January 2019 Catalogue Issue 33 Prices valid until Tuesday 26 February 2019 unless stated otherwise 0115 982 7500 ‘Salt Marsh’ by Eric Ravilious (1938), as used on the cover of Natalie Clein’s latest recital for Hyperion (CDA68253) [email protected] Your Account Number: {MM:Account Number} {MM:Postcode} {MM:Address5} {MM:Address4} {MM:Address3} {MM:Address2} {MM:Address1} {MM:Name} 1 Welcome! Dear Customer, Happy New Year and welcome to our first catalogue of 2019! We are pleased to say that 2018 was a good year at Europadisc, with sales holding up well despite a challenging marketplace. It is particularly encouraging to see that many people still seek specialist places to shop as an alternative to supermarkets such as Amazon. Long may it continue! On the opposite page, you will find our Top 10 Recordings of 2018, as picked by staff here at Europadisc. As you may know, we write around 50 reviews every year of discs that particularly grab our attention, publishing these online on a weekly basis. Out of these 50, we whittle them down to our favourite 10 at the end of the year, also picking one of them as our ‘Disc of the Year’. This ultimate award was a very close tie between two recordings this year, but the prize was eventually given to Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s superb violin recital, ‘Deux’, released by Alpha in February 2018. Featuring works by Poulenc, Ravel, Bartok and Delibes, we were struck by the incredible energy and originality of these performances, comfortably elevating the recording to first choice for each of the pieces on the disc. All ten discs are excellent in their own right, and we would urge you to try those that you haven’t yet heard. New release highlights for this month include Wolf Lieder from Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann (Erato); transcendental Liszt from Boris Giltburg (Naxos); lesser-known Victorian opera in the form of Cellier’s ‘Dorothy’ from Richard Bonynge (also Naxos); a recital of English music from Natalie Clein including works by Rebecca Clarke, Frank Bridge and Ralph Vaughan Williams (Hyperion); Stenhammar’s Symphony no.2 from Herbert Blomstedt (BIS); two eagerly-awaited releases from Dutton Epoch featuring works by Arthur Sullivan and Haydn Wood; and a further issue in the series of hardback books from Bru Zane (formerly Ediciones Singulares), this time reviving Messager’s ‘Les P’tites Michus’. Special offers for January include the complete catalogues of Supraphon, Melodiya, Aparte and LSO Live, selected titles from Dutton Epoch, Hyperion’s budget ‘Helios’ series, boxsets from BIS and Documents, and the DVD catalogue of American label, VAI. Plenty to get your teeth into! Best regards from, The Europadisc Team DISC OF THE MONTH Sullivan The Light of the World £17.95 Natalya Romaniw, Eleanor Dennis, Kitty Whately, Robert Murray, or pay just Ben McAteer, Neal Davies, Kinder Children’s Choir, BBC Symphony Chorus, £14.95 BBC Concert Orchestra, John Andrews if your order value Dutton Epoch 2CDLX 7356 (2 Hybrid SACDs - playable on standard equipment) exceeds £50* * to qualify for the special price, Commissioned for and first produced at the Birmingham Musical Festival of your order value must exceed a total of £50 excluding this 1873, The Light of the World is Arthur Sullivan’s great oratorio on the life of recording and before any applicable carriage charges. Christ. Although regularly performed during the composer’s lifetime, changing Offer available while stocks last. fashions gradually condemned the work to obscurity. Occasional revivals have failed to make the case for it, primarily because it was not understood that The Light of the World is essentially a dramatic work, rather than a purely religious one. When Dutton Epoch and the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society came to record the work, this new understanding enabled a completely different approach to be taken – the result is a vibrant performance by the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews. They are supported by the Kinder Children’s Choir and a fine team of soloists: Natalya Romaniw and Eleanor Dennis (sopranos), Kitty Whately (contralto), Robert Murray (tenor), Ben McAteer (baritone) and Neal Davies (bass). 2 OUR TOP 10 FROM 2018! Europadisc Top 10 Recordings from 2018 Special prices available until 26 February 2019 Disc of the Year Deux Works for Violin and Piano Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Polina Leschenko £9.95 Alpha ALPHA 387 “Compared with most of Kopatchinskaja’s previous releases, this latest disc looks, on paper at least, like a fairly traditional recital programme. But the devil, as ever, is in the detail, and this famously iconoclastic musician challenges received wisdom on how these works should be performed, at the same time as illuminating them as never before... Few if any violinists have been as successful as this in catching the edginess and volatility of Poulenc’s Violin Sonata... they give the music a translucent hue as well as a suppleness and expressive