Records EMRCD088
Release: 9 August 2024
Following on from two highly praised collections of light-music classics Dicky Bird Hop and Chasing Moonbeams for EM Records, Paul Guinery has quarried his extensive music archive of solo piano gems for a third selection he's called Finger Prints. Previous generations could identify with the Viennese adage of taking serious music lightly and light music seriously. This was appreciated in the UK as well, with many home-grown composers applying their abundant talents and skills to feed an appetite for music whose primary aim was simply to entertain - and that's the focus of this CD. Guinery's extensive knowledge of the repertoire and his sizeable collection of original sheet-music have informed broadcasts he's made of this repertoire for BBC Radio 3's flagship Breakfast programme. There was an enthusiastic response from listeners clamouring for more, proving that light music is still much appreciated - and missed. 'Why don't we hear this sort of music these days?' was a common response. The genre has been neglected to the extent that, apart from film scores, it barely exists today. High time then for a further exploration of its charm, inventiveness and craftsmanship. Composers such as Richard Addinsell, Edward German and Haydn Wood were once significant names and all three are represented on this disc. Addinsell's Blithe Spirit Waltz was written for the 1945 film version of Noël Coward's hit play and weaves a virtuoso medley of other-wordly waltz themes with flair and imagination. Edward German was a master of Edwardian operetta but his output for solo piano is totally unknown and Guinery has brought back into circulation a delicious Polish Dance, masterfully written with a nod to Chopin. Haydn Wood was the doyen of light music composers and is represented by the poignant Longing, the epitome of wistful charm and insinuating melody. Billy Mayerl was a key figure between the wars and this time Guinery features four of his brilliant, virtuoso transcriptions of songs written for Hollywood by British-born songwriter Harry Revel. Mayerl is also represented by his poignant and rarely performed solo Shy Ballerina from the late 1940s. A real rediscovery is Peggy Cochrane, trained as a classical violinist but who moved into the competitive field of rhythm pianists and more than held her own as her popularity in numerous broadcasts and recordings proved. Her 1941 depiction of a Busy Day is a highlight of the disc. As is Amy Woodforde-Finden's immortal Kashmiri Song once a staple of Edwardian singers and featured here in a ravishing transcription by the virtuoso pianist Stephen Hough. Jack Wilson and Harry Engleman were once household names thanks to their prolific BBC broadcasts. Jack Wilson is represented by his brilliant novelty solo Phantom Fingers as well as by the unpublished Shadows on the Moon. Engleman's Finger Prints, a dexterous display piece, lends the recording its title. Arthur Sullivan is well known for his numerous operetta collaborations with W S Gilbert but Guinery reveals a different side to him with two rarely played solo piano pieces written when he was still a young, aspiring composer. Other highlights are the unpublished Anna's Polka by Jack Strachey who wrote These Foolish Things, songwriter Roger Quilter in rustic mood with a joyful Country Dance and Lennox Berkeley celebrating the French style Java, once banned from the dance-floor for its risqué movements.

