Today's new releases include a cache of piano postcards from Sir Stephen Hough on Hyperion, Schumann's Kreisleriana and Novelletten from Adam Laloum on Harmonia Mundi, Berlin cabaret from Anne Sofie von Otter on BIS, and a final volume of Vivaldi bassoon concerti from Sergio Azzolini and L'Onda Armonica on Naïve.
Stephen Hough's Piano Postcards
Stephen Hough (piano)
The British pianist celebrates some of the countries he's come to know and love over decades of international touring with this collection of musical miniatures and songs from around the world, including his own transcriptions of 'Celito lindo', Deng Yu-Hsien's Spring Breeze Prelude and Kosaku Yamada's 'Aka tombo', Rachmaninoff's arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee', and 'Andaluza' from Granados's Danzas españolas. The album begins on home territory, with three movements from Hough's suite on Mary Poppins.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Schumann: Novelletten & Kreisleriana
Adam Laloum (piano)
Two years on from his 'very sensitive' (Gramophone) recording of Schumann's Piano Quintet with Quatuor Hanson, the award-winning French pianist couples two solo piano works from 1838, both dedicated to fellow composers: Kreisleriana was dedicated to Chopin (whose response was lukewarm to say the least) and the Novelletten to Adolf von Henselt, whom Schumann hailed as 'Chopin of the North'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Berlin! Berlin! Berlin! Kabarett und Exil
Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo), Salon Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, Adam Benzwi
Taking in 'Prussian swing', early jazz, cabaret and operetta, this collection of songs from Berlin in the 1920s, 30s and 40s include excerpts from Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Songbook and Kurt Weill's Das Berliner Requiem, Peter Kreuder's 'Musik! Musik! Musik!' (a possible inspiration for the title-theme from The Muppet Show), 'Mein Gorilla hat ‘ne Villa im Zoo', Friedrich Holländer's 'Marion-Tango', and the Marlene Dietrich favourite 'Leben ohne Liebe kannst du nicht'.
Available Format: SACD
Vivaldi: Concerti per fagotto VI
Sergio Azzolini (bassoon), L'Onda Armonica
Launched in 2010 as part of Naïve Classique's venerable Vivaldi Edition, Azzolini's series of the Red Priest's bassoon concertos has been applauded for his 'infectious eagerness' (Gramophone), 'full-blooded pyrotechnics' (Early Music Today), and 'unsurpassed palette of tonal colour' (International Record Review). This final instalment features the four complete concertos which were hitherto unrecorded: RV 501 ('La Notte'), RV 478, RV 487, and RV 466.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Saxophobia: Celebrating the Sax Craze of the 1920s
Chad Smith (saxophone), Sinfonia of London, John Wilson
The American saxophone virtuoso and Broadway veteran Chad Smith conceived this album as a tribute to Rudy Wiedoeft (1893-1940), who was one of the instrument's greatest early ambassadors during the pre-jazz era; the programme includes Wiedoeft's Valse Mazanetta, Sax-O-Phun, Cloudy Days and Saxarella, plus arrangements of Victor Herbert's 'Kiss Me Again', Irving Berlin's 'You Forgot to Remember', and Earl Carroll's Canary Cottage - One-Step.
Available Formats: SACD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
ZELENKA
Ángel Luis Sánchez Moreno, Ramón Ortega Quero (oboes), Marc Trénel (bassoon), Wies de Boevé (double bass),6 Alfonso Sebastián Alegre (harpsichord)
This set of the Czech Baroque composer's Six Trio Sonatas, ZWV 181 is an Editor's Choice in the July issue of Gramophone, where Mark Seow writes: 'It is joyful and intelligent, impeccably put together yet free...Has Zelenka's instrumental music ever sounded this good? Possibly not.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Jorge Bolet - The Ambassador Auditorium Recitals
Jorge Bolet (piano)
These two previously unreleased recitals were recorded at the Pasadena concert-hall in 1981 and 1986, in the final decade of the Cuban-American pianist's life; the repertoire includes ballades by Chopin, Grieg and Brahms, Schumann's Fantasie in C Op. 17, Mendelssohn's Fantasia in F sharp minor Op. 28, a handful of Liszt's Schubert song transcriptions, and two preludes by Abram Chasins which do not appear in Bolet’s studio discography.
Available Formats: 3 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Weber: Der Freischütz arrangirt in Harmoniemusik
Wolf, Jean-Philippe Poncin
Weber's supernatural opera about a shooting competition involving the forces of darkness scored a direct hit at its premiere in 1821, spawning a plethora of chamber and instrumental arrangements during the composer's lifetime. The Belgian wind ensemble presents one of the earliest transcriptions, made by Karl Flachs the year after the premiere and published in 1825; running to 47 minutes, the suite includes highlights such as the Huntsmen's and Bridesmaids' Choruses, Agathe's cavatina 'Und ob die Wolke sich verhülle', and Ännchen's 'Kömmt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen'.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Earthly Solace: Eton Choirbook Reconstructions II
Selene Consort, Daniel Gilchrist
The young British vocal consort presents world premiere recordings of five works which have languished unheard for five centuries, reconstructed here by musicologist Russell Blacker: William Cornyshe's Gaude Flori Virginali, Robert Fayrfax's Ave Lumen Gratiae, William Brygeman's Salve Regina, John Sygar's Magnificat for four voices, and Walter Lambe's O Regina Caelestis Gloriae. The programme also includes Gilbert Banester's O Maria et Elizabeth and John Browne's Stabat iuxta Christi Crucem.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Lisette Oropesa (Lucia), Juan Diego Flórez (Edgardo), Boris Pinkhasovich (Enrico), Leonardo Cortellazzi (Arturo), Michele Pertusi (Raimondo Bidebent); Teatro Alla Scala, Riccardo Chailly, Yannis Kokkos
Filmed at La Scala in April 2023, Yannis Kokkos's dark, emphatically Gothic new staging sets the action in the 1920s and boasts two of today's finest bel canto singers in the leading roles: in a five-star review, the Financial Times observed that Flórez 'has lost little of his trademark burnish, his high-lying voice soaring incandescently through Donizetti’s voluptuous bel canto lines' and praised Oropesa's 'crystalline precision' in coloratura as well as her 'shapely' legato singing.
Available Format: Blu-ray
