Topic: New Releases

[Brian]

Additionally there is another new BIS release I missed.



And this new BIS Christmas album



includes the likes of Madetoja, Taneli Kuusisto, Armas Maasalo, Rautavaara, Ahti Sonninen, and Arvi Karvonen, plus usual suspect Sibelius.

EDIT: Finally, because this "BIS only records standard rep now" myth really bothers me as a huge fan of what BIS does, let me note that their ardent championing of lesser-known composers does not end with people from Scandinavia. They've also been huge pioneers for Alfred Schnittke, Brett Dean, Sally Beamish, and John Pickard, among many others, with new recordings of three of those four composers in 2017.

[North Star]

And this new BIS Christmas album

includes the likes of Madetoja, Taneli Kuusisto, Armas Maasalo, Rautavaara, Ahti Sonninen, and Arvi Karvonen, plus usual suspect Sibelius.

And Matthew Whittall (1975-), born in Canada but lives in Helsinki and teaches music analysis and orchestration at the Sibelius Academy - Canadian-Finnish according to his website.


Also, Hjalmar Borgström's Violin Concerto (coupled with Shostakovich - BIS doesn't specify which one) will be on release in late 2018, with Eldbjørg Hemsing and Vienna Symphony under Olari Elts.

[Madiel]

BIS has always mixed "standard" repertoire with more unusual things as far as I'm concerned. Picking examples of "standard" things that they're releasing is no kind of evidence that they've significantly changed their habits.

[Todd]

Also coming, but with no images yet:

Roberto Prosseda's second volume of Mozart sonatas covering sonatas 7-12.

Murray Perahia playing Beethoven's Opp 27/2 and 106.  I heard him play 106 in recital last year, so I will be able to compare and contrast the studio effort to memories of the live event.

[Mirror Image]

Man, BIS ain't what they used to be They used to ardently champion lesser-known Nordic music, but now they're just churning out recordings of the standard rep, apart from the usual new releases of Kalevi Aho's music.

If you have looked over BIS’s catalogue since their inception, you’ll see that they didn’t just champion Nordic music, but a lot of other composer’s music as well. Brian rightfully pointed out that there’s more to BIS than just Nordic music. If BIS listened to you, Kyle, they’d never make a dime and that’s really a part of the reason why they record standard repertoire these days so they can provide the more ‘specialist’ listeners the opportunity to hear lesser-known composers’ music, but this isn’t to say that the standard rep. they released isn’t good or well-performed. Given the unpopularity of classical music, we all should be so lucky to have a label like BIS around (not to mention all the other labels that promote and release recordings of this music).

[king ubu]

If we may get over Bis or not Bis ... haven't seen this mentioned yet, forgive me if I'm wrong:

[kishnevi]

If we may get over Bis or not Bis ... haven't seen this mentioned yet, forgive me if I'm wrong:

I mentioned it...on the Purchases Thread.
Having heard it I would say  it up to Gardiner's usual standard.

[eljr]

Maya Youssef
Syrian Dreams

Genre
International
Release Date:
December 8, 2017
Run time:
49:41

[Todd]

.

[Spineur]

January 2018:

[Mirror Image]

January 2018:

Wonderful! Looking forward to this one.

[Mandryka]

Dantone and his band, Art of Fugue

Good sound on this one, some nice combinations of instruments, it's very Italian, tense, dramatic, lyrical, lithe, charming, urbane, elegant, with witty little touches here and there. I can imagine it being sung at the opera and danced at the ballet! Background music for a masked ball in a Venetian palace. Like the one in Eyes Wide Shut. Beautiful - you know how much Italians prize beauty above all else. Maybe I'm imagining things. Worth hearing I'd say, I think it's fun.

[king ubu]

Good sound on this one, some nice combinations of instruments, it's very Italian, tense, dramatic, lyrical, lithe, charming, urbane, elegant, with witty little touches here and there. I can imagine it being sung at the opera and danced at the ballet! Background music for a masked ball in a Venetian palace. Like the one in Eyes Wide Shut. Beautiful - you know how much Italians prize beauty above all else. Maybe I'm imagining things. Worth hearing I'd say, I think it's fun.

Just had a short nightly stroll through the alleys of beautiful Mantova ... I think your description just won me over!

[Brian]

The Jean-Rodolphe Kars Messiaen recording is new to CD, but a live recording from a single night in April 1976.



"Note to the listeners who will listen to this work, score in hand (éditions Durand): Jean-Rodolphe Kars reports a small incident of memory in his execution of April 1976 reproduced here. These are the inevitable incidents of life recordings. On page 43 of the score (sixth Regard), in the last three lines, a complete line is missing."