Splendid Tears - Settings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson
EM Records EMRCD087
Release: 9 August 2024
A perusal of a catalogue of English-language musical settings quickly reveals the powerful attraction composers have had to the verse of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The poetry is rich in imagery, playing upon the threads of grief, love, redemption, and, perhaps most important to the settings on this disc, inner turmoil. The longer poems present narratives with strongly drawn characters and narrative arcs befitting a song-cycle; it is no wonder that the three composers represented on this disc - Maude White, Arthur Somervell, and Liza Lehmann - could not resist setting portions of two of Tennyson's best-known works, In Memoriam and Maud. The former poem, In Memoriam, was one of Tennyson's most popular works during his lifetime, and explores the range of emotions that fan out from the central feelings of grief after the passing of a loved one. Tennyson's musings on death, eternity, light, and darkness suited the morbid obsessions of the Victorian era, particularly after the death of Prince Albert and the resulting protracted mourning modeled by Queen Victoria, who was said to adore the poem. Maud is in its own way a similarly brooding work, a tale of a young man's unhealthy obsession with his young neighbour and the ensuing death and madness that results. Maude White and Liza Lehmann had very different responses to In Memoriam. White works in a tight, perhaps more old-fashioned frame, selecting only four cantos and setting them to rather Mendelssohnian accompaniments - one can hear echoes of the Fugue in E Minor, Op 35, No 1 at the end of the fourth song, for example. Her Four Songs are not a cycle, but rather four individual numbers. Lehmann, fresh from the triumph of her major vocal quartet In A Persian Garden, was more ambitious. Portions of Tennyson's cantos that have been elided and placed next to one another, sometimes out of order, to create a flowing yet lengthy cycle, with an optional spoken epilogue that seems to speak to Lehmann's dramatic temperament. Lehmann's writing for the piano embraces thunderous octaves and rippling arpeggios, while the singer is given long, emphatic phrases that drive home Tennyson's words so that no neophyte in the audience could possibly miss them. For his part, Arthur Somervell did much cutting in arranging his musical setting of Maud, but created a successful dramatic flow that maintains the rising hysteria of the original, reaching fever pitch with a setting of Come into the Garden, Maud that is much more ecstatic than the more familiar, yet staid, setting by Victorian composer Michael Balfe. The overall effect of the cycle brings to mind the viewing of a dramatisation of the poem through a stereoptican; we see the narrator's father lying dead in the harsh stone hollow; pure young Maud in church; the gently twittering birds of the high hall-garden; and ultimately the departure of the narrator for the Crimean War and hopefully redemption. The music occasionally brings to mind Somervell's primary Germanic models of Schubert and Schumann, but Somervell gives the music a sweep and power that is all his own. This recording offers three first performances, being the first-ever recording of the four Maude White songs, and the first recordings, by a tenor, of the two significant cycles by Lehmann and Somervell

Jean-Joseph Mouret: Musicien des Graces
Ensemble La Francaise
Musica Ficta MF8038
Release: 9 August 2024
The highly reputed Mouret lit up the Duchess of Maine's festivities with his Divertissements en Musique before becoming the official composer of the Comedie-Italienne in 1717, then artistic director of the Concert Spirituel in 1728. The Ensemble la Francaise invites us to discover his music's spontaneity, lightness and grace, as well as its dramatic expressivity, through his Airs a Danser from the Premier Livre (1734) and Concert de Chambre from the Second Livre (1738), along with a selection of motets that he composed for the Concert Spirituel in 1730.

Josquin in Poland
Ensemble Jerycho, Bartosz Izbicki
Dux Recording Producers DUX2064
Release: 9 August 2024
With this new release from the DUX label, the Jerycho ensemble presents Josquin des Pres' Missa Mater Matris. The ensemble began working on Josquin des Pres' mass edited by Krzysztof Borek shortly after its publication in the MECCA series (Musica in Ecclesia Cathedrali Cracoviensi Audita) in 2016. Here Jerycho ensemble explores both Borek's edited edition alongside historically informed replications of the original manuscripts. This is a testimony to the long tradition of performing Josquin's polyphony in Cracow. In the summer of 2017, we invited Jan Janovcik to co-operate (a graduate of the Muziek at Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg and the founder of the ensemble Cantores Sancti Gregorii), under whose direction we prepared this mass from the original records. The effect was interesting, but other activities of the ensemble did not allow us to complete this project at that time. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Josquin's death, we decided to return to this work. The premiere of this programme under the name De consolatione polyphoniae took place on 27 August 2021, that is on the five-hundredth anniversary of the composer's death, at the 'Piesn Naszych Korzeni' (The Song of Our Roots) Festival in Jaroslaw, which is close to our hearts.

Themes and Variations - Schumann, Liszt, Brahms
Calvin Abdiel, piano
Australian Eloquence ELQ4859792
Release: 9 August 2024
For his debut recording, Australian pianist Calvin Abdiel presents three technically complex piano works by three Romantic composers. All works are based on the theme/ variation form. For Schumann's fiendishly challenging Etudes symphoniques, Calvin adds his own interpolated sequence of the posthumous variations. The equally demanding Liszt showpiece based around three melodies from Mozart's Don Giovanni, and the recital concludes with the near 'unplayable' Paganini Variations of Brahms, which Clara Schumann referred as the 'Witch's Variations'. The Indonesian/Australian pianist Calvin Abdiel is establishing himself as one of the finest young musicians internationally. He has given high profile performances in numerous countries, including Australia, Austria, Russia, Indonesia, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland. In 2021 he won the highest position of any Australian pianist at the Sydney International Piano Competition and also took out third prize.

