Today's new releases include JS Bach, Telemann and Albinoni from Ensemble Masques on Alpha, the first instalment of a new Brahms project from viola-player Mikhail Zemtsov on Challenge Classics, the world premiere recording of Florence Price's Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight from John Jeter and the Malmö Opera Chorus & Orchestra on Naxos, and music from Italy, Iberia & the Black Sea from Avi Avital and friends on Deutsche Grammophon.
Bach, Telemann & Albinoni: Concerti
Sophie Gent (violin), Kathleen Kajioka (viola), Ensemble Masques, Olivier Fortin
Ensemble Masques member Sophie Gent is the soloist in JS Bach's Violin Concertos in A minor (BWV1041) and E (BWV1042), with Kathleen Kajioka (another group stalwart) stepping out for Telemann's evergreen Viola Concerto; two string sonatas by Albinoni complete the programme. Reviewing the album in this month's issue of Gramophone, Mark Seow observed that 'Gent’s strength as soloist is that, at heart, she is an astoundingly good chamber musician...there is glorious give and take.'
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Brahms: Complete Works for Viola Vol. 1
Mikhail Zemtsov (viola), Daniel Rowland (violin), Hanna Shybayeva (piano
Brahms originally composed his two Op. 120 sonatas for the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, and subsequently adapted them for viola following correspondence with Joseph Joachim (although he judged the results to be 'clumsy and ungratifying'); he also arranged the horn part of his 1865 Horn Trio for the viola in 1884. A second volume (scheduled for 2026) will feature the Clarinet Trio Op. 114, Clarinet Quintet Op. 115, Two Songs Op. 91, and the Scherzo from the FAE Sonata which the young Brahms co-wrote with Robert Schumann and his pupil Albert Dietrich.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Florence Price: Choral Works
Sara Swietlicki (soprano), Lindsay Grace Johnson (mezzo), Jonas Samuelsson (baritone); Malmö Opera Chorus & Orchestra, John Jeter
The main event on this album is the world premiere recording of Price's largest-scale choral work, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight - discovered in 2009, it sets a 1914 poem by Vachel Lindsay which depicts the president's ghost wandering the streets of contemporary Springfield, Illinois and lamenting the tragedies of the modern world. The programme also includes shorter pieces such as 'The Witch of the Meadow', 'The Moon Bridge', and 'Song for Snow'.
Available Formats: CD, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Bringing together music from Italy, Iberia and the Black Sea, this compilation from Israeli mandolinist's recent series of digital EPs includes Fazıl Say's Black Earth, excerpts from Otar Taktakishvili's Mingrelian Songs, Manuel de Falla's Cuatro piezas españolas and El Amor Brujo, Jonathan Keren's Ladino Songs, and a new arrangement of 'El cant dels ocells' by David Bruce. Avital's guests include cantaora Marina Heredia and Apulian folk singer Alessia Tondo.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
Currently a member of the Castilian String Quartet, Welsh cellist Steffan Morris formerly occupied the principal chair with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and has guested with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. As well as Brahms's two cello sonatas, his debut recording with regular partner Alasdair Beatson includes Stanford's Ballata, composed for Beatrice Harrison near the end of World War One.
Available Formats: CD, Hi-Res+ FLAC/ALAC/WAV, Hi-Res FLAC/ALAC/WAV, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
This triptych of music for strings by female composers comprises Grace Williams's Sea Sketches (inspired by the beaches of her native Glamorgan and premiered in 1947), a new string orchestra arrangement of Grażyna Bacewicz's String Quartet No. 4 by Marijn van Prooijen and Johanna Müller-Hermann's 1910 String Quartet (arr. Ingvar Karloff), which was dedicated to her teacher Alexander Zemlinsky.
Download expected to become available shortly; available now to stream.
Available Format: SACD
Prokofiev: The Gambler (Blu-ray)
Asmik Grigorian (Polina), Sean Panikkar (Alexey), Violeta Urmana (Babulenka), Juan Francisco Gatell (The Marquis) Wiener Philharmoniker, Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, Timur Zangiev, Peter Sellars
Based on an 1866 story by Dostoyevsky about a group of gamblers in the fictional town of Roulettenburg, Prokofiev's opera was completed in 1917 but the premiere was cancelled in the wake of the February Revolution, with the first performance taking place (after extensive revisions) at La Monnaie in 1929. This production was filmed at the Salzburg Festival last year, with the Financial Times praising Grigorian's 'vehement, impassioned' Polina and Panikkar's 'no-holds-barred performance' as Alexey, her gambling-addicted lover.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Mieczysław Weinberg: The Idiot
Bogdan Volkov, Aušrinė Stundytė, Vladislav Sulimsky, Iurii Samoilov, Xenia Puskarz Thomas; Wiener Philharmoniker, Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Krzysztof Warlikowski
Also inspired by Dostoyevsky, Weinberg's The Idiot was composed in the mid-1980s and dedicated to the memory of Shostakovich; the work was eventually premiered in 2013, seventeen years after Weinberg's death. This 2024 Salzburg production by Krzysztof Warlikowski was described as 'an absolute masterpiece' (Gidon Kremer) and 'so good it hurts' (Financial Times), whilst Die Presse enthused that it 'had the whole of Salzburg on the edge of its seat'.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Boito: Nerone
Mikheil Sheshaberidze (Nerone), Franco Vassallo (Simon Mago), Roberto Frontali (Fanuèl), Valentina Boi (Asteria), Deniz Uzun (Rubria); Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Francesco Cilluffo
Arrigo Boito worked on this opera on the life of Emperor Nero from 1877 to 1915, in between writing the libretti for Verdi's Otello, Falstaff and the 1881 revision of Simon Boccanegra; unfinished at the time of his death, the score was completed by Vincenzo Tommasini, Antonio Smareglia and Arturo Toscanini (who conducted the world premiere at Teatro alla Scala in 1924). Released on DVD and Blu-ray at the beginning of the year, this rare performance from Cagliari was recently praised by Gramophone's Mark Pullinger, who described Cilluffo as 'a splendid advocate for Boito’s complex score, drawing out the opera’s sombre harmonies and brassy monumentalism'.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, FLAC/ALAC/WAV, MP3
