Today's new releases include John Rutter's semi-autobiographical piano concerto Reflections from Steven Osborne (with the composer conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) on Decca, Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 from Francesco Piemontesi, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Manfred Honeck on Pentatone, a ninetieth-birthday tribute to Arvo Pärt from the Estonian Festival Orchestra and Paavo Järvi on Alpha Classics, and Saint-Saëns's 1906 opera L'Ancêtre from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Kazuki Yamada and a cast headed by Jennifer Holloway and Gaëlle Arquez on Bru Zane.
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Francesco Piemontesi (piano), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Manfred Honeck
The Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi won BBC Music Magazine's Newcomer of the Year Award in 2012 for a recording which centred on Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, with The Sunday Times also praising his 'wide tonal palette' in the work and The Telegraph applauding the 'virility and sensitivity' of his playing; his performances of the Piano Concerto No. 2 have been no less warmly received, with BachTrack deeming his interpretation of the work with Andrew Manze as 'flawless'. The album also includes the Three Intermezzi Op. 117.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
John Rutter: Reflections
Steven Osborne (piano), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, John Rutter
This first-ever album devoted to Rutter's orchestral music takes its title from the four-movement piano concerto which he composed in 1979, so-named 'because it reflected, or perhaps re-imagined, the music of so many of the composers and genres that had guided and influenced me as I found my own voice' (including Hollywood film-scores, Gershwin and Ibert). The programme also includes the Celebration Overture (written for the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra's silver anniversary), the Elegy for Piano and Orchestra, the orchestral triptych Cityscapes, and the Four Miniatures (originally written for solo guitar).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Arvo Pärt: Credo
Estonian Festival Orchestra, Paavo Järvi
Released to mark the ninetieth birthday of the Estonian composer (who has enjoyed a long friendship with the Järvi family), this album was recently described as capturing 'the essence of Pärt, simple, sublime, profound.' The programme includes the Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, Fratres (in the version for string orchestra and percussion), Da pacem Domine, Für Lennart in memoriam (an elegy for the former President of Estonia Lennart Meri), La sindone, and the Credo from 1968.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Saint-Saëns: L'Ancêtre
Jennifer Holloway (Nunciata), Gaëlle Arquez (Vanina), Hélène Carpentier (Margarita), Julien Henric (Tébaldo), Michael Arivony (Raphaël), Matthieu Lécroart (Bursica); Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo, Kazuki Yamada
Commissioned by Prince Albert of Monaco, Saint-Saëns's penultimate opera L'Ancêtre was premiered in Monte-Carlo in 1906 and is set in the mountains of Corsica during the Napoleonic Wars; the drama centres on the vendetta between the Pietra-Nera and Fabiani families, and two young women vying for the affections of a soldier in Napoleon's army. This first commercial recording of the work is an Editor's Choice in next month's edition of Gramophone; the 1879 rarity Étienne Marcel will follow in the near future on the same label.
Available Formats: CD + Book, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Back to Nature
Onutė Gražinytė (piano), Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
The Lithuanian conductor joins forces with her father (Romualdas Gražinis) and sister to celebrate the 150th birthday of their compatriot Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911), who studied composition in Leipzig with Carl Reinecke and was also a prolific and widely acclaimed painter who drew much of his inspiration from the natural world. The programme includes the symphonic poems Jūra ('The Sea') and Miške ('In the Forest'), the solo piano pieces Lakštingala ('The Nightingale') and Ruduo ('Autumn'), and Gražinis's choral work Sutartinė.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Fantasia: Works For Trumpet & Organ
Matilda Lloyd (trumpet), Richard Gowers (organ)
Recorded with the newly refurbished organ of the Abbey Church at Waltham Abbey, Lloyd's third solo album for Chandos features arrangements of pieces by Martini, JS Bach, Pachelbel and Krebs, plus world premiere recordings of four new works: Owain Park's Warm, Hazy Rain, Deborah Pritchard's Light Enkindled, Richard Barnard's At the Borders of Sleep, and Roxanna Panufnik's Echo. The artists visited Presto last Wednesday to perform excerpts from the album and discuss their programme and partnership: look out for highlights on our YouTube channel next week...