Muller: Forgotten Songs, forgotten Love
Melanie Adami; Aneas Humm; Judit Polgar
Prospero Classical PROSP0087
Release: 9 August 2024
Soprano Melanie Adami initially left the pile of sheet music with songs by her great-grandfather Willy Heinz Muller (1900-1974) unattended. Then in 2020 she found the time and was able to bring this musical treasure to life. For this new recording, the songs and duets were supplemented by works by other composers (including Ernst von Dohnanyi) who had either made a great impression on him or with whom he had a personal relationship. The Swiss soprano Melanie Adami gave her debut as Frasquita (Carmen) at the Lucerne Theater in 2002 and is accompanied on this recording by baritone Aneas Humm and pianist Judit Polgar.

Michel Lysight: Equinox
Rachel Talitman, Jean-Marc Fessard, Mavoudes Troullos, Pierre Quiriny, Ensemble Mendelssohn
Harp & Co CD505052
Release: 9 August 2024
Harpist Rachel Talitman presents the world premiere recording of Michel Lysight's Equinox, and other works. Considered one of the great representatives of the postmodern movement, Michel Lysight (born 1958) has composed one hundred and eighty works of all genres: symphonies, orchestral works, concertos, chamber music, vocal music. His very personal language combines intense lyricism and rhythmic exigency because he has the desire to reintegrate the notion of pleasure into contemporary music, both for performers and listeners. He taught music theory and contemporary music at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels from 1980 to 2021. Dedicated to Jean-Marc Fessard and Rachel Talitman, Equinox (2023) was composed specifically for the recording of this CD. At the beginning, a melodic motif develops through frequent changes of modes and rhythmic inventiveness that constantly relaunch the discourse. This is followed by a more agitated and virtuosic central part, with a more pronounced dramatic character, but the work ends in a peaceful meditative atmosphere.

Schubert & Shostakovich: Viola & Piano
Andreas Willwohl & Daniel Heide
C-AVI AVI4866385
Release: 9 August 2024
One of Schubert's legacies with one of his most beautiful compositions is the Arpeggione Sonata. Schubert took a liking to the bowed guitar, at least for one veritable work: the Sonata in A minor, composed in November 1824. The Arpeggione instrument disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. All these attempts around 1800 to expand the family of string instruments had long been forgotten when Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata was published for the first time forty-three years after his death in 1871, immediately with alternative solo parts for violin, viola or violoncello. Almost all violists and cellists have included Schubert's marvellous Arpeggione Sonata in their repertoire - thus keeping alive the memory of the attempt to make the proverbial 'pearl sounds' accessible for string instruments - for an eternity. Shostakovich's viola sonata conveys a special, gradually dissolving sense of time. It is neither at home today, nor yesterday, nor in the future, but in eternity. The composer himself said almost nothing about the work, except that it was 'bright and clear'. He called the first two movements a 'novella' and a 'scherzo'. About the finale, he revealed that it was 'an adagio in memory of Beethoven'. The Viola Sonata is Shostakovich's last work and, beyond personal consternation, it is an exploration of the last things, as many important composers have done; important references for Shostakovich were, for example, Beethoven's Sonata op. 111 or Mahler's Symphony No 9 and Das Lied von der Erde.

Hindemith: Works for Viola and Piano
Maria Shetty, Monika Wilinska-Tarcholik
Dux Recording Producers DUX2074
Release: 9 August 2024
'I want to see if I can extend the expressive possibilities and expand the horizon of the genre - which, in this genre, are not all that great and not all that wide - in a series of these pieces.' Paul Hindemith's oeuvre devoted to the viola figures is among the most valuable literature scored for this instrument and, as far as compositions written in the twentieth century are concerned, the most significant. These works are distinguished by, among other things, originality and stylistic diversity. Compositions for solo viola and with piano accompaniment are the most numerous among Hindemith's works. Violist Maria Shetty and pianist Monika Wilinska-Tarcholik present this new release on the DUX label.

