Today's new releases include a new transcription of Bach's Goldberg Variations from guitarists Thibaut Garcia and Antoine Morinière on Erato, a studio recording of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with Lisette Oropesa in the title-role and Ștefan Pop as Edgardo on Euroarts, an eclectic programme of Frank Zappa, John Cage and more from Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion, and Academy Award-winning Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir's first studio album on Deutsche Grammophon.
JS Bach: Goldberg Variations
Thibaut Garcia (guitar), Antoine Morinière (guitar)
The two guitarists spent a year working on 'how to adapt [the Goldbergs] for two guitars, while preserving the illusion of a single performer', including a five-day silent retreat to the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes; they recorded the album on a pair of guitars cut from the same tree, which were specially made for the project by luthier Hugo Cuvillier. Speaking about his Bach Inspirations album in 2018, Garcia remarked that the composer 'has been part of my life as a musician since the very start' - he discussed his relationship with Bach's music in an exclusive video with Presto, which was filmed at the French Institute in South Kensington.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Lisette Oropesa (Lucia), Ștefan Pop (Edgardo), Mattia Olivieri (Enrico), Riccardo Zanellato (Raimondo); Orchestra del Teatro Massimo Bellini di Catania, Fabrizio Maria Carminati
Lucia has become something of a calling-card for Oropesa over the past decade: she made her Covent Garden debut in the role in 2017 (when The Guardian described her as 'sensationally good'), and has since sung it at La Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Salzburg Festival and the Teatro Real de Madrid. This studio recording was made at the Teatro Sangiorgi in Sicily last summer; Oropesa enthuses that the project was 'a full sensory experience that took me away and brought me right to the heart of this magnificent opera'.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Found Objects / Sound Objects
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
Hamelin describes this intriguing programme as 'an admittedly rather disparate collection of recent and not-so-recent piano pieces' by composers who 'managed to create a very distinctly different sound from each other, aided by very obvious differences in their aesthetic purposes and their treatment of the instrument'. The repertoire includes Frank Zappa's Ruth is sleeping, John Cage's The Perilous Night, John Oswald's Tip, and Hamelin's own Hexensabbat (commissioned by the Le Piano Symphonique festival in Lucerne and recently premiered by Yoav Levanon).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Hildur Guðnadóttir: Where to From
Hildur Guðnadóttir (cello, vocals), Eyvind Kang (viola), Liam Byrne (viola da gamba), Clare O'Connell (cello), Else Torp (vocals), Jessika Kenney (vocals)
This is the first studio album from the Icelandic composer and cellist, whose credits include the soundtracks for Chernobyl, Journey's End and Joker (for which she won a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award). Guðnadóttir describes this project as 'a sort of diary of tonality and timings' which captures the 'fairly constant stream of music playing in my head'; the pieces include 'Melody of Not Knowing', ' I Hold Close', 'All Along' and 'Fólk fær andlit' ('People get Faces'), which was written in response to the deportation of Albanian refugees from Iceland in 2015.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Brahms & Goldmark: Violin Concertos
Ning Feng (violin), Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Antony Hermus
Both concertos here were written in 1877, and their composers were good friends: they met when Goldmark was working as a music journalist in Vienna, and Brahms was a particular admirer of his Rustic Wedding Symphony (which was premiered the year before the violin concertos). The Brahms concerto is especially dear to Feng, who played it for his winning performances at the International Paganini Competition and the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in the mid-2000s; for the Goldmark concerto, he plays the original five-minute cadenza, which is often abridged.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Ambroise Thomas: Psyché
Hélène Guilmette (Psyché), Antoinette Dennefeld (Éros), Tassis Christoyannis (Mercure), Christian Helmer (Le Roi), Mercedes Arcuri (Dafné), Anna Dowsley (Bérénice), Artavazd Sargsyan (Antinoüs), Philippe Estèphe (Gorgias); Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Hungarian National Choir, György Vashegyi
Premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1857, Psyché predates the composer's most popular works Mignon and Hamlet, and centres on the ill-fated love-affair between the eponymous heroine and Éros (a trouser-role for coloratura mezzo). The recording is dedicated to the memory of the Belgian soprano Jodie Devos, who was originally scheduled to sing the title-role.
Available Formats: Book + 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Monteverdi: L'Incoronazione di Poppea
Francesca Aspromonte (Poppea), Nicolò Balducci (Nerone), Eva Zaïcik (Ottavia), Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian (Ottone), Camille Poul (Drusilla), Alex Rosen (Seneca); Les Épopées, Stéphane Fuget
This recording of Monteverdi's final opera was made live at Versailles in December 2023, and concludes Fuget's acclaimed Monteverdi trilogy with Les Épopées, the ensemble which he founded in 2018. Their recording of Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria was described by Opera Magazine as 'truly a unique performance, one for which Fuget’s rethinking of performance style has brought the richest dividends', whilst their Orfeo received five stars in The Times (with Geoff Brown remarking that 'this second release in the group’s Monteverdi opera series abundantly shows the value in baroque repertoire of being theatrical and throwing discretion to the winds').
Available Formats: 3 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Handel: Israel in Egypt
Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet
Premiered in London in 1739, Israel in Egypt was originally presented in three parts, although Handel subsequently revised the structure after a rather tepid reception, cutting the opening 'Lamentations' section and adding Italianate arias to appeal to the opera-going public. Niquet opts for the two-part version of the work here, which was regarded as definitive throughout the nineteenth century and counted Berlioz among its admirers. The recording was made shortly after the 2020/2021 lockdowns, and Niquet remarks that the 'cry of happiness in unison' of the final chorus had a special resonance for the musicians after a period of enforced separation.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Le grand embrasement - Music for a Mad King
Into the Winds
The 'Mad King' of the title is King Charles VI of France, who was declared insane in 1392 after suffering a psychotic episode and attacking his own men during a military expedition against the Duke of Brittany; the resulting instability plunged the country into almost three decades of civil war. The programme tells his story in music by Johannes and Guillaume Le Grant, Baude Cordier, Pierre Fontaine, Johannes Tapissier and Nicole Grenon, and was premiered in 2022 to mark the 600th anniversary of the king's death.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Hommage à Jodie Devos
Jodie Devos (soprano)
The Belgian coloratura soprano was just thirty-five when she died suddenly last June; all profits from sales of this set will be donated to the Jodie Devos Fund, established in her memory by friends and family 'to perpetuate [her] vision by democratizing operatic art for diverse audiences and supporting young talents in their artistic journey.' The anthology brings together all of her recordings for Alpha Classics, including the solo albums Offenbach: Colorature, And Love Said... and Bijoux Perdus, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and two discs of chamber music with voice, plus a live recording from the Gaume Jazz Festival in 2017.
Available Format: 7 CDs
