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).
Category: Recordings
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As a musicologist, particularly when working in the field of historical documents, one is always hoping to discover that unknown score, letter, household account book – even a shopping list or scribbled memo – which will reveal much about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.
Time and Space: Songs by Holst and Vaughan Williams
New from Albion, Time and Space: Songs by Holst and Vaughan Williams, with Mary Bevan, Roderick Williams, William Vann and Jack Liebeck, highlighting the close personal relationship between the two composers.
Puccini’s Le Willis: a fine new recording from Opera Rara
The 23-year-old Giacomo Puccini was still three months from the end of his studies at the Conservatoire in Milan when, in April 1883, he spotted an announcement of a competition for a one-act opera in Il teatro illustrato, a journal was published by Edoardo Sonzogno, the Italian publisher of Bizet’s Carmen.
Liszt: O lieb! – Lieder and MÈlodie
O Lieb! presents the lieder of Franz Liszt with a distinctive spark from Cyrille Dubois and Tristan RaÎs, from ApartÈ. Though young, Dubois is very highly regarded. His voice has a luminous natural elegance, ideal for the MÈlodie and French operatic repertoire he does so well. With these settings by Franz Liszt, Dubois brings out the refinement and sophistication of Liszt’s approach to song.
The Academy of Ancient Music’s superb recording of Handel’s Brockes-Passion
The Academy of Ancient Music’s new release of Handel’s Brockes-Passion – recorded around the AAM’s live performance at the Barbican Hall on the 300th anniversary of the first performance in 1719 – combines serious musicological and historical scholarship with vibrant musicianship and artistry.
Vaughan Williams: The Song of Love
From Albion, The Song of Love featuring songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with Kitty Whately, Roderick Williams and pianist William Vann. Albion is unique, treasured by Vaughan Williams devotees for rarely heard repertoire from the composer’s vast output, so don’t expect mass market commercial product. Albion recordings often highlight new perspectives.
A new recording of Henze’s Das Flofl der Medusa
Henze’s Das Flofl der Medusa is in some ways a work with a troubled and turbulent history. It is defined by the time in which it was written – 1968 – a period of student protest throughout central Europe. Its first performance was abandoned because the Hamburg chorus refused to perform under the Red Flag which had been placed on stage; and Henze himself decided he wouldn’t conduct it at all after police stormed the concert hall to remove protesters, among them the librettist Ernst Schnabel.