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Kevin Puts: Concerto for Orchestra
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Stéphane Denève
This new album from St. Louis comprises world premiere recordings of three orchestral works by Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning American composer Kevin Puts (b.1972), whose recent successes include the 2022 opera The Hours: the Concerto for Orchestra (written to commemorate the victims of the Uvalde school shooting in 2022), the Silent Night Elegy on themes from Puts's First World War opera Joyeux Noel, and the Guillaume de Machaut-inspired Virelai (commissioned for Denève's debut as Music Director of the orchestra in 2019).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Henriëtte Bosmans: Concertos
Gemma Rosefield (cello), Benjamin Nabarro (violin), Rowan Pierce (soprano), BBC Philharmonic, George Vass
Born in Amsterdam in 1895, Bosmans was the daughter of piano teacher Sara Benedicts and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's principal cellist (who died when she was a baby). This album features two of her works for cello and orchestra: the Impressionistic Poème from 1919 and the Cello Concerto No. 2, written for and premiered by her long-term partner Frieda Belinfante in 1923. The programme also includes the Concertstuk for violin from 1934 (composed for Bosmans's fiancé Francis Koene, who died before he could perform it), and Lead, kindly light for soprano.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Ravel: Piano Concertos
Nelson Goerner (piano), Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Kazuki Yamada
The Argentine pianist celebrates the 150th anniversary of Ravel's birth with this recording of the Piano Concerto in G, the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in the First World War), and the Valses nobles et sentimentales from 1911. Reviewing the results this week, Gramophone's Jed Distler described Goerner's account of the G major concerto as 'refreshingly straightforward and free of mannerisms', noting that he eschews 'attention-getting nonsense, making expressive points through touch and colour alone.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Felix & Fanny
Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse, Lina Tur Bonet (violin)
The concertmaster of Le Concert des Nations, Lina Tur Bonet presents the world premiere recording of Felix Mendelssohn's Concerto in D minor in its original version (composed when he was just twelve) alongside the more familiar revision which he prepared a year later, making the solo writing more idiomatic and significantly expanding the development section of the second movement. Sandwiched between the two versions is a string orchestra arrangement of Fanny's String Quartet from 1834, which prompted her to lament to her brother: 'I lack the ability to sustain ideas properly and give them the needed consistency. Therefore Lieder suit me best'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Songs of Ourselves
The Fourth Choir, Jamie Powe
Founded in London in 2013, the LGBTQ+ chamber choir celebrated its tenth birthday with a fundraising campaign to produce its debut album of 'music by under-represented composers, voices that struggle to be heard due to marginalisation and prejudices': the programme includes Kerry Andrew's Wild Nights!, Jessica Curry's I Loved You First: But Afterwards Your Love, Shruthi Rajasekar's I Am My Own, Cooper Baldwin's Libera Me (as embers singe the tide), and Vicente Lusitano's Allor che ignuda. Reviewing the results in the latest edition of Gramophone, Edward Breen enthused that 'This choir are compelling in new works, with a demonstrable appetite for complex textures...this is an album for everyone'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Simon Rattle: British Composers
Berliner Philharmoniker, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle
Highlights from this British music collection include Elgar's Enigma Variations and The Dream of Gerontius (with John Mitchinson, Janet Baker and John Shirley-Quirk), Britten's War Requiem (with Elisabeth Söderström, Robert Tear and Thomas Allen), Walton's Symphony No. 1, Cello Concerto and Belshazzar's Feast, Holst's The Planets (complete with Colin Matthews's 'Pluto'), and works by Nicholas Maw, Oliver Knussen, Thomas Adès and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
Available Format: 14 CDs
