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major releases
Elgar Pomp and Circumstance, Serenade for Strings
Sydney Symphony, Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor)
EXTON | EXCL00030 | SACD
The fourth and final volume in the much-anticipated series celebrating a milestone in Australian music history: Vladimir Ashkenazy’s first festival as Principal Conductor of Sydney Symphony. Recorded live at Sydney Opera House during the Maestro’s triumphant Elgar Festival, the Pomp and Circumstances Marches are arguably the composer’s best known and most popular orchestral works. As with the acclaimed Rachmaninov boxed set (EXCL00017), also featuring Ashkenazy and the SSO, the Elgar discs are superbly mastered to the highest audiophile standards. Relive one of the most thrilling Australian orchestral concerts of recent years! And more exciting still: Exton has just completed recordings of Ashkenazy's recent month-long Prokofiev Festival at the Sydney Opera House, for release in 2010.
A Company of Voices – Conspirare in Concert
Conspirare, Craig Hella Johnson (conductor)
HARMONIA MUNDI | HMU907534 | CD | 093046753429
Nominated for four Grammys, Conspirare is America’s premier choral ensemble. In a rich and varied a cappella program performed on live TV, Craig Hella Johnson and his group move effortlessly from the Renaissance to spirituals, contemporary choral compositions to fresh arrangements of songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dolly Parton and Annie Lennox! This compelling concert performance is also available on DVD (HMD9907535).
Onslow String Quartets
Diotima Quartet
NAÏVE | V5200 | CD | 822186052006
String Quartets in E Flat Major No 28 Op 54, D Minor No 29 Op 55, C Minor No 30 Op 56
Described in Gramophone as 'one of the five quartets you should know about', The Diotima Quartet has announced its first Australian tour for The Sydney Festival in January 2010. In concert as on this recording, Diotima explores the music of the unjustly neglected French-English Romantic composer George Onslow, who wrote more than 60 quartets and whose genius is being rediscovered and re-evaluated today. This disc includes two world premiere recordings of his works. Founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon conservatoires, the quartet takes its name from Luigi Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima, thus affirming its commitment to the music of our time.
Telemann Orchestral Suites + 2010 Catalogue
Carin Van Heerden (recorder, oboe, direction), L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra
CPO | CPO7775152 | CD | 761203751525
The orchestral suites on this enchanting disc of Telemann are beautiful works, considered by some to be the most difficult pieces Telemann wrote for recorder and oboe. The music fascinates from the first to the last note with its originality, partly due to its Polish inflection. Telemann once wrote that 'a Polish tune makes the whole world jig.' South African musician Carin van Heerden is a founding member of the Austrian L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra and here directs the ensemble as she plays exquisite, virtuosic recorder solos. 'All three suites receive lively, colorful performances that should have your toes tapping in no time. If you wish to sample Telemann's suites, you will find this a good place to start' (Fanfare). This reissue is available at budget price and accompanied by a complete CPO printed catalogue: over 900 superb titles to be discovered, from Baroque gems to rare German operas.
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December 2009
Dreams - Works Transcribed for Cello and Orchestra
Ophelie Gaillard (cello), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Craig Leon (transcriptions)
APARTE | AP001 | CD | 0794881939428
Debussy Girl with the Flaxen Hair, Dvorak Song to the Moon, Grieg Solveig Song, Chopin Mazurka Op 67 No 4, Nocturne Op 9 No 2, Tchaikovsky Valse Sentimentale Op 51 No 6, Rachmaninov Vocalise, Satie Gymnopedie, Gnossienne No 1, Faure Pavane, After A Dream
Craig Leon's arrangements for Joshua Bell's best-selling album Romance of the Violin paved the way for this new CD of glorious, singing cello lines. With the cello often being described as the instrument whose sound is closest to the human voice, Swiss cellist Ophelie Gaillard here takes the lead in opera aria transcriptions (including the famous Song to the Moon and Puccini's 'O mio babbino caro') for cello and orchestra. Also featuring well known works by Satie, Faure, Debussy and Grieg, Leon and Gaillard's Dreams hears oft-heard melodies anew in serene yet sumptuous new arrangements.
