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Trio Boccherini – Hungarian String Trios (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:24 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
This recording brings together four Hungarian composers who, each in their own way, contributed to the development of a new national musical style at the beginning of the twentieth century. They managed to write music that was respected internationally and that both nurtured them and raised the general standard of music in Hungary. Although Leo Weiner’s (the ‘Hungarian Mendelssohn’), and Erno Dohnanyi’s string trios were composed during their student years, both works have become significant milestones in the restricted repertoire for this instrumental combination. Elegant and sometimes reminiscent of Brahms, they also feature subtle touches of local folklore. Zoltan Kodaly, along with Bela Bartok one of the most important Hungarian musicians of the century, composed little chamber music but his Intermezzo, also an early work, is reminiscent of the folk music that the composer had begun to collect for his ethnomusicological research. The least familiar and youngest of the composers represented here, Laszlo Weiner, suffered a tragic fate. His Serenade, composed while he was studying with Kodaly, reveals the exceptional talent of a composer whose oeuvre is too small. Less ‘Magyar’ than the other works presented here, his Serenade is reminiscent of the intense and concentrated atmosphere of Viennese ‘modernist’ works.
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Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Matthias Herrmann – Helmut Lachenmann: My Melodies (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 59:19 minutes | 523 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR Klassik
To mark the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024, the BR-KLASSIK label is now making previously unreleased recordings of concerts worth listening to available on CD and as a stream. The six-part composition My Melodies for eight horns and orchestra was composed between 2016 and 2018, revised for the first time in 2019, and then again in 2023 as the musica viva Munich version. It was commissioned by Bavarian Radio’s musica viva with the support of the Friends of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra e.V. This is a live recording of the premiere of the Munich 2023 version of June 23, 2023 from the Herkulessaal, again as part of BR’s musica viva concert series, with the horn section and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Matthias Hermann. Helmut Lachenmann, born in Stuttgart in 1935, is one of the most renowned German composers of contemporary music. He studied piano, music theory and counterpoint in Stuttgart and composition with Luigi Nono in Venice. The first public performances of his works took place in 1962 at the Venice Biennale and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. He taught composition in Hanover (1976-1981) and in Stuttgart (1981-1999), and gave numerous master classes in Germany and abroad. His works are performed by internationally renowned players and orchestras all over the world. Helmut Lachenmann has received numerous awards, most recently the GEMA German Music Authors’ Prize for his life’s work (2015). The phenomenon of melody has long preoccupied Helmut Lachenmann. He went to study in Venice at the end of the 1950s with Luigi Nono, a teacher who strictly insisted on a critically reflective approach to musical material. Nono had objected to any trace of linear progression in Lachenmann’s compositional sketches as a “tonal cell” – a melodic object that was seen as a recourse to a romanticising tonal language that had to be overcome. The impetus for the scoring of My Melodies came from a rehearsal of Lachenmann’s opera The Little Match Girl in Madrid in 2008: eight horns forming a homogeneous yet at the same time complex instrument. The premiere took place ten years later. In 2023, My Melodies was extended by 77 additional bars since that first performance, with Lachenmann drawing on further sketch material. It is rare for the composer to alter his own works after their premiere – but the sound ideas for the eight horns seem to have retained a special fascination for him. The bonus tracks offer short excerpts from this concert recording of My Melodies. They present characteristic passages of the work, inviting listeners to detect specific noises or sequences and to familiarise themselves with Lachenmann’s world of sound.
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Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Heinz Wallberg – Richard Strauss: Die Schweigsame Frau (Scenes) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:31 minutes | 668 MB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
To mark the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024, the BR-KLASSIK label is now making previously unreleased recordings of concerts worth listening to available for the first time on CD and as a stream. Excerpts from Richard Strauss’s comic opera “Die schweigsame Frau” (“The Silent Woman”) were pre-produced as studio recordings for a television programme in November 1960. The impressive cast was almost identical to that of the opera production at the Salzburg Festival in 1959 under the premiere conductor Karl Böhm: Hans Hotter (Sir Morosus), Hermann Prey (Barber), Fritz Wunderlich (Henry) as well as Ingeborg Hallstein (Aminta) and many others sang. Here, Heinz Wallberg conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and in contrast to the live recording from Salzburg, which is marred by the clearly audible stage noises of a turbulent production, the outstanding cast of singers in this recording is more effective. The BR-KLASSIK label is now marking the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024 by making this previously unreleased studio production available for the first time on CD and as a stream. After the death of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Strauss thought he had reached the end of his operatic career – but then he found a librettist of equal calibre in Stefan Zweig, who provided him with “the best libretto for an opéra comique since Figaro” (Strauss). The comic opera was written between 1932 and 1935 and, despite the fact that Zweig was a Jewish librettist (who had since emigrated), Strauss managed to have the opera premiered in Dresden on June 24, 1935, conducted by Karl Böhm. However, because the composer insisted on printing Zweig’s name on the posters and in the programme, the Nazis boycotted the performance. And after the Gestapo intercepted a letter that Strauss had written to Zweig expressing his delight at the successful premiere, the composer finally fell out of favour. The opera was taken off the programme after only three performances, and was not performed at any other German theatre until 1946. Strauss resigned from the presidency of the Reich Chamber of Music “for health reasons”. Strauss endowed “Die schweigsame Frau” with an overabundance of musical ideas, turbulent ensembles and individual tone colours; light comedy and grand arias alternate. He casually quotes himself and a dozen other composers, including Rossini, whose “Barber of Seville” was the model for his talkative and manipulative barber. Music connoisseurs appreciate the many musical allusions in the work.
