Latest in the highly acclaimed Hyperion series of Ralph Vaughan Williams symphonies, Symphonies no 3 and 4, with Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, recorded in late 2018 after a series of live performances.
Category: Recordings
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Thomanerchor and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
This Accentus release of J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, recorded live on 15/16th December 2018 at St. Thomas’s Church Leipzig, takes the listener ‘back to Bach’, so to speak.
Retrospect Opera’s new recording of Ethel Smyth’s FÍte Galante
Writing in April 1923 in The Bookman, of which he was editor, about Ethel Smyth’s The Boatswain’s Mate (1913-14) – the most frequently performed of the composer’s own operas during her lifetime – Rodney Bennett reflected on the principal reasons for the general neglect of Smyth’s music in her native land.
A compelling new recording of Bruckner’s early Requiem
The death of his friend and mentor Franz Seiler, notary at the St Florian monastery to which he had returned as a teaching assistant in 1845, was the immediate circumstance which led the 24-year-old Anton Bruckner to compose his first large-scale sacred work: the Requiem in D minor for soloists, choir, organ continuo and orchestra, which he completed on 14th March 1849.
Emmerich K·lm·n: Ein Herbstmanˆver
Brilliant Emmerich Kálmán’s Ein Herbstmanöver from the Stadttheater, Giessen in 2018, conducted by Michael Hofstetter now on Oehms Classics, in a performing version by Balázs Kovalik.
Liszt Petrarca Sonnets complete – AndrË Schuen, Daniel Heide
An ambitious new series focusing on the songs of Franz Liszt, starting with all three versions of the Tre Sonetti del Petrarca, (Petrarca Sonnets), S.270a, S.270b and S.161 with AndrË Schuen and Daniel Heide for Avi-music.de.
Une soirÈe chez Berlioz – lyrical rarities, on Berlioz’s own guitar
Une soirÈe chez Berlioz – an evening with Berlioz, songs for voice, piano and guitar, with StÈphanie D’Oustrac, Thibaut Roussel (guitar), and Tanguy de Williencourt (piano).
A Baroque Christmas from Harmonia Mundi
A baroque Christmas from Harmonia Mundi, this year’s offering in their acclaimed Christmas series. Great value for money – four CDs of music so good that it shouldn’t be saved just for Christmas. The prize here, though is the Pastorale de NoÎl by Marc-Antoine Charpentier with Ensemble Correspondances, with SÈbastien DaucÈ, highly acclaimed on its first release just a few years ago.
Christmas at St George’s Windsor
Christmas at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, with the Choir of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, James Vivian, organist and conductor. New from Hyperion, this continues their series of previous recordings with this Choir. The College of St George, founded in 1348, is unusual in that it is a Royal Peculiar, a parish under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch, rather than the diocese.
From Darkness into Light: Antoine Brumel’s Complete Lamentations of Jeremiah for Good Friday
As a musicologist, particularly when working in the field of historical documents, one is always hoping to discover that unknown score, letter, household account book – even a shopping list or scribbled memo – which will reveal much about the composition, performance or context of a musical work which might otherwise remain embedded within or behind the inscrutable walls of the past.