January Newsletter Welcome to 2012!
We'd like to wish you a Happy, Healthy & Prosperous New Year.
As usual, January is a fairly slow month for new releases, but we think we
have a few gems here to keep you entertained through the summer. January CDs of the Month
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"There are more excellent countertenors before the public today than ever before, but one of them stands out above all others - Andreas Scholl" (Fanfare Magazine)
Andreas Scholl is at the height of his vocal powers, the countertenor of reference for all young singers. Here he follows up his much-praised Purcell collection O Solitude with a project perfectly matched to his artistry and musical heritage.
$20
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This unusual coupling of the violin concertos by Aram Khachaturian and Samual Barber, entitled Two Souls, is tailor-made for Mikhail Simonyan's exciting DG debut.
The Khachaturian concerto is a worthy successor to the masterpieces by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. It combines soulful music with absolutely dazzling virtuosity. Simonyan performs the work with a perfect Armenian accent that evokes images of this vast country. The recording renders the quality of both concertos in an unprecedented way.
$20
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Richard Galliano is joined by jazz musicians (trumpeter Dave Douglas, reeds master John Surman, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Clarence Penn) on this moving tribute to one of the most famous film music composers, Nino Rota.
Featuring to of the most well known soundtracks: Parla Più piano theme from The Godfather and the original soundtrack theme of Fellini's film, La Strada.
$20
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Music of Vladimir Martynov includes 3 works written by him for Kronos. The Youtube clip has Kronos founder, David Harrington, discussing the composer and his work.
$25
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A bittersweet look at the follies of youth seen through the eyes of age and experience, this new production stars two-time Tony Award-winner Bernadette Peters as Sally Durant Plummer, four-time Tony Award-nominee Jan Maxwell as Phyllis Rogers Stone, two-time Tony Award-nominee Danny Burstein as Buddy Plummer, three-time Emmy Award-nominee Ron Raines as Benjamin Stone and four-time Olivier Award-nominee Elaine Paige as Carlotta Campion, under the direction of Eric Schaeffer.
$30
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Joshua Bell and recital partner Jeremy Denk offer a passionately nuanced interpretation of the works of Saint-Saens, Ravel and Franck.
$20
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This 14 CD set brings together all the recital and duet albums recorded between 1960 and 1982. It features not only her legendary Scenes from Porgy & Bess, but also the famous Prima Donna Collection released between 1966 and 1980.
$65
OUT NEXT WEEK |
This 12 CD collection begins with Leontyne’s first recording from 1954 as part of Columbia’s American Music series. It also includes 3 albums of Spirituals recorded between 1961 and 1970, as well as her musical album “Right as the Rain” recorded in 1967 with Andre Previn.
$55
OUT NEXT WEEK |
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The appearance of the Israel Chamber Orchestra in Bayreuth in July 2011, including performance of music by the notorious anti-Semite Wagner, sparked a vehement controversy. However, conductor Roberto Peternostro and his fellow musicians saw the concert as a sign of 'rapprochement, tolerance and an open cultural exchange in historical awareness'. This is the live recording of that benchmark concert.
$30 |
Johannes Brahms, Gyorgy Ligeti and Kalevi Aho may seem an unlikely musical trio. But this exciting album proposes otherwise: Shoenberg famously dubbed Brahms 'The Progressive, Ligeti's Horn Trio is subtitled 'Hommage a Brahms', and Finnish composer Kalevi Aho's music brims with great love of musical tradition transmuted by his post-modernist imagination. Superb performances by leading soloists tie the ribbon around this fascinating musical gift.
$30 |
Miguel Baselga's highly-praised traversal of Isaac Albeniz's piano music have revealed countless treasures beyond the justly famous Iberia. His new album presents mainly early compositions alongside a taste of Albeniz's delightful salon-style pieces. The composer viewed these works fondly, describing them as being 'like the air, like the sun, like the blackbirds or like the nightingales'.
$30 |
Igor Stravinsky's first full-length ballet, The Firebird, vividly combined several Russian folktales into an unforgettable entertainment which remains among his best-loved works today. This album presents the entire original 1909 score, allowing us to relish the highly-coloured palette of what Stravinsky described as his 'wastefully large' orchestration. But as always with this composer, nothing is ever really wasteful and every note and nuance counts to the full in this splendid recording.
