Preludes
Jan Lisiecki (piano)
The Canadian pianist's mission with this album was 'to showcase the broad possibilities of the humble Prelude': his programme includes examples from JS Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, pieces by Rachmaninoff, Górecki and Messiaen, and Chopin's 24 Preludes Op. 28. Now in his late twenties, Lisiecki recorded the complete Chopin Études for Deutsche Grammophon aged seventeen, when Gramophone enthused 'When, if ever, have you heard the Chopin Études played as pure music, given as naturally as breathing yet recreated from an entirely novel perspective?'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Mahler: Symphony No. 5
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi
Following acclaimed recordings of music by Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, John Adams, Orff and Messiaen and a set of the Mendelssohn symphonies which featured as one of our 2024 Recordings of the Year, Järvi and his Zürich orchestra embark on a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies. The Estonian conductor remarks that 'Mahler truly opened up a new universe with the Fifth, in which he initiated an incredibly personal style of music-making' - look out for James's in-depth interview with him about his relationship with the composer's music next Monday...
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Michael Tippett: New Year
Rhian Lois (Jo Ann), Ross Ramgobin (Donny), Susan Bickley (Nan), Roland Wood (Merlin), Robert Murray (Pelegrin), Rachel Nicholls (Regan), Alan Oke (The Presenter); BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins
This is the world premiere of Tippett's final opera, a 'space-aged fairytale' which received its first performance at Houston Grand Opera in 1989; the work centres on a child psychologist and her Rastafarian foster-brother who are visited by a space-ship bearing 'computer wizard' Merlin and pilot Pelegrin (with whom she falls in love). Tippett's biographer Oliver Soden recently observed that the work 'provide[s] the missing link between Benjamin Britten and Mark-Anthony Turnage' and argued that 'In its insistence on renewal and togetherness, it is an opera for now.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Organised Delirium
Tamara Stefanovich (piano)
Stefanovich's exploration of the twentieth-century piano sonata opens with Boulez's Piano Sonata No. 2 (1947-8), which she studied with the composer himself and describes as 'the Mount Everest of piano repertoire'; in a five-star review last week, The Guardian pronounced that 'her dazzling performance conveys a sense of total command and authority in every bar'. The programme also includes sonatas by Bartók, Eisler, Shostakovich and (by way of palate cleanser) Domenico Scarlatti.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 4
Mary Bevan (soprano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Begun in 2019, Gardner's Schubert cycle concludes with the 'Great' Symphony No. 9 in C major, which is preceded here by the Romanze from the incidental music for Rosamunde and a selection of popular Lieder: 'Die Forelle' (orch. Britten), 'Erlkönig' (orch. Berlioz), Geheimes (orch. Brahms) and 'Im Abendrot' (orch. Reger). The first volume of the series prompted BBC Music Magazine to declare that 'Gardner is very much on his way to Beechamesque status, though with very clear ideas of his own', whilst Gramophone observed that 'he keeps the music light on its feet without resorting to provocative extremes of tempo'.
