New Releases

Started by Brian, March 12, 2009, 12:26:29 PM

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Mandryka and 7 Guests are viewing this topic.

vandermolen

#9520
Quote from: Brian on January 21, 2020, 08:50:20 AM
MARCH - PART I



Brian, where did you come across the BIS release of the Bernstein symphonies please? I can't find any reference to it on the Internet.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Brian

Quote from: vandermolen on January 23, 2020, 11:02:10 PM
Brian, where did you come across the BIS release of the Bernstein symphonies please? I can't find any reference to it on the Internet.
I have a login to Naxos' distribution site where they post info for retailers to grab. So basically you're seeing it at the same time that many stores do.

Roasted Swan



Is it just me or does Ms Hemsing look a bit like an artistic White Walker off of Game of Thrones


Ras

To be released in Febuary on Brilliant Cl. - French Baroque flute music:

[asin]B081WSBZYJ[/asin]
"Music is life and, like it, inextinguishable." - Carl Nielsen

Mandryka



Well recorded and perfectly nicely played; all very natural sounding from the point of view of interpretation. I like it.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vandermolen

Quote from: Brian on January 24, 2020, 03:30:24 AM
I have a login to Naxos' distribution site where they post info for retailers to grab. So basically you're seeing it at the same time that many stores do.
VMT (very many thanks)
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).


Daverz

#9527
This has shown up in the Qobuz new releases:



Lovely "hi-fi" mono.  I wonder if Warner is preparing a Kletzki box.  I see no other recent Kletzki releases on Warner, though.


...ah, it seems to be from this set:



https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8715717--philharmonia-orchestra-birth-of-a-legend

Daverz

A bit late for New Releaes, but here's a new recording of Herman Koppel's Piano Concerto No. 3, with other music from the Koppel clan (this time Benjamin).

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Jan/Koppel_Playground_DACOCD856.htm
https://open.qobuz.com/album/ji2tv7n8qp03b

[asin]B082PQMKT3[/asin]

Cato

By Barbara Jepson of the Wall Street Journal:

Quote

   A new recording of Richard Strauss songs by German soprano Diana Damrau, widely admired for her portrayals of that composer's opera heroines, may become a collector's item. Out Jan. 31 on Warner Classics, it features 24 lieder by Strauss, most with piano accompaniment. But headlining the album—and the main reason to hear it—are her performances of Strauss's "Four Last Songs" with Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Their collaboration is among the final recordings made by the Latvian conductor before his death at age 76 in December.

Strauss wrote the "Four Last Songs," richly colored gems of vocal and orchestral expression, to poems by Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff. The texts, three of which ponder aging and death, clearly resonated with Strauss, who died a year after completing them in 1948.

Since then, the work has captivated audiences and attracted generations of sopranos, most notably Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Jessye Norman, Soile Isokoski, Gundula Janowitz and Nina Stemme.

Contributing to the strengths of the glowing Damrau-Jansons version are the burnished sound and impeccable playing of the BRSO, which reached new heights under the conductor's 16-year leadership. The exquisite horn and violin solos in the "Four Last Songs" are sensitively rendered, as are the rapturous flutes at its conclusion. And Jansons, one of this century's most profound interpreters of classical music, brings sweep and insight throughout.

Ms. Damrau shows clarity of diction and awareness of the text, aptly varying her tone and emphasizing certain words for dramatic purposes. While the soprano occasionally sounds strained in higher passages, or overly vibrato-laden—lacking the overall vocal ease of, say, Anja Harteros, who recorded the work with Jansons and the BRSO in 2010—she more often exhibits coloristic beauty.

Although Jansons and the BRSO join Ms. Damrau in a winning performance of another Strauss favorite, "Morgen!" ("Tomorrow!"), the remainder of the album is devoted to lieder with pianist Helmut Deutsch as the fluent accompanist. Especially notable are the poignant "Befreit" ("Released") and the lesser-known but compelling "Lieder der Ophelia," based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet," which the soprano delivers with keen understanding of Ophelia's deteriorating emotional state.

"Brahms : The Final Piano Pieces," Stephen Hough's latest album for Hyperion, does not offer the same level of musical transcendence as Strauss's "Four Last Songs." But according to liner notes by program annotator Misha Donat, death was on the composer's mind in 1892, when he deftly conceived the delightful intermezzos, capriccios and other miniatures of Opuses 116-119. Brahms once referred to the Opus 117 intermezzos as "the cradle songs of my grief," a likely reference to the death earlier that year of his good friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg.