$30 |
Osmo Vanska first achieved international renown through his recordings of Sibelius's symphonies with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Here, he revisits this much-loved repertoire with the Minnesota Orchestra whose Beethoven Symphony Cycle on BIS garnered rave reviews. Sibelius's 2nd and 5th Symphonies are an ideal pairing both for those yet to discover the Romantic grandeur of his music and for those who already know and love it.
$30 |
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Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony has enjoyed success since its premiere, becoming one of his most popular concert works. It's powerful theme of victory rung out of fateful strife echoes that of Beethoven's Fifth and contrasts with that of his orchestral fantasy Francesca da Rimini, which depicts the tragic outcome of the adulterous affair between Paolo and Francesca recounted in Dante's Inferno. Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra excel in this Russian Romantic repertoire.
$20 |
Exclusive Chandos artist Michael Collins is the soloist in Weber's aimiably virtuosic works for clarinet and orchestra, using the composer's own cadenzas. Acclaimed horn player Stephen Stirling is the soloist in the Horn Concerto, regarded as a gem in that instrument's repertoire. Multi-talented Michael Collins also conducts the City of London Sinfonia on this disc of dashing early Romantic orchestral music.
$20 |
Composed for his great friend Mstislav Rostropovich, Shotakovich's two cello concertos have quite distinct characters. The first is widely regarded as among the most technically challenging of such works, while the second began as the sketch for a symphony and cost the composer much effort. Soloist Enrico Dindo has been praised by Rostropovich as 'a cellist of exceptional qualities, a complete artist'. Exclusive Chandos artist Gianandrea Noseda and the superb Danish National Symphony Orchestra need no introduction to music lovers.
$20 |
On this third volume in Chandos's series devoted to the music of Witold Lutoslawski, pianist Louis Lorte joins the 'dream team' (Gramophone) of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Edward Gardiner. Lutoslawski's lush yet edgy harmonies, as well as his wit and unique ear for instrumental colour and virtuosity, are well to the fore here on an excellent album that includes his first surviving orchestral piece (the Symphonic Variations) and his last concerto.
$20 |
Anton Eberl was one of Beethoven's leading rivals in Vienna, his music praised during his lifetime for its 'newness, fire and power'. Playing a period fortepiano, soloists Paolo Giacometti and Riko Fukuda give exemplary renditions of these now sadly unknown concertos, splendidly supported by The Cologne Academy. These highly original works are well worth discovering.
$30 |
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Having recently toured Australia for Musica Viva and regarded throughout the world as among the most remarkable and resourceful period performance ensembles, Concerto Copenhagen performs Handel's first set of concerti grossi with stylish vitality. For these diverting concertos Handel drew on his own earlier compositions to create a multifaceted compendium strongly influenced by Corelli and Geminiani yet marked by his own unmistakable personality.
$30 |
The Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto accompanies Dini Ciacci, one of the greatest Italian oboe virtuosos, on this delightful survey of Italian concertos for oboe and cor anglais. The natural elegance and melodic wealth of these works make them extremely enjoyable, especially in such capable hands.
$30 |
This penultimate volume of CPO's series of Telemann's wind concertos continues to reveal the German Baroque master's astonishing gifts, which have only recently begun to be appreciated. Extravagant, bold and expressive by turns, these concertos are 'top-quality entertaining music of the eighteenth century' (FonoForum on Vol 4). Very highly recommended.
$30 |
In volume 3 of his widely acclaimed interpretations of Mozart's solo keyboard music, fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout (who performed with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra during 2011) plays a modern reproduction of an 1805 Viennese instrument by Anton Walter. 'This is shaping up to be a truly great cycle that does Mozart's solo piano music the fullest justice.' (BBC Music magazine on
Vol 2)
$25 |
From the first moment you hear him, the immensely talented young Polish baritone Mariusz Kweicien will delight you with his mellifluous and burnished voice. He is already the preferred King Roger and Eugene Onegin for leading opera houses world-wide and on this simply gorgeous album he sings unforgettable, yet largely little known, operatic arias by Czech, Polish and Russian composers that are close to his heart. He'll win yours, too!
$25
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Revered as a composer, conductor, pianist, teacher and music administrator, Hungarian composer Erno Dohnanyi has remained somewhat in the shadow of his illustrious compatriots Liszt and Bartok, though his music fits nicely between them. This album is the first in a new series featuring pianist Martin Roscoe whose other Hyperion releases have been critically acclaimed.