commitment that is hugely compelling... The same is just as true of Bartók’s formidable Second Violin Sonata... Kopatchinskaja and Leschenko take the expressive toughness of this music head-on, and once again discover a myriad of nuances by going beyond the usual beefed-up violin virtuoso soundworld... Ravel’s celebrated Tzigane grips the listener from the very outset... by jettisoning spurious, ossified performance traditions, Kopatchinskaja and Leschenko reconnect not with the work in the abstract, but with the music itself: its moods, textures, outward gestures and internal narratives. Yet again, the music receives an exceptionally vivid, bold performance, one that reveals the enfant terrible lurking beneath Ravel’s usually urbane surface, and it brings the disc to a thrilling close... For utterly electrifying performances of jewels from the twentieth-century violin-and-piano repertoire, this disc is simply unbeatable, ranking with the very best from both musicians and making another outstanding addition to the Alpha catalogue.” (full review available online) Beethoven Buxtehude Debussy Missa Solemnis Abendmusiken The Three Sonatas Bach Coll Japan, Suzuki Vox Luminis, Meunier Faust, Melnikov etc £9.95 £9.95 £8.95 BIS BIS2321 Alpha ALPHA287 H Mundi HMM902303 “…a performance of stellar achievement that “...this is an absolute gem of a disc, and the “…a disc whose thoughtful programming adds remains with the listener long after the disc instrumental sonatas provide a welcome up to much more than the sum of its already has stopped spinning, about as close to bonus... their largely one-to-a-part considerable parts, to create a remarkable perfection as one can get in such an performances of Buxtehude do brilliant service sonic picture of Debussy in the harrowing but inexhaustible masterpiece. Beethoven wanted to a composer whose vocal and chamber ultimately uplifting years of his life. In a year the Missa to go ‘from the heart … to the heart’, output clearly deserves to be much better already rich in centenary tributes, this disc and in this performance it does just that.” known than it is.” really does stand out from the crowd...” Fin de siecle 4 Pieces, 4 Pianos Handel Berg, Zemlinsky etc Chopin, Schubert etc Italian Cantatas (2CD) Hannigan, de Leeuw Melnikov Devieilhe, Desandre £9.95 £8.95 £8.95 Alpha ALPHA393 H Mundi HMM902299 Erato 9029 563362 “There may be more tonally radiant “...this is a stunning display of the advantages “... emotions range from despair to vengeful recordings… but there are few that combine brought by historically appropriate scorn, all drawn brilliantly by Devielhe’s such a sense of sheer involvement, at instruments… Melnikov’s superbly judged, crystal-clear voice... Desandre delpoys a voice foreground and deep-background levels, with technically outstanding and expressively of great power and sensitivity, with rich lower such a complete awareness of, and committed musicianship really sets the seal on notes and full emotional engagement... this is identification with, the fin-de-siècle mindset… this disc, making it surely one of the most an ideal introduction to these enthralling lovers of C20 art song need to hear this disc.” compelling piano recital discs of recent years.” works...” Langgaard Locke Schubert Symphonies 2 & 6 Consort Musicke String Quartets 9 & 14 Vienna PO, Oramo Phantasm Chiaroscuro Quartet £9.95 £9.95 £9.95 Dacapo 6220653 Linn CKD594 BIS BIS2268 "Splendidly played, and with unerring mastery “Tuning throughout is flawless, rhythms are “This is a simply stunning performance, as of the episodic shifts of gear by Oramo, it’s the tight, with brilliantly alert upbeats, and the remarkable for its expressive power as it is for sort of performance of which Langgaard must beautiful shaping of phrases is a source of its textural clarity... Few if any other groups have dreamt... Oramo and the Vienna Phil rise constant wonder... this disc is a veritable have revealed such a range of colours in the to the challenge of Langgaard’s deeply cornucopia of delights. Not just ‘for lovers of ‘Death & the Maiden’ second movement... an personal music with infectious enthusiasm and consort music’, but for all lovers of chamber outstanding addition to the Chiaroscuro suitably grandiose textures." music, immaculately conceived and executed.” Quartet’s steadily expanding discography...” 3 PRIORITY NEW RELEASES DG and Decca Beethoven Orff Symphony no.9 Carmina Burana: Live Mito Chamber Orchestra, from The Forbidden City Ozawa Garifullina, Spence, Tezier, £12.50 Shanghai SO, Yu Decca 483 44341 due 11/1 £12.50 DG 483 6594 due 18/1 Also available Decca 483 4670 Enchanted Isle New arrangements of Scottish and Irish melodies due 18/1 Voces8 £12.50 DG 483 6174 120 Years of DG The Golden Age of Shellac due 11/1 Various £9.25 Willi Boskovsky Complete Decca Recordings £99.95 Decca 483 2517 (50CD + 2DVD) Two players, more than any others, sum up the pliant, gemutlich Viennese style of violin playing - an easeful, elastic, floating singing style with a natural, unaffected use of portamento.