Today's new releases include Lutosławski and Bloch from Jean-Guihen Queyras, the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Gustavo Gimeno on Harmonia Mundi, Mozart horn concertos from Martin Owen, Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy on Chandos, choral works by Nico Muhly from the Choir of Magdalen College Oxford on CORO, and Charles Wood's String Quartets 'Harrogate' and 'Highgate' from the London Chamber Ensemble Quartet and Madeleine Mitchell on SOMM.
Lutosławski: Concertos for Cello and for Orchestra
Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Luxembourg Philharmonic, Gustavo Gimeno
Commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and premiered in 1970 by its dedicatee Mstislav Rostropovich, Lutosławski's Cello Concerto was described by The Guardian as 'one of the Polish composer's greatest achievements'; the composer himself discouraged the temptation to view the work 'as an illustration of some macabre spectacle' despite Rostropovich's own interpretation of the violent climax as a metaphor 'the Central Committee at full strength'. It's complemented here by the Concerto for Orchestra from the early 1950s and Bloch's 'Rhapsodie Hébraïque' Schelomo.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Mozart: The Four Horn Concertos & Rondo KV 371
Martin Owen (horn), Manchester Camerata, Gábor Takács-Nagy
Two years on from displaying his 'admirable virtuosity' (BBC Music Magazine) in trios by Mozart, Ligeti, Brahms and Schumann, Owen joins the 'Mozart, made in Manchester' project for the four horn concertos composed for Joseph Leutgeb between 1783 and and 1791 (the latter completed by Süssmayr after Mozart's death. Owen supplies his own cadenzas for Concertos Nos. 3 and 4, and for the Rondo in E flat K371 which rounds off the album.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Nico Muhly: With Eys Lift Up
Choir of Magdalen College Oxford, Mark Williams
Taking its title from a setting of a poem by Thomas Traherne, this collection of sacred choral works by Muhly features thirteen world premiere recordings, including numerous pieces written for Magdalen: 'Alma Redemptoris Mater', 'This Other Spring' (for Christmas), 'The Quiet Stars' (for Candlemas), 'When All Is Endid Fully' (for Ascension), 'On All Things' (for Trinity), the Magdalen Service, and the Missa brevis.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Charles Wood: String Quartets
London Chamber Ensemble Quartet, Madeleine Mitchell
Released to mark the centenary of the Irish composer's death (which falls on 12th July), this album features his String Quartets No. 2 'Highgate' (1892) and No. 4 'Harrogate' (1912), plus the Variations on an Irish Folk Tune from 1917. The ensemble's 2024 account of his String Quartet No. 6 was described as 'committed and rewarding' by The Guardian, and featured as one of Gramophone's Best Classical Albums of the Year.
Look out for David's interview with Madeleine Mitchell about the project next week...
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Saint-George & Pécou: Caribbean Violin Concertos
Romuald Grimbert-Barré (violin), Orchestre national de Cannes, Benjamin Levy
Born in Guadeloupe in 1745, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (aka Joseph Bologne) was the son of an enslaved Senegalese woman and a white plantation-owner, and went onto cut a swathe through Parisian society as a composer, conductor, violinist and swordsman. This album sets his Violin Concertos Opp. 5 and Op. 8 alongside a new concerto entitled Hommage à Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George by French composer Thierry Pécou (b. 1965), who writes: 'his bold spirit and his virtuosity both as a violinist and as a swordsman permeate this score, with the violin part representing the man himself, a man who led an extraordinary life.'