$20 |
Following their triumphant Casals Encores album, Alban Gerhardt and Cecile Licad present these masterpieces of French cello repertoire. Alongside Faure's masterful cello sonatas are some of his most seductive bon-bons, including the famous Sicilienne and Elegy. Alban Gerhardt toured Australia late last year and has been praised as 'one of the most gifted cellists on the international scene' (Daily Telegraph UK).
$20 |
Voumel 11 of Hyperion's popular Romantic Violin Concertos series features young German violinist Tanja Becker-Bender as the soloist in Max Reger's magnificent Violin Concerto, a full-blooded Romantic masterpiece in the tradition of Beethoven and Brahms, and the two Romances. Tanja Becker-Bender's recording of Paganini's 24 Caprices was a Gramophone Editor's Choice.
$20 |
Star Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski and her longstanding duo partner Marita Viitasalo are sensitive and passionate interpreters of Richard Strauss's Lieder. Isokoski's recording of the Four Last Songs was a Gramophone Editor's Choice and is regarded by many as the benchmark recording. This album, for voice and piano, presents 23 of Strauss's Lieder spanning 65 years of his compositional career.
$20 |
For his debut Ondine recording internationally renowned Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has chosen 26 romances by Sergei Rachmaninov, including such popular songs as Spring Waters and In the Silence of the Mysterious Night. Hvorostovsky's 'admirable range of expressive and dynamic shading was aptly mirrored by Ivari Ilja, an exemplary accompanist' (The New York Times on a recital of these songs).
$20 |
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Don't let the 'plain clothes' cover of this album fool you: this is simply one of the most stunningly beautiful albums of modern choral music that you are likely to hear for some time. One of the world's most celebrated vocal ensembles, The King's Singers, join the superb Concordia Choir to sing sublime music such as Eric Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, Morten Lauridsen's O Nata Lux and O Magnum Mysterium, and Bob Chilcott's Even Such is Time.
$30 |
The 2010 Nobel Prize Concert is a highlight event starring american violinist Joshua Bell, who appears courtesy of Sony Classical. 'Classical music lovers of all backgrounds will find that this concert gives an outstanding account of three orchestral masterpieces from different eras and national origins. While for many, the main attraction of this concert will be the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, I can assure you that the Sibelius 5th symphony is as good an account of this incredibly moving work as I have ever heard.' (Blu-ray Definition.com)
$40
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At this concert from the Leipzig International Mahler Festival, marking the centenary of the composer's death, two outstanding soloists, three splendid choirs and the Leipzig Gewandaus Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly give a superlative performance of Mahler's immensely powerful Second Symphony.
$35 |
Leading mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, star tenor Roberto Sacca and one of today's most noted Figaros, Dalibor Jenis, headline a superb cast in this live recording from the Opera National de Paris in 2002. Directed by Coline Serreau, of Three Men and a Baby fame, this production revolves around the story of the imprisoned Rosina.
$50 |
This celebrated production of The Magic Flute joyfully bursts onto the stage of La Scala, with the dazzling Russian coloratura Albina Shagimuratova (Queen of the Night), and Italian bass Alex Esposito (Papageno). Spectacular staging makes for an unfogettable operatic experience.
$40 |
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Haden’s latest outing reunites him with the late jazz piano legend Hank Jones in a collection of compact yet lushly rendered hymns and spirituals, many of which are linked with the civil rights movement. Recorded shortly before Jones’ death in 2010 at 91 years old, “Come Sunday” is a sequel to the duo’s 1995 recording “Steal Away,” which also explored the vintage gospel and Americana close to both musicians’ hearts.
$25
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“Navidad de Los Andes” (Andean Nativity) has its own distinct character, at once simple and elusive, like the magical realist tales of the region. From the liner notes by Leopoldo Castilla: “In this beautiful musical work sound is born with the intensity of the wind and the powerful progression of the sand that preserves memories. Between these forces, the melody creates spaces that rise or cascade slowly downward like empty skies. (…) Suddenly, the tango, an outsider, with a hat and a black moon, enters the scene. A long shadow, enticed by the river of music.”
$30 |
Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez and the late Paul Motian pay tribute to pianist, composer arranger and bandleader Bill Evans, on this 2CD live set.
$30
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