ópera les OCTOBER 28 2013 harmonia mundi UK Classical new release NEW LABEL! DISTRIBUTED LABELS: accent, actes sud musicales, agogique, alia vox, ambronay, aparte, arte verum, audite, bel air classiques, the choir of kings college cambridge, christophorus, cso resound, delphian, ducale, fra musica, glossa, harmonia mundi, hat[now]art, K617, la dolce volta, les arts florissants, lso live, mariinsky, melisande films, mirare, mode, muso, naïve, onyx, opella nova, orfeo, pan classics, paradizo, pearl, philharmonia baroque, phil.harmonie, praga digitals, radio france, royal academy of music, real compañia ópera de cámara, rco live, sfz music, signum classics, stradivarius, united archives, wahoo, walhall eternity, wergo, wigmore hall live, winter & winter, ysaye available 28 October, call-off 18th Oct BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE RECORDING OF THE RECORDING OF THE MONTH MONTH NOVEMBER Signum SIGCD348 Britten Peter Grimes [On the Beach] Steuart Bedford DVD CHOICE NOVEMBER Bel Air Classiques BAC080 /480 Mozart Don Giovanni / Tcherniakov INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW IRR Outstanding harmonia mundi HMC902169 Charpentier Litanies de la Vierge Ensemble Correspondances / Sebastien Dauce GRAMOPHONE EDITOR’S CHOICE October Orfeo C854131A Schumann: Violin Concerto; Violin Concerto Baiba Skride, Danish National SO/John Storgards EDITOR’S CHOICE October Glossa GCD922801 Marenzio: First Book of Madrigals La Compagnia del Madrigale ICS DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR 2013: harmonia mundi UK RELEASE DATE 28TH OCTOBER 2013 Che puro ciel The Rise of Classical Opera Bejun Mehta Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin René Jacobs Arias & scenes from l’Orféo et Euridice, Ascanio in Alba, Antigona et Ifigenia in Tauride (Traetta), Il trionfo di Clelia (Hasse), Artaserse (Bach), Ezio (Gluck), Mitridate (Mozart) In the famous Preface to Alceste (1767), Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi posited a new direction for opera. They spoke of moving beyond Baroque forms, of striving for a new naturalism in opera. They wanted, in Calzabigi's lovely phrase, to liberate the language of the heart. Taken from the height of this Reform period, the arias on this disc reveal composers exploring and experimenting, at struggle and at play, as they create the new forms that bring to opera the noble simplicity of the Classical era. Label: harmonia mundi Bejun Mehta returns to the Wigmore Hall and Covent Garden in 2014 [Mitridate]. File Under: Classical/Secular Vocal music ALSO AVAILABLE: Catalogue No: HMC902172 HMC902077 Ombra Cara: Handel Arias Barcode: 3149020217221 Sunday Times Classical CD of the Week NORMAL Price ***** The Guardian Format: 1 CD “Bejun Mehta’s disc towers above the other Handel ‘medley’ recordings currently fashionable among opera stars. Packaging: digipack Musicality and a brilliant intelligence emanate from every track. Mehta and René Jacobs, by contrast, achieve a perfect meeting of musical minds…This is not just another aria collection, but a celebration of genius, in composition and Bejun Mehta [counter-tenor] Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performance alike.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 *****/***** René Jacobs "AMERICAN Bejun Mehta is a phenomenon among today's countertenors...he explores a universe of colour and emotion, and demonstrates the sheer effortlessness of his delivery (never once do you sense that slight unnatural unease so common among average countertenors) with the supremely stylish backing of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under René Jacobs. Welsh soprano Rosemary Joshua also features." 9 November 2010, Kenneth Walton, The Scotsman ***** RELEASE DATE 28TH OCTOBER 2013 RIAS Kammerchor: Christmas! RIAS Kammerchor Hans-Christoph Rademann MENDELSSOHN: Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden op.79/1 UWE GRONOSTAY: Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen JOHANN ECCARD: Ich lag in tiefster Todesnacht, Nun liebe Seel, nun ist es Zeit, Über's Gebirg Maria geht BRUCH: In der Christnacht op.60/1 BRAHMS: O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf op.74/2 PÄRT: Magnificat BRUCKNER: Ave Maria, Virga Jesse POULENC: Salve Regina GRIEG: Ave maris stella SWEELINCK: Hodie Christus natus est PRAETORIUS: In dulci jubilo, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen Label: harmonia mundi POULENC: Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël File Under: Classical/Choral Eusebius MANDYCZEWSKI: Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht! Catalogue No: HMC902170 The great painters have always known how to combine the different perspectives of the Nativity into a single picture. Barcode: 3149020217023 Here the RIAS Kammerchor tells the Christmas Story in music: Mendelssohn frames the painting, to which the darkness NORMAL Price and the promise of promise of heavenly light form the background. The Virgin Mary leads