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November 2009
To Saint Cecilia
Anders Dahlin (tenor), Lucy Crowe (soprano), Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto), Richard Croft (tenor), Lucas Tittoto (bass), Choir and Orchestra of Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski (conductor)
NAIVE | V5183 | CD2 | 822186051832
Purcell Hail Bright Cecilia, Handel A Song For Saint Cecilia's Day, Haydn Cecilia Mass
Three great works by three great composers (each of whom has an important anniversary in 2009) linked by associations with the patron saint of music, St Cecilia.
Minkowski, the Choir and Musiciens du Louvre are in fine form here, as are the excellent soloists Lucy Crowe (soprano), Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto), and Anders J. Dahlin (tenor). Purcell’s Hail! Bright Cecilia, Handel’s A Song for St Cecilia’s Day and Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass are justifiably regarded as masterpieces, each inspiring its composer to ravishing evocations of the power of music. As Minkowski writes in the extensive booklet of this beautifully packaged edition, ‘Richness of timbres, sonic invention and intensity of expression are the outstanding features of these three sumptuous works, Baroque in character but timeless in their content’. Let St Cecilia brighten your day.
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November 2009
The Baroque Trombone
Members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra - Richard Tognetti (violin), Helena Rathbone (violin), Maxime Bibeau (double bass), Neal Peres Da Costa (harpsichord, organ), Christian Lindberg (trombone)
BIS RECORDS | BISCD1688 | CD | 7318590016886
Frescobaldi Four Canzonas, Biber Trio Sonata, Castello Three Sonatas
Christian Lindberg, who has done more than anyone to establish the modern trombone as a solo instrument, bought his first sackbut 30 years ago with the hope of one day recording a baroque programme. Now the opportunity to do so has arrived – largely due to Lindberg’s encounter with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. On this recording Lindberg and a handful of the ACO players in ‘sweet harmony’ (including Helena Rathbone, Maxime Bibeauand Neal Peres Da Costa)present a programme of sonatas and canzonas by Biber, Frescobaldi and Dario Castello.
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new on naxos |
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Manchester Carols
Manchester Carollers, North Chamber Orchestra
NAXOS | 8572469 | CD | 747313246977
Carol Ann Duffy (poet), Sasha Johnson Manning (composer)
This new sequence of Christmas carols was written in 2007 by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy and composer Sasha Johnson Manning, and premièred in the same year.
The Manchester Carols re-tell the Christmas Story for the 21st Century, celebrating a child’s birth and all that child was to become: a man who lived by a humble, selfless creed, championing the marginalised in a society which was, as it is now, fraught with political tensions. These carols are for everybody, the believer and the non-believer, people of other faiths and everyone wishing to join in the Christmas celebrations.
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Bach Sacred Cantatas for Soprano
Siri Thornhill (soprano), Cologne Bach Vocal Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra, Helmut Muller-Bruhl (conductor)
NAXOS | 8570453 | CD | 747313045372
BWV 51-52, 84, 199
Among J.S. Bach’s 200 or so surviving church cantatas, these four for solo soprano include the popular Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!, in which singer and solo trumpet engage in thrilling displays of virtuosity. In the other cantatas, Bach provides equally beautiful obbligato parts for violin, viola and oboe, whose interactions with the soprano heighten the emotional significance of the sacred texts. For the opening sinfonia of the most richly-scored cantata here, Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht, Bach makes use of a version of the first movement of his Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.
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Cresswell The Voice Inside
Madeleine Pierard (soprano), Vesa-Matti Leppanen (mezzo), Michael Kirgan (trumpet), David Bremmer (trombone), New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, James Judd (conductor)
NAXOS | 8570824 | CD | 747313082476
Alas How Swift, Cassandra's Song, Kaea Trombone Concerto
New Zealand-born Edinburgh-based Lyell Cresswell has composed works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, voice and solo instruments which have been widely performed and broadcast. In The Voice Inside, he explores the ever-changing relationship between the soprano and violin soloists and the orchestra, while Cassandra’s Songs, which also set words by Scottish poet Ron Butlin, is concerned with exile, identity and belonging. Alas! How Swift embodies in musical terms the inescapable passing of Time. His Trombone Concerto takes its name Kaea from the Maori wooden war trumpet used to terrify enemies and raise alarms.
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