Available Formats: SACD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Shostakovich: Suite on Verses of Michelangelo & October
Matthias Goerne (bass-baritone), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mikko Franck
Goerne recorded three of Shostakovich's Michelangelo settings with Daniil Trifonov back in 2022 as part of what Gramophone described as 'a brooding mega-cycle on the human condition', and now joins forces with Franck for the complete set in Shostakovich's own orchestration - which according to his son Maxim he considered as his sixteenth symphony. It was Maxim who conducted the premiere of the symphonic poem October, commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution in 1967.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Wynton Marsalis: Blues Symphony
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Jader Bignamini
The gestation of Marsalis's Blues Symphony (his second symphonic work) began in 2008, and the great American trumpeter worked with music supervisor Jonathan Kelly for over a decade before finalising this version of the score. The composer writes: 'This piece is intended to further the legacy of Scott Joplin, George Gershwin, James P. Johnson, Leonard Bernstein, John Lewis, Gunther Schuller, and others who were determined to add the innovations of jazz to the vocabulary of the symphonic orchestra.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
JS Bach: A Life in Music Vol. 2 - The Weimar Years (1708-1717)
Benjamin Alard (organ), Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew
This second instalment of Agnew's musical biography of Bach comprises the cantatas 'Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen', 'Himmelskönig, sei willkommen' and 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland', plus the chorale by his father-in-law Johann Michael Bach which inspired the latter work, and also Telemann's setting of the same text; Telemann visited Weimar in 1714 for the baptism of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, to whom he was godfather. The first volume of the series was one of The Times's 20 Best Classical Albums of 2024, thanks to 'the dynamic effect of the group’s stylistic choices'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Habanera
Ana Beard Fernández (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone), Joely Koos (cello) The Endellion Cellists, William Vann
The singers do double-duty as arrangers on this lovely programme of music for eight cellos and voice: Fernández sings Williams's transcriptions of Falla's Siete Canciones populares españolas, Ravel's Vocalise-étude en forme de habanera and Montsalvatge's Cinco canciones negras, whilst the pair join forces for her arrangements of Xoan Montes's 'Negra Sombra', Henri du Bailly's 'Yo soy la locura', and 'Forêts paisibles' from Rameau's Les Indes Galantes.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
JS Bach: The Art of Fugue
Phantasm, Daniel Hyde (organ)
Following their project around The Well-Tempered Clavier (which was described as 'truly outstanding' by BBC Music Magazine), the award-winning viol consort presents Bach's final composition in a new arrangement by its founder Laurence Dreyfus. The four canons are allocated to solo organ, as Dreyfus argues that they 'fall into a different musical genre: as complex interrogations of pure contrapuntal technique and, as works that refrain from dialogue, they are better heard on the organ.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Son regina e sono amante
Rosa Feola (soprano), Cappella Neapolitana, Antonio Florio
Born in Bari in 1728, Niccolò Piccinni enjoyed enormous success in Rome with his comic opera La Cecchina, ossia la buona Figliuola before relocating to Paris at the invitation of Marie Antoinette, where he followed in the footsteps of his compatriot Lully and found himself pitted unwillingly against Gluck (whom he personally respected) by rival opera-houses. This album includes arias from his operas Didone abbandonata, Atys, Lo stravagante, Le faux lord, Ciro riconosciuto and Artaserse.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
The King's Singers
This is The King’s Singers's final album with the current line-up, as bass Jonathan Howard (who joined the group in 2010) was replaced by Piers Connor Kennedy at the beginning of the year. Aside from a sprinkling of Schubert, Brahms and the Mendelssohn siblings, the programme centres on early twentieth-century part-songs, including folk-song settings by Alfvén, Vaughan Williams's Three Shakespeare Songs, Debussy's Trois chansons de Charles d'Orléans, and Elgar's Death on the Hills.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Georges Bizet: A Portrait
Mélissa Petit (soprano), Isabelle Druet (mezzo), Cyrille Dubois (tenor), Thomas Dolié (baritone), Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth, Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est, David Reiland et al
Issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the French composer's death, this collection includes the one-act comic opera Djamileh, the 'ode-symphonie' Vasco de Gama, the cantata Le Retour de Virginie (which Bizet presented as part of his application for the Prix de Rome in 1855), and a selection of solo piano pieces and mélodies. Seven works receive their world premiere recordings here.
Available Formats: 4 CDs + Book, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Boult’s Elgar: The Forgotten Recordings
Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Adrian Boult
Newly remastered by Lani Spahr, this collection of BBC recordings includes In The South (Bedford, 1944), Symphony No. 2 (Glasgow, 1963) Death on the Hills, and a selection of part-songs and choral songs (London, 1967); the second disc features Boult in conversation with Elgar's daughter Carice (1944) and with conductor/broadcaster Bernard Keefe (1965), as well as Boult's 'personal portrait' Sir Edward Elgar As I Knew Him.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
