Bassoon Concertos
Jaakko Luoma, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Janne Nisonen
All four works on this second volume of early nineteenth-century bassoon concertos were composed for German-born Frans Carl Preumayr (1782–1853), who moved to Stockholm in 1802 and spent most of his career in Sweden; whilst working at the Royal Court Orchestra he befriended Finnish clarinettist and composer Bernhard Crusell, later marrying his daughter Sophia. Crusell's concerto from 1829 opens a programme which also includes works by Eduard Brendler, Édouard Du Puy, and Du Puy's pupil Franz Berwald (who went on to become one of the leading Swedish composers of the Romantic period).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Bach-Centricity
Ponsford & Hill: 'The Two Davids'
David Ponsford and David Hill began playing together in 2020, and made their joint recording-debut that year with a set of JS Bach’s Six Organ Trio Sonatas (performed on two harpsichords) which was praised by Choir & Organ for its 'compelling sense of dialogue and sociability between two virtuoso musicians'. This latest project features Ponsford's own two-harpsichord arrangements of works which were composed, arranged or copied by Bach, including his Viola da Gamba Sonata No. 1 and Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, Vivaldi's Concerto in A minor RV522/BWV593, and the Concerto in G by Johann Ernst Prinz von Sachsen-Weimar.
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Karl Weigl: Symphony No. 3
Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Jürgen Bruns
Born in Vienna in 1881, Weigl studied with Zemlinsky and worked as a conducting assistant to Mahler (who expressed admiration for his compositions); shortly after the Nazi occupation of Austria, he emigrated to the United States where he held prestigious teaching positions in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. His Symphony No. 3 was completed in 1931, and receives its world premiere recording here - Weigl never heard a performance of the work. It's coupled with the Symphonic Prelude to a Tragedy from 1933, inspired by Hans Chlumberg's pacifist play Wunder um Verdun: Dreizehn Bilder.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Franz Schreker: Complete Orchestral Works Vol. 2
Bochumer Symphoniker, Steven Sloane
Following the release of several operas by Schreker and a first volume of orchestral works featuring the Symphony in A minor Op. 1 and Der Geburtstag der Infantin ('The Birthday of the Infanta'), cpo presents an album which focuses on pieces written in the years following the hugely successful premiere of Der ferne Klang in 1912. The programme comprises the Vorspiel zu einem Drama ('Prelude to a Drama') from 1914, the 1916 Chamber Symphony for 23 solo instruments, and the Vier kleine Stücke für großes Orchester from 1931.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Franz Anton Hoffmeister: Concerto for 2 Horns · 2 Symphonies
Stephan Schottstädt, Christoph Ess (horns), Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Johannes Moesus
A pioneering music-publisher as well as a prolific composer, Hoffmeister published works by JS Bach, Beethoven, Clementi, Haydn, Wanhal and Mozart (who dedicated his String Quartet No. 20 in D to him): his publishing-house the 'Bureau de Musique' was eventually sold to Carl Friedrich Peters, and continues to flourish as Edition Peters today. The centrepiece of this recording is the recently-discovered Concerto for Two Horns in E major, which is flanked by two symphonies: 'La Chasse' and 'La Prima Vera'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
David Lang: composition as explanation
eighth blackbird
In the running for a Grammy Award, this is the world premiere recording of Lang's hour-long work based on a 1920s lecture by Gertrude Stein in which she discusses her writing process. Reviewing the recording back in July, The Guardian declared that 'the wonderfully compelling musical journey that Lang has created is uniquely his own, as it takes the listener through moments of chiming, crystalline beauty, stomping free-for-alls, vertiginous instrumental solos and insistent minimalist repetitions.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Beethoven: Complete String Quartets
Dover Quartet
The Guardian recently described the Dover's complete Beethoven cycle as 'a fine achievement, up there with the best Beethoven of recent times', enthusing that 'everything about the playing is immaculate'. Individual instalments have been applauded for their 'perfection of execution, beauty of tone, [and] nuance of expression (Fanfare on Vol. 1) and 'technical polish, thorough understanding of the music’s internal structural logic and ingenuity, and rigorous exploration of its hidden expressive continuities' (The Strad on Vol. 3).
Available Formats: 8 CDs, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Mirrors
Paul Huang (violin), Helen Huang (piano)
A year on from their well-received debut album Kaleidoscope (which received four stars in BBC Music Magazine), Huang and Huang present a programme which is bookended by two works composed during the Second World War: Poulenc's Violin Sonata from 1942/3 (dedicated to the memory of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca) and Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, which was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1947. Arvo Pärt's reflective Spiegel im Spiegel from 1978 sits at the heart of the recital.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Vision.bach: The First Cantata Year, Vol. 6
Gaechinger Cantorey, Hans-Christoph Rademann
This sixth volume of Rademann's Bach cantata survey features works which Bach performed between Christmas Day 1723 and the Feast of the Epiphany 1724: 'Dazu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes', 'Sehet, welch eine Liebe', 'Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen', 'Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind', 'Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied', and the Magnificat in D BWV243. The series documents Rademann's live performances of all the cantatas in chronological order, which took place across 23 concerts in and around Stuttgart; Gramophone described the first instalment as 'assiduously prepared performances for those who like their Bach to be skilfully framed and slightly middle-of-the-road'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Dmitri Shostakovich: The Film Music Edition
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Michail Jurowski, James Judd, Leonid Grin
Released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Shostakovich's death (which falls in August), this collection features music from his scores for New Babylon (1929), Odna (1930/31), Golden Mountains (1931), The Fall of Berlin (1950), Hamlet (1964), and King Lear (1970). (This anthology is a physical-only release, although the original individual recordings are available digitally).
Available Format: 7 CDs
