Today's new releases include British and American music for brass ensemble from Onyx Brass and John Wilson on Chandos, Kurtág's Kafka Fragments from Susan Narucki and Curtis Macomber on Avie, CPE Bach sonatas for violin and keyboard from Ryo Terakado and Fabio Bonizzoni on Challenge Classics, and Martinů's complete works for cello and piano from Vilém Vlček and Denis Linnik on Supraphon.
Transatlantic
Onyx Brass, John Wilson
This collection of British and American music for brass ensemble includes William Walton's Roaring Fanfare, Gordon Langford's Prelude, Polonaise & Promenade, Joseph Horovitz's Music Hall Suite, Florence Price's Octet for Brass and Piano, and a new arrangement of John Adams's China Gates by David Gordon-Shute. Two long-forgotten pieces by Benjamin Britten receive their first recordings: the 1938 Funeral March (completed by Bernard Hughes) and A Fanfare for June 30th 1970 (written for the farewell of Royal Opera House CEO Sir David Webster).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
György Kurtág: Kafka Fragments
Susan Narucki (soprano), Curtis Macomber (violin)
The American soprano's relationship with Kurtág dates back to 1986, when he composed the bulk of these mercurial miniatures setting short excerpts from the Prague-born novelist's diaries and letters; reviewing a live performance which the duo gave in Manhattan last spring, The New York Classical Review observed that 'Narucki lacked nothing in musical articulations ranging from jittery staccato to dizzy slides to fluttering tremolo, to say nothing of her sleek phrasing in legato passages'. Narucki received a Grammy nomination for her Kurtág recital The Edge of Silence in 2019, which was described as 'one of the finest examples of Kurtág’s vocal music I have encountered' by Fanfare.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
CPE Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord
Ryo Terakado (violin), Fabio Bonizzoni (harpsichord)
This selection of CPE Bach sonatas from the Bolivia-born Japanese violinist (a regular leader of Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium Japan) and the Italian harpsichordist was an Editor's Choice in this month's edition of Gramophone: reviewer Mark Seow described it as 'an altogether stunning album', observing that 'Terakado and Bonizzoni answer each other with poise and attentiveness, yet their phrases are held together with a shared sense of breath and bloom'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Bohuslav Martinů: The Complete Works for Cello and Piano
Vilém Vlček (cello), Denis Linnik (piano)
Martinů was particularly drawn to the cello throughout his career and wrote for some of the most celebrated cellists of the twentieth century, such as Gregor Piatigorsky, Pierre Fournier and Gaspar Cassadó. In addition to the three sonatas (written in 1939, 1941 and 1952), the album includes the Variations on a Slovak Folksong, Variations on a Theme of Rossini, Seven Arabesques, Suite miniature, Six Pastorales and Quatre Nocturnes. Born in Prague in 1998, the cellist Vilém Vlček won both the Penderecki Cello Competition in Krakow and the Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition in 2023; this is his debut solo recording.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Florence Price: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Fanny Clamagirand (violin), Han Chen (piano), Malmö Opera, John Jeter
As well as the two violin concertos (the scores of which were discovered in Price's abandoned Illinois house in 2009 and were composed in 1939 and 1952 respectively), this album includes the Piano Concerto in One Movement from 1934 which was widely performed during Price's lifetime, and Dances in the Canebrakes - originally written for solo piano, the piece was one of Price's final compositions and is performed here in the orchestration which was made by William Grant Still shortly after her death.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Hannah Kendall: shouting forever into the receiver
Hannah Kendall, Hallé Orchestra, Jonathan Bloxham, Wavefield Ensemble, loadbang, Anne Denholm-Blair (harp), Jonathan Morton (violin), Louise McMonagle (cello)
This collection of instrumental, chamber and orchestral works by British composer Hannah Kendall (b.1984) takes its title from a 2022 piece for large ensemble, itself named for a line from Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019). The programme also includes three solo works from Kendall's 'Tuxedo' series (inspired by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat), musical responses to Cuban writer Antonio Benitez-Rojo's notion of the 'Plantation Machine', and Where is the chariot of fire? - commissioned and premiere by the Hallé, the latter work draws inspiration from Lemn Sissay's poem 'Godsell' and was described as 'searingly impactful' by The New Statesman.
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Light and Shadow
Orchestra of the Swan, David Le Page
This latest instalment in the Stratford-upon-Avon-based orchestra's mixtape series centres on film scores, including new arrangements of music from American Beauty (Thomas Newman), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jon Brion), Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann), Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (Ryuichi Sakamoto), and The Truman Show (Philip Glass). The previous volume of the project, Earthcycle, was described as 'remarkably unpretentious... refreshing in spirit and performance' by BBC Music Magazine.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Suk, Martinů, Fišer: Works For Violin and Piano
Daniel Matejča (violin), Jan Schulmeister (piano)
The Czech violinist Daniel Matejča teams up with rising young pianist Jan Schulmeister (who took third prize at the Cliburn Junior Competition in 2023) for an all-Czech programme comprising Suk's Four Pieces for Violin and Piano Op. 17, Martinů's Czech Rhapsody and Violin Sonata No. 1, and Luboš Fišer's sonata '‘The Hands’ (loosely based on The Stations of the Cross). Matejča made his debut on Supraphon in 2023 with an interpretation of the Ysaÿe solo sonatas which Gramophone described as 'very clearly focused, brilliant yet never flashy'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Respighi: La Fiamma (Blu-ray)
Olesya Golovneva (Silvana), Martina Serafin (Eudossia), Georgy Vasiliev (Donello), Ivan Inverardi (Basilio), Martina Serafin (Eudossia), Doris Soffel (Agnese di Cervia), Sua Jo (Monica); Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Carlo Rizzi
This rare staging of Respighi's 1934 opera about witch-trials in seventh-century Ravenna was filmed at the Deutsche Oper last October, when BachTrack applauded the 'psychological impact' of Christof Loy's contemporary, minimalist staging and Tagesspiegel described Rizzi as 'the most eloquent advocate imaginable for this opaque score'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Sir Thomas Beecham: Complete Stereo Recordings On Warner Classics
Sir Thomas Beecham
Bringing together all of the stereo recordings which Beecham made for Columbia and HMV (beginning with the very first experimental stereo recording of the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 from April 1934), this set includes his landmark account of Bizet's Carmen with Victoria de los Ángeles and Nicolai Gedda, a substantial selection of Delius, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Franck’s Symphony in D minor, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and the famous ‘Lollipops’ albums. Another box devoted to the Mono Recordings Era will follow later this year.
Available Format: 35 CDs