There is a new special essay by the pianist, but it's about his conversion to Catholicism and the role Messiaen played in it, not about the music or performance specifically.

[Todd]

"Note to the listeners who will listen to this work, score in hand (éditions Durand): Jean-Rodolphe Kars reports a small incident of memory in his execution of April 1976 reproduced here. These are the inevitable incidents of life recordings. On page 43 of the score (sixth Regard), in the last three lines, a complete line is missing."

Excuses, excuses.  It's from Kars' peak form years, though, so maybe the rest of the playing will make up for this terrible omission.

[(: premont :)]

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/couperin-pierre-chalmeau/hnum/4238570

[Mirror Image]

Heads up, Wagnerians!



It’s already released on a few select sites. Most sites have it listed coming out in early December.

https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8367328--the-wagner-project

Edit: I’ll most definitely be buying this set as I love Goerne’s voice and the combination of Harding and the Swedish RSO lately has been unmissable.

[ritter]

Heads up, Wagnerians!



It’s already released on a few select sites. Most sites have it listed coming out in early December.

https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8367328--the-wagner-project

Edit: I’ll most definitely be buying this set as I love Goerne’s voice and the combination of Harding and the Swedish RSO lately has been unmissable.

Thanks for posting, John!

I've been lucky enough to see Matthias Goerne live in much of what is sung here (Amfortas in a complete Parsifal, the King's monologue from Tristan and Wotan's Farewell from Die Walküre, all in concert here in Madrid). He's a very sensitive singer, very attentive to the words and very elegant. Sometimes, though, he can lack some volume to overcome an orchestra in fff (e.g., some passages at the end of Die Walküre). Still, even if he's a favourite singer of mine (and the supporting forces look interesting), I don't really think I'll ever go for bleeding chunks CDs again.

[Mirror Image]

Thanks for posting, John!

I've been lucky enough to see Matthias Goerne live in much of what is sung here (Amfortas in a complete Parsifal, the King's monologue from Tristan and Wotan's Farewell from Die Walküre, all in concert here in Madrid). He's a very sensitive singer, very attentive to the words and very elegant. Sometimes, though, he can lack some volume to overcome an orchestra in fff (e.g., some passages at the end of Die Walküre). Still, even if he's a favourite singer of mine (and the supporting forces look interesting), I don't really think I'll ever go for bleeding chunks CDs again.

No problem, Rafael. It seems that ‘bleeding chunks’ is the only way I like my Wagner as I don’t think I can endure one of his 4-hour operas ever again. I spent one summer many years ago going through The Ring, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde. A memorable experience, but one I’ll never feel the need to recreate.

[Mandryka]

There are a few of his Frescobaldi interpretations on Youtube, two toccatas and a canzona among them. There is no reason to deny his dexterity, and the canzona is most charming, but his toccatas lack direction and integrity IMO.

I sense there's a lot to explore and enjoy here and I expect my appreciation will grow as I listen more.

In the booklet Moulin says that 

Les toccate montrent une nouvelle manière d’écrire pour le clavier. Improvisations couchées sur le papier, elles se réclament d’une seconda prattica. Comme Caccini ou Monteverdi pour la voix, a n d’émouvoir, l’on joue con afetti cantabili et l’on use des passi ou passagi, grands effets de doubles croches. Le tactus s’assouplit pour mieux exprimer les sentiments, « comme pour dépeindre les mots d’un madrigal sous-jacent » nous dit Frescobaldi. Musique dramatique qui révèle un improvisateur génial.

This is very much how I hear Frescobaldi, so it was a pleasure to read, but I'm not totally sure that Moulin has translated this idea of improvisations into music. He may have done, I don't mean to cast an aspersion, I need more time with the performances. Toccata 10 Bk 2 sounds a bit linear - without the dramatic contrasts which you might expect from word painting the text of a madrigal. It's all somehow a bit too polite, more polite than I'd normally associate with the idea of "Musique dramatique qui révèle un improvisateur génial."  More French than Latin possibly.

Is that  « comme pour dépeindre les mots d’un madrigal sous-jacent » a quote from one of Fresocbaldi's prefaces?

The harpsichord sounds lovely, it's is an original creation by a factor called Philippe Humeau, which he says  was

Motivé par le claveciniste François Guerrier qui me donna des mots que je devais transformer en sons, je lui construisis cet instrument.

I shall check out this François Guerrier, he's recorded some Forqueray. I imagine a poet-Keyboard player, what were these words he gave? Like Rimbaud's poem Voyelles maybe 

He uses a virginal, also rather nice sounding, for some of the pieces.

Despite all of this, there's a lot of things to enjoy and explore in the recording, I don't want to sound as though I'm knocking it.