Puccini: Tosca
Eleonora Buratto (Tosca), Jonathan Tetelman (Cavaradossi), Ludovic Tézier (Scarpia), Giorgi Manoshvili (Angelotti), Davide Giangregorio (Sagristano), Matteo Macchioni (Spoletta), Nicolò Ceriani (Sciarrone); Orchestra e Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Daniel Harding
This Tosca was recorded live in Rome last October, in concerts which marked both the centenary of Puccini's death and the beginning of Harding's tenure as Music Director of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; he was appointed as Antonio Pappano's successor in March 2023. It features as Recording of the Month in the April edition of Gramophone, with Mark Pullinger enthusing that 'this new account boasts the finest Tosca cast of the digital era and is a recording I’ll be returning to often in years to come.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Dvořák & Price: Piano Quintets
Takács Quartet, Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
Following acclaimed recordings of piano quintets by Robert Schumann, Franck, Shostakovich and Dohnányi, Hamelin and the Takács team up again for two works inspired by the composers' respective heritages: Dvořák's Piano Quintet in A from 1881 and Florence Price's Piano Quintet in A minor from the mid-1930s. Dvořák draws on Czech folk-dances (the Dumka and Furiant) for his central movements, whilst Price incorporates the Juba (an African-American dance which developed in the Southern States).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Errollyn Wallen: Orchestral Works
Idunnu Munch (mezzo), Ruby Hughes (soprano), Miwa Rosso (cello), BBC Concert Orchestra, John Andrews
This portrait of the Master of the King's Music features her Dances for Orchestra (2023), This Frame is Part of the Painting (inspired by a stamp in the studio of British artist Howard Hodgkin), Fondant, Postcard for Magdalena for cello and orchestra, the Shakespeare setting Gis and by Saint Charity, and the spiritual-infused Mighty River. The album received four stars in The Guardian yesterday, with Erica Jeal praising the 'strong sense of momentum' across the programme.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Havergal Brian: Agamemnon & Symphonies Nos. 6 & 12
John Findon (Agamemnon), Eleanor Dennis (Clytemnestra), Stephanie Wake-Edwards (Cassandra), Robert Murray (Watchman), Clive Bayley (Herald/Old Man); English National Opera Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins
A long-time champion of Brian's music, Brabbins conducts the 40-minute one-act opera Agamemnon (conceived as a prequel of sorts to Strauss's Elektra and first performed in 1971), and two symphonies: No. 6 (1948) began life as a prelude to a planned opera on John Millington Synge's 1909 play Deirdre of the Sorrows, whilst the more compact No. 12 (1957) was premiered at the 1966 Proms to mark the composer's ninetieth birthday. Brabbins's live recording of Brian's Gothic Symphony (released on Hyperion in 2011) was described by Gramophone as 'a perfect recording of a great event' thanks to his handling of 'the kaleidoscopic variety of speeds, textures and invention in the score.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
JS Bach: The Complete Violin Concertos
James Ehnes (violin), Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra, Joanna G'froerer, Luc Beauséjour, Charles Hamann, Yosuke Kawasaki (violin), Jessica Linnebach; Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra
As well as the two solo violin concertos proper (BWV 1041 in A minor and BWV 1042 in E major), this album features the Concerto in G minor BWV 1056a (originally for harpsichord), the Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor BWV 1060R, and the Concerto for Flute, Violin & Harpsichord in A minor BWV1044; concert-master Yosuke Kawasaki (a friend of Ehnes since their school-days) joins for the Concerto for Two Violins. Reviewing the album in Gramophone, Mark Seow declared: 'I found myself sucked into the full-bodied warmth of James Ehnes’s playing. And I loved it.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Bacewicz, Lutosławski & Szymanowski
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Thomas Søndergård
The RSNO and their Danish music director celebrate three twentieth-century Polish composers on this programme, which comprises Grażyna Bacewicz's Overture for Orchestra (composed shortly before she fled Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944), Witold Lutosławski's Symphony No. 3, and Ian Farrington's new symphonic fantasy on Karol Szymanowski's 1926 opera Król Roger. In a recent review for Gramophone, Aleksander Laskowski described Søndergård’s interpretation of the Lutosławski as 'a welcome addition to the interpretation history of this masterpiece'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Maestra
Samantha Ege (piano), Lontano Orchestra, Odaline de la Martinez
The eponymous 'Maestra' is Kentucky-born composer Julia Perry (1924-79), who was given the title by locals whilst studying with Luigi Dallapiccola in Italy; her lean, experimental Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in Two Uninterrupted Speeds from 1969 is coupled here with Doreen Carwithen's more expansive Piano Concerto from two decades earlier, which Ege describes as 'a cinematic work that anticipates her flair for film music'.
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Gabriel Dupont: The Complete Songs
Cyrille Dubois (tenor), Tristan Raës (piano)
A year on from their survey of the songs of French composer, music critic and theatre-director Louis Beydts (which was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award), Dubois and Raës turn their attention to Gabriel Dupont (1878-1914) - a pupil of Massenet and Widor, Dupont was placed second (ahead of Ravel) in the 1901 Prix de Rome, and composed four operas as well as a substantial body of songs. The album includes the Deux mélodies d'Alfred de Musset, Les Caresses, Poèmes d'automne, and 'Crépuscule d'été'.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Samsara
Kate Lindsey (mezzo), Éric Le Sage (piano)
The American mezzo's fourth recital album for Alpha centres on two song-cycles from a female perspective: Schumann's Frauenliebe und -leben and Fauré's lesser-known La Chanson d'Ève (composed between 1906 and 1910 on texts by the Belgian Symbolist poet Charles van Lerberghe). The programme also includes Schumann's 'Der Nussbaum', 'Die Lotosblume' & 'Du bist wie eine Blume', and Fauré's 'Clair de lune' & 'Chanson d’amour'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Charles Wood: Songs For Voice and Piano
Carolyn Dobbin (mezzo), Roderick Williams (baritone), Iain Burnside (piano)
Best known for his Anglican church music (especially the anthems 'Hail, gladdening light' and 'O thou, the central orb'), the Irish composer Charles Wood also wrote a substantial body of secular solo songs; this recital includes his settings of Walt Whitman's 'Ethiopia Saluting the Colours', 'By the bivouac's fitful flame' and 'O Captain! My Captain!', Christina Rossetti's 'Shall I forget?', and Irish folksongs 'O love, 'tis a calm starry night', 'Credhe's Lament for Cail' and 'Denny's Daughter'. Dobbin's previous solo album (featuring songs by North Irish composers Dorothy Parke and Joan Trimble) was praised for her 'assured and strongly communicative' singing (Gramophone).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Gasparini: Atalia
Camille Poul (Atalia), Bastien Rimondi (Ormano), Furio Zanasi (Sacerdote), Mélodie Ruvio (Nurse); Ensemble Hemiolia, Emmanuel Resche-Caserta
Inspired by Racine's final tragedy Athalie (1691), Gasparini's opera was premiered just a year after the play at the at the Collegio Clementino in Rome; the action centres on the paranoid Queen of Judah who abandons the Jewish faith in favour of worshipping Baal, and is eventually executed by the high priest whom she had intended to have killed. The performance was recorded live at Versailles last January.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