Songs (Chopin, Moniuszko, Szymanowski etc)
Tomasz Zagorski, Jacek Kortus
Dux Recording Producers DUX2002
Release: 9 August 2024
DUX Recording Producers presents a new album in memory of internationally renowned Polish tenor Tomasz Zagorski. On the album, we find recordings of twenty-four songs composed by nine Polish composers. Thus, it is a cross-sectional, comprehensive approach to native vocal works. In most cases, we can hear pieces that performers reach for especially often, and the audience simply expects them. At the same time, the performers here reach a wonderful, artistic understanding. This unique album preserves the memory of an Artist whose thread of life and career, at its very peak, was broken so unexpectedly and suddenly. Tomasz Zagorski died in 2021, at the age of fifty-six, unable to face what the time of the pandemic brought us. We dedicate this album to his memory in the need to preserve a lasting trace documenting the talent of the artist at the peak of vocal art mastery. The CD opens with Fryderyk Chopin's song Wojak [Before the Battle]. The pianist, Jacek Kortus, immediately sets the tone of a soldier's call, as announced by the first words of Stefan Witwicki's poem: 'My bay horse neighs, stamps; let us go, it is time, it is time!' Tomasz Zagorski takes up this soldier's call with enthusiasm and totally aware of what is at stake.

Chaconne in Two
Adam Kostecki, Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Hannover Chamber Orchestra, Carsten Petermann
Dux Recording Producers DUX1931
Release: 9 August 2024
'For me, the Chaconne is one of the most wonderful, incomprehensible pieces of music. The man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings onto a system for a small instrument' - Johannes Brahms on the Chaconne.
On this new release from the DUX label, violinst Adam Kostecki explores the Chaconne form with the Polish and Hannover Chamber Orchestras, alongside works for violin and guitar with guitarist Carsten Petermann. The Chaconne - a breathtaking and deeply moving meditation on the death of the beloved wife, and especially on the death itself - became the crowning achievement of the work of the great Master. Inventio - musical creativity - and Elaboratio - meticulously planned in the smallest details, intricate, and elaborate structural plan - combine here into one whole. The Chaconne consists of thirty-two variations built on a constantly recurring Lamentobass. Like a persistent thought. Some variations are repeated as a kind of short double. This repetition (double) is a new variation based on the previous one, and both variations together form a whole, a final thought, moving on to the next one. Lamentobass and passus duriusculus also often occur in a variation form, and everything is intertwined into one whole, guided as if by an invisible hand. Bach's Inventio and Elaboratio in the Chaconne are unique in their genius. Some of the other pieces on the album - La Folia by Arcangelo Corelli (we will hear here the most famous and most frequently performed version) and La Romanesca by Fernando Sor - are also based on a repeated bass ostinato and were widely popular as a musical form in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Chaconne by Tomaso Vitali is one of the composer's most beloved works.

Tansman - Cosmopolite
Novi Piano Duo
Dux Recording Producers DUX1969
Release: 9 August 2024
This CD includes a number of Alexandre Tansman's compositions for two pianos, mainly those inspired by ballet. Tansman's oeuvre has been enjoying a renaissance in recent years, a clear manifestation of which are the large number of albums dedicated to the Pole and the greater presence of his pieces in concert programmes both in Poland and Europe. The Novi Piano Duo was created in 2018 by Anna Wielgus-Nowak and Grzegorz Nowak, graduates of the Cracow Academy of Music. The duo is active both in Poland and abroad - the pianists have performed in, among others, Italy, Monaco, Germany, Israel and Kuwait.

 

2 AUGUST 2024

Gene & The Strings
Composers Concordance Records COMCON0091
Release: 2 August 2024
Composer Gene Pritsker has written over 950 compositions to date. Strings are a big part of his work, this album demonstrates some of Gene's compositions that explore the various sounds of string instruments. The album features performances by violinists Lara St John and Machiko Ozawa, The Kahlo and CompCord String Quartets, classical guitarists William Anderson and Warren Nicholson as well as an array of the finest string musicians. Also two r&b/hip-hop compositions are featured with Gene on the mic and featuring vocals by David Banks. The eclectic nature of Gene's compositional style can be heard throughout the sixteen track album, but the sound of string instruments makes it a cohesive whole.

Gerhard: Don Quixote (complete ballet); Suite from Alegrías; Pedrelliana
BBC Philharmonic / Juanjo Mena
Chandos CHAN 20268
Release: 2 August 2024
Juanjo Mena conducts the BBC Philharmonic in this latest instalment of their recordings of the works of Roberto Gerhard. The concert suite from his ballet Alegrías is followed by Pedrelliana - a reworking of the last movement of his first symphony. The complete score of Don Quixote brings the album to a brilliant conclusion.