us to the heart of Christmas Format: 1 CD Night and to rejoicing at the Saviour’s birth. We come full circle with the Four Motets of Poulenc, which sum up all the facets of Christmas and its emotions. RIAS Kammerchor Founded in 1948 under the auspices of ‘Radio in the American Sector’, the RIAS Kammerchor played an important role Hans-Christoph Rademann [conductor] in the revival of post-war musical life in Berlin. The core of its repertoire is the music of the Baroque era, together with the modern classics and the music of today. It swiftly acquired an international reputation for premiering new works by such composers as Penderecki, Reimann, Kagel, Gundermann and Tan Dun. After Uwe Gronostay, Marcus Creed, and Daniel Reuss, Hans-Christoph Rademann has directed the ensemble since 2007, in close collaboration with Concerto Köln, Freiburger Barockorchester, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, with such conductors as Frans Brüggen, Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs and Philippe Herreweghe. RELEASE DATE 28TH OCTOBER 2013 TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Trio Op. 50 ARENSKY: Piano Trio Op. 32 Trio Wanderer Tchaikovsky’s celebrated large-scale Trio Op.50 sets the tone of this recording, at once elegiac and virtuosic. Dedicated to his friend Nikolay Rubinstein with the French epigraph ‘À la mémoire d'un grand artiste’, it shows great originality both in its dimensions and in its style, which calls for highly skilled performers. A similarly ambitious work is the Trio Op.32 of Anton Stepanovich Arensky, also dedicated to the memory of a musician, the cellist Karl Davidov (1838-89). This gem of chamber music, much less often played, constitutes the true discovery of the programme. The Trio Wanderer celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2012. Feted by the international press for its extraordinarily sensitive playing, its almost telepathic complicity, and its complete instrumental mastery, the Trio Wanderer is one of the finest chamber music formations in the world today. Dubbed ‘Wandering Star’ by The Strad magazine, it is invited to appear in the most prestigious concert series and at the leading festivals. Since 1999 the trio have recorded for harmonia mundi: 13 recordings have appeared so far, repeatedly winning awards from the critics (Choc de l’Année in Le Monde de la Musique, Critics’ Choice in Gramophone, CD des Monats in Fono Label: harmonia mundi Forum, CD of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Diapason d’Or de l’Année, Midem Classical Award). The group’s File Under: Classical/Chamber recent interpretation of the Mendelssohn trios was chosen as the benchmark version by the New York Times. music MUSIC FOR MY EARS FEATURE FOR BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE Catalogue No: HMC902161 Barcode: 3149020216125 NORMAL Price Format: 1 CD Trio Wanderer CONCERT: Bath 12th November RELEASE DATE 28TH OCTOBER 2013 Les Sons et les Parfums Debussy meets Chopin Javier Perianes CHOPIN • Berceuse DEBUSSY • Clair de lune CHOPIN • Etude op.25 n°1 DEBUSSY • Etude XI CHOPIN • Ballade op.52 DEBUSSY • Prèludes, Premier Livre: 4. Les sons et les parfums CHOPIN • Grande valse brillante op.34 n°2 DEBUSSY • La plus que lente. Valse CHOPIN • Prèlude op.28 n°1 DEBUSSY • Prèludes, Premier Livre: 1. Danseuses de Delphes CHOPIN • Nocturne op.15 n°2 Label: harmonia mundi DEBUSSY • Prèludes, Deuxième Livre: 7. La terrasse des audiences File Under: Classical/Instrumental CHOPIN • Barcarolle op.60 Catalogue No: HMC902164 DEBUSSY • L’Isle joyeuse Barcode: 3149020216422 Chopin and Debussy: the connections between them are as numerous as they are subtle, never obvious, yet so very NORMAL Price profound. The achievement of Javier Perianes here is to have teased out the artistic thread linking two geniuses who Format: 1 CD+bonus DVD soar high above their respective centuries. Javier Perianes [piano] CD+DVD BONUS ALSO AVAILABLE: HMC902099 Falla: Nights in the Gardens Of Spain; Solo Piano Works "Not all the best Spanish music was composed by Debussy and Ravel. Here’s a bewitching disc of piano music by the Andalusian-born Manuel de Falla... Javier Perianes’s performance was recorded with the BBCSO live at the Barbican in January; what immediately impresses is the sharpness, the steeliness of Josep Pons’s accompaniment. He too loves this piece but never wallows in it. The last few minutes of En los jardines de la sierra de Cordoba are overwhelming in their sultry headiness, with Perianes’s keyboard beautifully integrated into the orchestral sound...Perianes spent time consulting Falla’s autograph scores before making these recordings; it’s hard to imagine them being bettered." Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk, 29 October 2011 RELEASE DATE 28TH OCTOBER 2013 Vadym Kholodenko, Gold Medalist Van Cliburn International Piano Competition LISZT: Transcendental Études, STRAVINSKY: Trois mouvements de Pétrouchka Vadym Kholodenko Winner of the coveted