Today's new releases include a Franco-Belgian recital from Elena Urioste and Tom Poster on Chandos, Peter Donohoe's favourite Chopin on SOMM, a Finzi triptych from the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge on Hyperion, and Schubert from George Xiaoyuan Fu and Lotte Betts-Dean on Platoon.
Thème Varié
Elena Urioste (violin), Tom Poster (piano)
The centrepiece of this recital of lesser-known French and Belgian repertoire is Guillaume Lekeu's Violin Sonata in G, which was commissioned by Eugène Ysaÿe in 1892. Lekeu studied with César Franck, as did Mel Bonis; her Andante religioso, Allegretto non troppo and Largo also feature on the programme, alongside Charlotte Sohy's Thème varié, two Elégies by Saint-Saëns, Messiaen's Thème et variations from 1932, and Elsa Barraine's Nocturne.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
The Chopin I Love
Peter Donohoe (piano)
The title of this album is borrowed from a 1970 LP by Arthur Rubinstein which Donohoe treasured in his youth; the British pianist's programme includes the 24 Preludes Op. 28, the Barcarolle Op. 60, the Polonaise–Fantaisie Op. 61, and the Écossaises Op. 72 No. 3, which Donohoe fell in love with at the tender age of five after hearing a recording by Alexander Brailowsky on his family's wind-up gramophone.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Finzi: Requiem da camera
Hilary Cronin (soprano), Gwilym Bowen (tenor), Florian Störtz (baritone), The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, Steven Grahl
The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge marks the 125th anniversary of Finzi's birth with three works which incorporate sacred and secular elements: the main event is the Requiem da camera, written in aftermath of the First World War and dedicated to the memory of his teacher Ernest Farrar (who was killed at the Western Front in September 1918). The programme also includes For St Cecilia and In terra pax, in organ reductions by Robert Gower.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Solitude with Schubert
George Xiaoyuan Fu (piano), Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo)
Fu was crowned Newcomer of the Year by BBC Music Magazine after the release of his Platoon debut Mirrors in 2022, and won Gramophone's Concept Album award last year for its sequel Colouring Book. His third project on the label centres on the Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor (written in the last month of Schubert's life and published posthumously), with Betts-Dean joining for the twenty-minute Lied Einsamkeit and two songs from Schwanengesang.
Available Formats: Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Bartók: 44 Duos & Original Field Recordings
Alexandra Preucil (violin), Antoine Tamestit (viola)
Originally scored for two violins, Bartók's 44 Duos were written in response to a commission from German musicologist and teacher Erich Doflein and conceived as a set of graded teaching-pieces rather than as concert works. Preucil and Tamestit present them in their own arrangement for violin and viola, interspersing the pieces with excerpts from the composer's own field recordings - the Duos were largely inspired by folk music from Central and Eastern Europe, with No. 22 being drawn from a melody which Bartók transcribed on a research trip to Algeria.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 'Resurrection'
Nikola Hillebrand (soprano), Wiebke Lehmkuhl (contralto), MDR-Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Markus Poschner
This recording captures Markus Poschner's debut concert as Sinfonieorchester Basel, which took place last September. Reviewing the results in the May issue of Gramophone, David Futman reflected that 'In a crowded market he gives his Mahler Second an individual slant by foregrounding the angular, the edgy and the grotesque without losing sight of the argument's underlying trajectory.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Bizzarrie!
Oslo Circles
Norwegian Baroque ensemble Oslo Circles celebrates its tenth birthday with a journey through seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, taking in Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's Balletti di filosofi, Cesare Negri's Bizzarria d’amore, Carlo Farina's Capriccio stravagante, Nicola Matteis's Bizzarrie all’umor Scozzese, Bellerofonte Castaldi's Capriccio detto Hermafrodito and more. The album has already been nominated for a Spellemannprise, Norway's most prestigious award for recorded music.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Quiet Summer Evening
Peter Cigleris (clarinet), Sarah Watts (bassoon), Alexei Watkins (horn), Michael Mace (cello), Chamber Ensemble of London, Peter Fisher
Subtitled 'British Light Classics', the Chamber Ensemble of London's second recording on SOMM includes Terence Higgins's Ver le sud, Luke Whitlock's Lullaby, Andy Meyers's Serenade for Horn & Strings, Gordon Jacob's A Little Waltz, Geoffrey Bush's Rhapsody for Clarinet & Strings, Nigel Brooks's Sunday Afternoon, and bassoonist Sarah Watts's Everything Is Somewhere Else.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
De Profundis: Choral Works By Parry and Elgar
Sophie Bevan (soprano), Dominic Sedgwick (baritone), Rufus Frowde (piano), Hertfordshire Chorus, London Mozart Players, David Temple
An Editor's Choice in the August edition of Gramophone (where Andrew Achenbach described it as 'an irresistible proposition'), this album takes its title from Parry's large-scale setting of Psalm 130 from 1891, which receives its first commercial recording here. The programme also includes his later anthem God is Our Hope and Strength, plus Elgar's From the Bavarian Highlands in the version for chorus and piano.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Robert Laidlow: Reality Eaters
Joseph Havlat (piano), BBC Philharmonic, Piatti Quartet, Vimbayi Kaziboni
This portrait of British composer Robert Laidlow (b.1994) comprises the single-movement piano concerto Warp, the string quartet Gravity (exploring humanity's understanding of the force from depictions in myth through to Newton and Einstein), and Silicon - the composer describes the latter work as 'music about the orchestra, about technology, and about what an orchestra might be in the age of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence'.
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
