Today's new releases include a new album of contemporary works from guitarist Sean Shibe, a double-bill of Chausson from violinist Renaud Capuçon with the Quatuor Ébène, Brussels Philharmonic, Stéphane Denève and featuring one of the last performances of the late Nicholas Angelich, a transatlantic celebration of Spanish and South American Baroque and traditional music from L'Arpeggiata and Christina Pluhar, and Mozart piano concertos from Jan Lisiecki, the Bamberger Symphoniker and Manfred Honeck.
Vesper
Sean Shibe (guitar)
The Scottish guitarist's fifth solo album for Pentatone opens with Thomas Adès's Forgotten Dances, composed for Shibe in 2023 and including movements dedicated to Max Ernst and Berlioz: the final movement (based on Purcell's An Evening Hymn) gives the album its title. The programme also features the world premiere recording of James Dillon's 12 Caprices, the Habanera from Adès's 2016 opera The Exterminating Angel, and Harrison Birtwistle's Beyond the White Hand: Construction with Guitar Player.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 9 & 22
Jan Lisiecki (piano), Bamberger Symphoniker, Manfred Honeck
The Canadian pianist's debut album on Deutsche Grammophon (released when he was only sixteen) featured Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21, and was hailed as 'beautiful Mozart playing...pristine, lyrical and intelligent' by The New York Times. Now 31, he celebrates the 270th anniversary of the composer's birth with two works which share the key of E flat major, both of which he describes as 'singular masterpieces'. Reviewing a 'brisk, joyful' performance of No. 22 in Strasbourg last year, BachTrack observed that 'Lisiecki seemed to treat the weight of every note with extreme care, as if he were on first name terms with every one'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Chausson: Poème & Concert
Renaud Capuçon (violin), Nicholas Angelich (piano), Quatuor Ébène, Brussels Philharmonic, Stéphane Denève
Recorded live in Paris in 2020, this programme brings together two of Chausson's most popular works: the Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet (written between 1888 and 1891) and the Poème for violin and orchestra from 1896 (inspired by Ivan Turgenev's short story Le chant de l’amour triumphant). The recording is dedicated to the memory of Nicholas Angelich, a long-term friend and collaborator of the Capuçon brothers, who died in 2022 aged just 51.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
La Torre del Oro
L'Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar
Named after the 12-sided ‘golden’ tower that dominates the River Guadalquivir in Seville, La Torre del Oro features music by Spanish composers Alonso Mudarra, Diego Pisador, Lucas Ruiz de Ribayas and Santiago de Murcia and the South Americans Reynaldo Armas, Simón Díaz, Ignacio Figueredo, Agustín Rivas, Hilda Herrera and Violeta Para, all interspersed with traditional dances including the jácara, fandango, folía, canario and ciaccona and the Venezuelan joropo and pájarillo.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Schubert: Hoffnung
Samuel Hasselhorn (baritone), Ammiel Bushakevitz (piano)
This third instalment of Hasselhorn and Bushakevitz's Schubert 200 series (set to crossing the finishing-line on the bicentenary of the composer's death) focuses on Lieder written in 1826, including 'Totengräberweise', 'Das Zügenglöcklein', 'Fischerweise', 'Der Wanderer an den Mond', 'Um Mitternacht' and 'Der Vater mit dem Kind'. Reviewing the previous volume, Licht und Schatten, Gramophone declared the young German baritone 'a natural in Lieder' thanks to his 'warmly rounded tone, an imaginative range of colour and exemplary diction'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
German Opera Scenes and Arias
Malin Byström (soprano), Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Søndergård
Fresh from her debut as Isolde at Dutch National Opera, the Swedish lyric-dramatic soprano presents a programme which includes 'Zweite Brautnacht!' from Strauss's Die ägyptische Helena, the closing scene from his Capriccio, 'Abscheulicher!' from Beethoven's Fidelio, and 'Glück, das mir verblieb' from Korngold's Die tote Stadt. The album concludes with the final scene from Salome; Byström sang the role on Edward Gardner's recent acclaimed live recording of the opera from the Edinburgh Festival, where The Arts Desk praised her 'presence and power' and Gramophone applauded her 'triumphant, tender, impassioned' account of the bloodcurdling conclusion.
Available Format: SACD
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 7
London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda
This penultimate instalment of Noseda's Prokofiev cycle was recorded at the Barbican in June 2024, when BachTrack applauded the Italian conductor's 'emphatically commanding' grasp of the score and the 'impressive precision' of the LSO's playing; premiered in 1952, the 'Children's Symphony' includes prominent parts for xylophone and glockenspiel, and was awarded the Lenin Prize four years after the composer's death.
Available Formats: Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Marianna Martines: The Complete Keyboard Works
Idith Meshulam Korman (piano), Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey
Born in Vienna in 1744, the singer, composer and pianist Marianna Martines was mentored by family friend and lodger Metastasio, who arranged for her to have singing lessons with Porpora and composition lessons with Haydn; in adulthood she regularly performed piano duets with Mozart and became the first female member of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. This album brings together her four surviving keyboard concertos, three sonatas and the Sinfonia in C, all recorded from newly prepared critical editions.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Allison Loggins-Hull: The Cleveland Residency
The Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst
Hailed as a musical 'powerhouse' by The Washington Post, Chicago-born Loggins-Hull was the Cleveland Orchestra’s 11th Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, and this triptych of works which she wrote for the orchestra between 2022 and 2025 is their first recorded portrait of a contemporary composer. The programme comprises Legacy for string sextet, the orchestral version of Can You See? (originally a chamber work, using quotations from The Star-Spangled Banner) and Grit. Grace. Glory., which the composer describes as 'a musical story inspired by the people and history of Cleveland'.
Available Formats: Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Lamenting Earth
Nicholas Phan (tenor), Myra Huang, Jasper String Quartet
To mark World Earth Day, GRAMMY-winning tenor Nicholas Phan teams up with his long-term recital-partner Myra Huang and the Jasper Quartet for a programme which explores 'humanity's interaction with nature', including Schubert's 'Wandrers Nachtlied', 'Am See' and 'Auf dem Wasser zu singen', Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge, Charles Ives's The Housatonic at Stockbridge, and Patrick Castillo's Skyline Palimpsest (a musical homage to New York from 2020). The title-work by Canadian-born composer Vivian Fung sets text from Claire Wahmanholm's poem 'O' and written reflections on climate change by young people.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Verdi: Macbeth
Ernesto Petti (Macbeth), Lidia Fridman (Lady Macbeth), Michele Pertusi (Banquo), Luciano Ganci (Macduff) Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Orchestra Giovanile Della Via Emilia, Coro Del Teatro Regio Di Parma, Roberto Abbado, Pierre Audi
Filmed in Parma in 2024, the late Pierre Audi's production of Macbeth uses the 1865 edition of the score which Verdi prepared for Paris, with new material including Lady Macbeth's chilling Act Two aria 'La luce langue' and a third-act ballet. The Opera Critic praised Audi's nuanced presentation of the complex relationship between the central couple, Fridman's 'towering stage-presence', and Abbado's multi-faceted approach to the score.
Available Format: Blu-ray