Travelogue: Philippa Schuyler's Music for Piano
Sarah Masterson, piano
Centaur Records CRC 4102
Release: 2 August 2024
American pianist and composer Philippa Schuyler (1931-1967) was often called the most well-traveled young person of her day, eventually performing in nearly eighty countries around the world. Along the way, she took note of everything she experienced, resulting in both musical compositions and a career in freelance journalism. Travelogue: Philippa Schuyler's Music for Piano traces Schuyler's travels from her early folk music arrangements to her mature African and Arabic inspired compositions. The album includes world premiere recordings of Schuyler's White Nile Suite, Carnival in Languedoc, African Rhapsody, Uganda Martyrs, and a recently rediscovered untitled piece that is likely her final work. Travelogue is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This project is also funded in part by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina. Newberry College also provided partial project funding.

Friedrich Hermann: Violin Music, Volume One - Solo Works
Abigail Karr, violin
Toccata Classics TOCC 0738
Release: 2 August 2024
The German violinist, violist and composer Friedrich Hermann (1828-1907) spent the six decades of his adult life teaching at the Leipzig Conservatoire and, although his works include a symphony, a string quartet and numerous other chamber pieces for strings, by far the largest part of his output is pedagogical in nature. But he pumped his teaching pieces full of imagination, as the studies on this album demonstrate. Even though the twenty Miniatures published in 1881 are intended for student violinists, many of them are tiny tone-poems intended both to engage the attention of their players and challenge their techniques - and their mix of poetry and humour should also reward adult listeners.

Wilhelm Kienzl: Four Song-Cycles
Malte Mueller, tenor; Werner Heinrich Schmitt, piano
Toccata Classics TOCC 0736
Release: 2 August 2024
The Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl (1857-1941) - also a pianist, conductor, musicologist and writer on music - enjoyed the esteem of his contemporaries particularly for his vocal music. But his star has waned over the past century, and only a handful of his 238 songs have had recent recordings. In style they range from the simple and folk-like to the dramatic and quasi-operatic; their harmonic world likewise embraces both the diatonic and chromatic, with hints of the influence of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wagner, and a foretaste of later composers. The four song-cycles recorded on this release treat the grand themes of life: love, loss, death and man's interaction with nature.

Jānis Ķepītis: Piano Miniatures from the manuscripts, Vol 2
Nora Luse, Jānis Ķepītis
Toccata Classics TOCC 0705
Release: 2 August 2024
Jānis Ķepītis (1908-89) has a fairly low profile even in his native Latvia, never mind beyond its borders. His output was nonetheless substantial: six symphonies, ten concertos, several large-scale choral-orchestral pieces, countless songs and choruses and a voluminous body of chamber music - almost all of it unknown. Ķepītis was himself a gifted pianist - as can be heard on the rare historical recording that ends this second Toccata Classics album of his music  - and his hundred or so compositions for piano show a predilection for the miniature. The works here, most of them discovered among his manuscripts, inhabit a world downstream from Skryabin and Rachmaninov, with a gentle hint of Debussy, an occasional wisp of Latvian folk-music and, here and there, just a hint of jazz.

Nicolas Bacri: Chamber Music, Vol 1 - Works for Flute
Danielle Breisach, flute; Andrew Briggs, cello; Yana Avedyan, piano
Toccata Classics TOCC 0733
Release: 2 August 2024
It may be a cliché to write of the clarity of Gallic writing for the flute - the kind of elegance found in the music of composers like Debussy, Fauré, Gaubert, Jolivet, Messiaen and Taffanel - but French music for flute does indeed have a sound of its own. The flute works of Nicolas Bacri, born in Paris in 1961, uphold the proud tradition of his predecessors with textures of crystalline transparency and poised, almost weightless, melodic lines - and with reserves of sardonic bite and freewheeling energy as required.

Hans Otte: The Book of Sounds (full album)
Carlos Cipa, piano
Warner Classics (digital only)
Release: 2 August 2024
Hans Otte described his minimalist work, The Book of Sounds, as a musical pendulum movement of one hour in twelve 'pieces' - chords and melodies repeat themselves, following each other in harmonic cadences in a timeless back and forth. This is pianist-composer Carlos Cipa's first recording of music by another composer, a testament to the influence this work has had on him as an artist. To help shape the tonal characteristics of the work, Cipa chose to record these twelve pieces on three different pianos - a Steinway grand, a Yamaha, and a Yamaha CP-70, an early electric piano.

 

Posted 31 July 2024 by Keith Bramich

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