Matthew Bourne's sensational ballet The Car Man (drawing on music from Bizet's opera) on DVD and Blu-ray, plus new recordings from artists including Joseph Moog, Philippe Herreweghe, and the Sacconi Quartet.
Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5
Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Philippe Herreweghe
The Belgian conductor continues his championship of Schubert's under-represented early symphonies, with two works which were written when the composer was still in his teens.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Strauss: Burleske
Joseph Moog (piano), Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Nicholas Milton
For his fourth concerto album (the previous one prompted Gramophone to describe him as 'a virtuoso to the manner born'), the young German pianist tackles two heavyweights: Brahms's mighty Second Concerto and a Strauss work dismissed as unplayable by its original dedicatee.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Giovanni Felice Sances: Dialoghi Amorosi
Scherzi Musicali, Nicolas Achten
Dating from the mid-seventeenth century, Sances's 'amorous dialogues' between stock pairs of lovers including Tirsi and Filli and Ruggiero and Angelica have all the colour and drama of opera in miniature.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Graham Fitkin: String Quartets
Sacconi Quartet
The first complete collection of the British composer's entire output for string quartet to date, written between 1992 and 2007 and ranging from the two-minute 'small quartets' to Inside - a single-movement work lasting nearly half an hour.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Es war einmal... (Once Upon a Time...)
Jörg Widmann (clarinet), Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Dénes Várjon (piano)
This quirky chamber-music album takes the fairy-tale as its inspiration: Schumann's fantastical Märchenbilder and Märchenerzählungen provide the creative impetus for two of Widmann's own compositions on the same theme.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Trumpet Concertos
Artists include Ludwig Güttler, Thomas Hammes and Otto Sauter
Brilliant Classics continue their invaluable series of concerto collections with this volume dedicated to the trumpet: well-known examples by Vivaldi, Haydn and Hummel sit alongside forgotten gems by composers including Manfredini, Torelli, Quantz, and Fasch.
Available Formats: FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Matthew Bourne's The Car Man (Blu-ray)
Zizi Strallen, Christopher Trenfield, Dominic North, Kate Lyon
First performed in 2000, Bourne's 'dance-thriller (which uses Shchedrin's suite from Bizet's Carmen, though the plot owes at least as much to The Postman Always Rings Twice) has won widespread critical acclaim and awards galore for its visceral depiction of the erotic tensions generated by the arrival of an enigmatic and dangerously seductive car-mechanic in a small-town American community.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Les Maîtres du Baroque
Artists include Le Concert Spirituel, Gli Incogniti, Pygmalion, MusicAeterna, Ensemble 415, Teodor Currentzis
A compendium of baroque gems in top-notch performances, including Vivaldi’s Gloria from Le Concert Spirituel and Hervé Niquet, The Four Seasons from Gli Incogniti and Amandine Beyer, JS Bach’s Mass in B minor by Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon, and the Brandenburg Concertos by Café Zimmermann.
Available Format: 18 CDs
Our dedicated Naxos New Release Brochure returns this week, where you can browse, read about, and listen to excerpts of all the exciting Naxos releases out this month. Highlights this month include the world premiere recordings of three British violin concertos and choral music by Mayr, plus symphonic poems by Saint-Saëns from the Orchestre National de Lille and a new special edition of Dame Edna Everage's narration of Peter and the Wolf.
