Today's new releases include Vivaldi's La Gloria e Imeneo from Teresa Iervolino, Carlo Vistoli and Andrea Buccarella on Naïve, a ninetieth-birthday greeting to Arvo Pärt from Latvian pianist Georgijs Osokins on Deutsche Grammophon, Songs of Passion from Lea Desandre, Thomas Dunford and friends on Erato, and song-cycles by Barber, Chausson, Debussy, Copland and Wallen from Dame Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton on Chandos.
Vivaldi: La Gloria e Imeneo
Teresa Iervolino (mezzo), Carlo Vistoli (countertenor), Abchordis Ensemble, Andrea Buccarella
The 73rd instalment of Naïve's mighty Vivaldi Edition presents the serenata which the Red Priest composed to celebrate the wedding of Louis XV and the Polish princess Marie Leszczyńska, who married at the Château de Fontainebleau in 1725. The work was performed in the garden of Jacques-Vincent Languet, the French ambassador to Venice, a week after the wedding itself took place, and was written to a very tight deadline - Vivaldi recycled material from his opera Giustino, which had proved a great success the previous year.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
For Arvo
Georgijs Osokins (piano)
The Latvian pianist makes his debut on Deutsche Grammophon with an album celebrating the ninetieth birthday of Arvo Pärt: the programme includes Osokins's own transcriptions of Fratres, Pari intervallo and Fragile e conciliante, the Variations for the Healing of Arinushka, Für Alina, Hymn to a Great City, and the two Neoclassical sonatinas Op. 1 which Pärt composed as a student at the Tallinn Conservatory in the late 1950s.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Songs of Passion
Lea Desandre (mezzo), Thomas Dunford (lute/theorbo)
Dowland and Purcell are the twin pillars of this fourth Erato album from husband-and-wife Desandre and Dunford, which includes excerpts from Dido & Aeneas, The Fairy Queen and Dowland's Lachrimae as well as standalone lute songs. Baritone Huw Montague Rendall joins for 'If Love's a Sweet Passion', and three tracks feature the Jupiter Vocal Ensemble (comprising exceptional young soloists Jess Dandy, Laurence Kilsby and Alex Rosen).
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
The World Feels Dusty
Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo), Joseph Middleton (piano)
This recital is named for one of the twelve poems by Emily Dickinson which Copland set in 1950, two of which feature here; the programme also includes Debussy's Trois Chansons de Bilitis, Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer, Barber's three songs on poems by James Joyce, and the world premiere recording of Errollyn Wallen's Night Thoughts - commissioned by Leeds Lieder and dedicated to Middleton and Connolly, the cycle was inspired by a Howard Hodgkins painting and sets text by Shakespeare, Dickinson and Wallen herself.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Kalevi Aho: Moonlight Concerto
Sharon Bezaly (flute), Hiyoli Togawa (viola), Alexej Gerassimez (percussion), Lahti Symphony Orchestra, St Michel Strings, Anja Bihlmaier, Erkki Lasonpalo
Subtitled 'Double Concerto for Viola, Percussion and Orchestra', the 'Moonlight' Concerto was written at the request of Hiyoli Togawa and Alexej Gerassimez, who gave its premiere in 2022: the work draws on ritualistic gagaku music, with the solo percussion writing including passages for moon gong, waterphone, hang drum and nine Thai gongs. It's paired here with the six-movement Concerto For Alto Flute & Strings, also composed in 2022 for Macedonian flautist Matei Iochimescu.
Available Format: SACD
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 and 10
Viktoria Mullova (violin), Alasdair Beatson (fortepiano)
Two different fortepianos feature on this third volume of Beethoven from Mullova and Beatson: the Violin Sonata No. 2 is performed on a modern copy of an 1805 instrument by Anton Walter, and Sonata No. 10 on a copy of an 1819 Conrad Graf (both by Paul McNulty). Reviewing their first Beethoven recording together back in 2021, Gramophone declared that 'Among recent recordings of such extremely familiar repertoire, this one must surely rank among the finest.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Hasse: Piramo e Tisbe
Anett Fritsch (Piramo), Roberta Mameli (Tisbe), Jeremy Ovenden (Il Padre), Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Based on a tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses (which also inspired the 'rude mechanicals' of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) and premiered in Vienna in 1768, Piramo e Tisbe is one of Hasse's final operas; the high proportion of dramatic accompanied recitatives and through-composed transitions stand in sharp contrast to the numbers-based structure of his earlier successes such as Il Siroe and Artaserse. The composer described it to a friend as 'amongst the best works I have written'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Gluck: Orphée et Eurydice
Reinoud van Mechelen (Orphée), Ana Vieira Leite (Eurydice), Julie Roset (Amour); Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew
Gluck prepared this revision of his most popular work for the Paris Opera in 1774, twelve years after the premiere of the Italian version in Vienna: the title-role (originally for alto castrato) was reworked for haute-contre, the libretto supplied by Pierre-Louis Moline, and the structure and orchestration altered to appeal to French tastes (with additional ballet music including an extended version of the famous 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits'). The recording was made at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Liban in Paris last summer.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Handel: Giulio Cesare
Christophe Dumaux (Cesare), Julie Fuchs (Cleopatra), Cecilia Molinari (Sesto), Teresa Iervolino (Cornelia), Cameron Shahbazi (Tolomeo), Frederik Bergman (Achilla); Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm, Calixto Bieito
The Catalan director's contemporary staging of Giulio Cesare was filmed at Dutch National Opera in February 2022; OperaWire deemed Fuchs 'the star of the show' thanks to her 'strong stage presence and vocal brilliance', whilst BachTrack (who concurred on Fuchs's start power) opined that Bieito's production 'will surely provide food for thought for many for a long time to come.'
Available Format: Blu-ray
Sir Adrian Boult: The Warner Classics Edition Vol. 1
Sir Adrian Boult
This first instalment of Warner Classics's Boult Edition brings together all of the (mono) recordings which he made for HMV, Pye Nixa and Parlophone between 1920 and 1957; remastered in HD from the original sources, more than half of the recordings make their first appearance on CD here, and the set also includes material which has never been previously released in any format. A second box devoted to Boult's stereo recordings (weighing in at roughly 100 discs) will be released in early 2026.
Available Format: 36 CDs