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Johanna Senfter: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 9
Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Chelsea Gallo
A student of Max Reger, the German composer Johanna Senfter (1879-1961) wrote her first symphony in 1914, four years after being awarded the Arthur Nikisch Prize for the best student composition of the year at the Leipzig Royal Conservatory. Based on the Lutheran chorale 'Aus tiefer Not', the last of her nine symphonies was completed in 1949, and remained unperformed during Senfter's lifetime; both works receive their world premiere recordings here.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Look How Brightly
Jess Dandy (contralto), Roderick Chadwick, CHROMA
This collection of chamber works by Welsh composer Alex Mills includes three pieces written for contralto Jess Dandy: I love you, my darkness, Release me (both setting Mills's own texts) and BARDO (inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead). The title-work takes its cue from a line in Richard Dehmel's poem Verklärte Nacht (also an inspiration for Schoenberg), and is scored for piano trio. A long-term admirer of Mills's music, Nico Muhly describes him as 'a composer compelled by an emotional itinerary expressed through a sense of taut control'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Steve Elcock: Orchestral Music, Vol. 4
Paul Silverthorne (viola), Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Kenneth Woods
Hailed as 'the greatest living symphonist’ by Fanfare, Anglo-French Steve Elcock (b.1957) is entirely self-taught, coming to prominence in 2009 when James MacMillan conducted his Hammering (2005) in Manchester; that work opens this fourth volume of his orchestral music on Toccata, followed by the Viola Concerto (2018), Symphony No. 4 'A Golden Rose Fallen from the Flat Sea of Time' (2013/17), and Fermeture (2020). The first instalment was described as 'well-crafted, emotionally honest and non-derivative' by Gramophone's Andrew Mellor.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Finzi - Swain - Aplvor: Clarinet Concertos
Peter Cigleris (clarinet), London Mozart Players, John Andrews
Frederick Thurston (1901-53) is the unifying thread on this triptych of British clarinet concertos from the late 1940s: the English clarinettist gave the first performance of Gerald Finzi's popular Concerto for Clarinet and Strings at the Hereford Three Choirs Festival in 1949, two years after premiering Denis ApIvor's Concertante in the original chamber version for piano and two percussionists. Freda Swain's unpublished concertino 'Lumine naturi' is also thought to have been intended for Thurston, who was also the dedicatee of her Rhapsody for clarinet and piano.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 13
Merel Quartet
Premiered in Prague in 1896, the String Quartet No. 13 in G was composed after Dvořák had returned home from a three-year stint in the United States and spent four months 'basking in God’s nature [and] just lazing around' (as he put it in a letter to his friend Alois Göbl). In a five-star review this month, BBC Music Magazine enthused that 'the Merel Quartet has the measure of this music, matching attention to detail with unabashed sentiment...These beautifully considered performances are ones to savour'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Saint-Sulpice
Karol Mossakowski (organ)
Polish-born Karol Mossakowski has been co-titular organist of the Church of Saint-Sulpice since 2023, following in the footsteps of Charles-Marie Widor, Marcel Dupré, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, and his immediate predecessor Daniel Roth (who retired in late 2022). Recorded on the church's grand Aristide Cavaillé-Coll organ (1862), his programme includes works by all four composers: Dupré's Trois Préludes et Fugues Op. 7, Widor's Trois Nouvelles Pièces Op. 87, Grunenwald's Diptyque liturgique , and Roth's Fantaisie fuguée sur 'Regina caeli'.
Available Formats: SACD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
O weh!
Stéphane Degout (baritone), Aude Extrémo (mezzo), L'Atelier de musique, Pierre Dumoussaud
Recorded live at the Deauville Easter Festival in 2024 and 2025, the centrepiece of this programme is Arnold Schoenberg and Rudolf Kolisch's chamber arrangement of Max Reger's rarely performed Eine romantische Suite, composed in 1912 and based on poems by Joseph von Eichendorff. The suite is flanked by two of Mahler's orchestral song cycles: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (sung by Stéphane Degout and arranged by Schoenberg) and Kindertotenlieder (sung by Aude Extrémo and arranged by Eberhard Kloke).
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
The Art of David Munrow: Complete Warner Edition
David Munrow
A major figure in the early music revival of the 1960s and early 70s, British multi-instrumentalist, singer and music historian David Munrow co-founded The Early Music Consort of London with Christopher Hogwood in 1967, and recorded prolifically for Warner Classics and Nonesuch in the decade before his death at just 33. This collection includes his music for the 1972 film Henry VIII and his Six Wives, the albums The Art of Courtly Love, Music for Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, The Pleasures of the Royal Courts and The Art of the Recorder, and recordings of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine and Dufay's Missa ‘Se la face ay pale’.
Available Format: 21 CDs