Mr. Hough is a subtle, lucid pianist, qualities well suited to the introspective nature of many of these works. Occasionally, like in the G minor Capriccio of Opus 116, marked "Allegro passionato" by Brahms, one waits in vain for some fiery emotion. But more often, the British pianist draws forth a world of nuances suited to the character of each piece, whether the nostalgic regret of the A minor Intermezzo of Opus 116 or the finespun alterations in mood, from wistful to solemn to longing, in the lovely E-flat Major Intermezzo of Opus 117. Little details to savor include his playful 16th-note riffs in the dance-like C Major Intermezzo of Opus 119.

The recording was made on a resonant Yamaha CFX—the company's top-of-the-line concert grand and latest bid to capture a share of the Steinway-dominated classical piano market.


The Symphony No. 13 ("Babi Yar") of Dmitri Shostakovich, written in 1962, addresses death on a horrific scale. Its first movement was inspired by a poem of Yevgeny Yevtushenko decrying the lack of a memorial for victims of mass executions by the Nazis—including nearly 34,000 Ukrainian Jews—near Kiev during World War II. In tandem with four additional Yevtushenko poems the composer set to music, the work portrays the challenges of life in the Soviet Union.

CSO Resound has just released a superb live performance of this haunting work by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, men of the CSO Chorus and Russian bass Alexey Tikhomirov under music director Riccardo Muti. In 1970, the Italian maestro became the first to conduct the "Babi Yar" Symphony in Western Europe.

The symphony includes certain memorable, recurring effects, like distant chimes and swirling 32nd-note passages for strings and woodwinds, first heard in the anguished yet turbulent "Babi Yar" movement. Shostakovich brilliantly uses orchestral colors and vocalists to "paint" the texts. Mr. Muti and his forces convey them effectively: the growing unease underlying "In the Store," a tribute to weary Soviet women waiting in line for food; the slithering gloom of the "Fears" section, with its low strings, tuba and percussion; the sardonic exchanges between soloist and chorus in "Career." Impressively prepared by Duain Wolfe, the chorus brings dynamic shadings and expressivity to its singing, as does the eloquent Mr. Tikhomirov. But uniting it all is Mr. Muti's conceptual vision, precision and compassion. This is a "Babi Yar" to cherish.

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Mirror Image

Interesting, Cato. I might spring for that recording of the Four Last Songs (some of my favorite Strauss). Also, now that you mention Jansons, I really ought to give his Strauss recordings (with the Bavarian Radio SO) a listen (I own them all and they're still sealed).

Brian

The bit where the author compares Brahms piano music's transcendence level to Strauss is kinda weird.

JBS

Quote from: Brian on January 28, 2020, 06:43:28 PM
The bit where the author compares Brahms piano music's transcendence level to Strauss is kinda weird.

The art of transitioning between two completely different things.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Madiel

An art that particular writer does not possess.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Cato

Quote from: Brian on January 28, 2020, 06:43:28 PM
The bit where the author compares Brahms piano music's transcendence level to Strauss is kinda weird.

Quote from: JBS on January 28, 2020, 06:58:54 PM
The art of transitioning between two completely different things.

Quote from: Madiel on January 29, 2020, 01:52:00 AM
An art that particular writer does not possess.

Yes, I did notice that section: awkward and vague.

And this one was...interesting:

QuoteMr. Hough is a subtle, lucid pianist, qualities well suited to the introspective nature of many of these works. Occasionally, like in the G minor Capriccio of Opus 116, marked "Allegro passionato" by Brahms, one waits in vain for some fiery emotion

The middle one especially concerns me: she means "marked by Brahms Allegro passionato," to emphasize her point that (she believes) passionato equals "fiery emotion."

Are we to assume therefore that this piece is not "introspective," and that introspection is incompatible with the marking Allegro passionato ?
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

ritter

I think this hasn't been posted here yet:


Yes, it's new recordings (40 years later!).
Feb. 28th release date, as per Presto Classical.

Ras

DG:   Buchbinder playing Beethoven's Diabellis

Warner:  14 cd boxset with choir music ranging from Gregorian Chant to Rutter's Requiem.

"Music is life and, like it, inextinguishable." - Carl Nielsen

Brian

Warner is also reissuing Jochum/EMI Bruckner...



...and a Cantelli box:



A few months ago Quatuor Ébène released a single CD of Beethoven quartets with the teaser that it was the beginning of a cycle. Hope y'all didn't buy it, because the next release isn't Vol. 2, but rather a box of the whole cycle packaged up:


Mandryka

Quote from: Brian on January 29, 2020, 09:33:05 AM


A few months ago Quatuor Ébène released a single CD of Beethoven quartets with the teaser that it was the beginning of a cycle. Hope y'all didn't buy it, because the next release isn't Vol. 2, but rather a box of the whole cycle packaged up:



3 April 2020. High hopes.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

The new erato

I'm hearing the Ebene in 3 Beethoven Quartets at Rosendal Festival in august. Vikingur Olafsson, Andsnes, Paul Lewis and Bezuidenhout will also be there.