Today's new releases include early Shostakovich from John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos, Schubert + Beethoven from Can Çakmur on BIS, British piano quintets from Peter Donohoe and I Musicanti on SOMM, and Agricola from Austrian early music ensemble Beauty Farm on Fra Bernardo.
Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 'The First of May'
BBC Philharmonic, Hallé Choir, John Storgårds
This fifth volume of Storgårds's acclaimed Shostakovich series focuses on works which were written during the composer's student days. Symphony No. 1 was composed as his graduation piece at the Petrograd Conservatory in 1925, and 'The First of May' dates from his postgraduate years - having passed the new mandatory examination in Marxist ideology, he submitted the score with a covering-note explaining that it 'expresses the festive spirit of peaceful construction'. The Two Scherzos date from 1919 and 1924 respectively; the first (written at the tender age of thirteen) is dedicated to his teacher Maximilian Steinberg.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Schubert + Vol. 5
Can Çakmur (piano)
For the fifth instalment of his Schubert+ series, the Turkish pianist explores Beethoven's influence on the composer, bookending his 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C with Schubert's Piano Sonata in A major D664 and Piano Sonata in C minor D958. Reviewing the album in the September edition of Gramophone, Patrick Rucker described Çakmur's playing as 'vibrant, breathtaking, yet somehow always tempered by love for the beauty revealed in his art'.
Available Format: SACD
Piano Quintets
Peter Donohoe (piano), I Musicanti, Leon Bosch
Donohoe joins Bosch's chamber ensemble for world premiere recordings of four piano quintets by British composers; the earliest work is Percy Godfrey's Piano Quintet from 1899, written shortly before he won a competition to compose a march for the coronation of Edward VII. The programme also features Richard Walthew's single-movement Phantasy Quintet from 1912, a recent work by double-bassist and composer Ivor Hodgson (who also wrote a piano concerto for Donohoe) and John McCabe's Sam Variations, on the theme which he composed for the 1970s Granada TV series about a young boy growing up in the Yorkshire coalfields between the two World Wars.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Agricola: Masses
Beauty Farm
Founded in 2014, the Austria-based male-voice ensemble Beauty Farm specialises in Franco-Flemish polyphony of the renaissance; their debut disc of Gombert was favourably compared to the Hilliard Ensemble by Gramophone, and was followed by recordings focusing on Ockeghem, Manchicourt and Pierre de la Rue. This latest album comprises Alexander Agricola's Missa Malheur me bat (based on a song which also inspired masses by Josquin and Obrecht) and the late Missa In myne zyn (on a three-part chanson by the composer himself).
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Manchester Accents
Northern Chamber Orchestra, Nicholas Ward
Recorded in Stockport in 2000, this collection of works by composers with links to Manchester includes Thomas Pitfield's Theme and Variations and James Langley's Four Movements (both for string orchestra), John Manduell's Diversions, Eric Fogg's A Children's Suite, Terance Greaves's Rondino for piano and small orchestra, and two dances from John McCabe's ballet Mary, Queen of Scots (which was premiered in Glasgow in 1976).
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Froberger: Suites For Harpsichord, Vol. 4
Gilbert Rowland (harpsichord)
An Editor's Choice in next month's issue of Gramophone (where reviewer Fabrice Fitch described the album as 'a serious statement about a composer who deserves even wider recognition'), this is the final instalment of a series which draws together the German composer's complete suites for the keyboard (numbering almost fifty in total). The project has been applauded for Rowland's 'intimate understanding of Froberger’s idiom' (Early Music Review) and 'the sheer variety of the music' (MusicWeb International).
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
The Blessed Damozel: Songs of Arnold Bax
Jeremy Huw Williams (baritone), Paula Fan (piano), Theodore Buchholz (cello)
Bax served as Master of the King's Music (under King George VI) and Master of the Queen's Music (under Queen Elizabeth II), and composed over 100 songs over the course of his career; this album takes its title from a 25-minute setting of a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (itself inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem 'The Raven'), which receives its world premiere recording here. Other highlights include the first recording of On the Bridge (on a poem by Thomas Hardy), and settings of poetry by Fiona Macleod (aka William Sharp), AE Housman, Geoffrey Chaucer, and George William Russell (or 'Æ') who appears as a character in James Joyce's Ulysses.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Dopo Notte - Arias by Hasse and Handel
Megan Kahts (mezzo), Orchester Wiener Akademie, Jeremy Joseph
For her second solo album, the South African lyric mezzo presents a recital themed around two of the most celebrated Italian singers of the eighteenth century: mezzo Faustina Bordoni (who married Hasse in 1730) and castrato Giovanni Carestini, who created the title-role in Handel's Ariodante and Ruggiero in Alcina. The programme includes arias from both operas, and from Hasse's Arminio, Tito Vespasiano and Cleofide (all of which were written for Bordoni).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Donizetti: Roberto Devereux (Blu-ray)
Jessica Pratt (Elisabetta), John Osborn (Roberto Devereux), Simone Piazzola (Duca di Nottingham), Raffaella Lupinacci (Sara, Duchessa di Nottingham), David Astorga (Lord Cecil), Ignas Melnikas (Sir Gualtiero Raleigh); Orchestra Donizetti Opera, Coro dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala
Filmed at the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo last year, this staging of the final opera in his Tudor Trilogy prompted BachTrack's Mark Pullinger to reflect that 'a performance – and production – as stylish and as enjoyable as this could be enough to convince me that Devereux is possibly – don’t tell Anna Bolena – the finest of Donizetti’s Tudor operas.' Pullinger praised Pratt's 'agility and pinpoint accuracy in the upper reaches' and 'venomous chest register' as the ageing Elizabeth I, as well as Osborn's 'vividly acted' account of the title-role.
Available Format: Blu-ray