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Sophia Weidemann & Tinka Kleffner – Fanny Hensel: Das Jahr, H-U 385 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:41 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Genuin
Pianist Sophia Weidemann and actress Tinka Kleffner present a musical-literary encounter with the exceptional composer Fanny Hensel in their new GENUIN album, “Das Jahr” (The Year). The album includes a remarkable piano cycle along with letters and diary entries to and by Hensel. Through their interpretation, these two highly acclaimed artists offer a high-level, intimate glimpse into the life and work of one of the most significant 19th-century female composers and enlightened thinkers, Fanny Hensel. Hensel’s piano cycle covers a whole year, and the chosen and thoughtfully read excerpts mirror the emotionally rich and skillfully constructed music in the most delightful way!
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Riccardo D’Alo & Lorenzo Micheli Pucci – Porqueddu: The Impressionistic Guitar (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:48:17 minutes | 877 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
The first disc in this two-CD set contains Sardinian composer Cristiano Porqueddu’s first three sonatas for solo guitar, written between 2013 and 2019 and performed here by his compatriot Riccardo D’Alò. ‘Des couleurs sur la toile’, in three movements, pays homage to the painter Gesuino Curreli, the composer’s maternal uncle, who paints landscapes of contemporary Oliena, a town in northern Sardinia. ‘Sonata di Picerno’ – completed in 2015 and dedicated to Italian guitarist Christian Saggese – is a musical portrait of the distinctive town of Picerno in the beautiful Basilicata region of Italy. All three of its movements narrate an entirely fictional leyenda (legend). Sonata No.3, ‘Il rito del fuoco’, is based on an ancient Sardinian legend that tells of Saint Anthony and his pig stealing fire from hell to give to humanity. It is a cyclical composition, which remains anchored in the harmonic and thematic elements introduced in the first section throughout.
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Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya & Ludovic Morlot – Maurice Ravel I: Complete Orchestral Works (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 59:11 minutes | 511 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © L’Auditori
The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC) and Music Director Ludovic Morlot – renowned specialist in French repertoire with four Grammy awards – release the complete orchestral works of Maurice Ravel in six CDs between April 2024 and December 2026. The first volume of the collection, recorded at the Pau Casals Hall of L’Auditori with Mike George and Stephen Rinker – producer and sound engineer of the BBC and Chandos label – includes three iconic works by the composer from Ciboure (French Basque Country).
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ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra & Marin Alsop – John Adams: City Noir, Fearful Symmetries & Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:06 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos
John Adams’ music has long since captured the admiration of listeners for its inimitable American qualities. City Noir was inspired by the cultural and social history of Los Angeles, with Adams calling it ‘an imaginary film score’ in its evocation of a terse, melodramatic and menace-drenched sound world. Fearful Symmetries exemplifies Adams’ steamroller motor rhythms, endlessly inventive in their shifts of timbre, texture and color. The album ends with a work dedicated to Marin Alsop, a capricious “Spider Dance” of memorable rhythmic drive.
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Nelson Goerner – Liszt: Sonate en si mineur, Sonetti di Petrarca, Valse oubliée No.2, Étude “La leggierezza”, Rhapsodie hongroise No.6 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:06:40 minutes | 1,94 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
This is pianist Nelson Goerner’s twelfth recording for the Alpha Classics label. He devotes his new album to the solo piano works of Franz Liszt, with the famous Sonata in B minor as the centrepiece; nearly twenty years after his first CD of the sonata, he felt the urge to re-record it, following a series of critically acclaimed concerts. His talents as a storyteller and as a virtuoso with an eye for nuance are heard to marvellous effect in this monumental work, a veritable ‘musical action’ that undoubtedly belongs in the pantheon of the finest literature for piano. The programme is completed by excerpts from Liszt’s major cycles, including the Petrarch Sonnets from the Années de pèlerinage and the Hungarian Rhapsody no.6, along with the spectacular concert étude La leggierezza.
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Maya Beiser – Maya Beiser x Terry Riley, In C (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 55:04 minutes | 629 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Islandia Music Records
Cellist and producer Maya Beiser’s latest solo album reimagines Terry Riley’s epic In C as a series of ever-evolving cello loops and drones. In her multi-cello solo version, the C string – the cello’s lowest, most resonant string – forms the depth and sonic architecture of the album. Enveloped by live drumming by Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer, Maya creates a hypnotic, rapturous soundscape that re-envisions this epic minimalist masterpiece.
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Markus Stockhausen – Celebration (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:15:47 minutes | 2,34 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © O-tone
As a trumpet soloist, improviser and composer at home in jazz as well as in contemporary and classical music, Markus Stockhausen is one of the most versatile musicians of our time internationally and is known as a musical border crosser – always in search of new forms of expression. After “Wild Life” and “Tales”, “Celebration” is now being released. On their third album, the Markus Stockhausen Group celebrates the life, music and friendship of their quartet with six wonderful guest musicians from many different countries. As the previous album “Tales” (o-tone music) already showcased many facets of the group, this time they really want to “celebrate” and enrich their music with the extraordinary musicality of those guest soloists.
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Marie Rosa Günter, Stanislas Emanuel Kim, Leonid Gorokhov – Postscriptum (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:01:53 minutes | 2,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Genuin
The city of Petersburg has a complex history, merging diverse cultural influences into a distinct profile. The forces generated amid the constant interplay of repression and the yearning for freedom find expression in experimentation. This led the Günter-Kim duo to explore the cosmopolitan city in search of traces. In the process, the cello-piano duo has discovered various compositions related to Dmitri Shostakovich: Boris Goltz, Galina Ustvolskaya, Boris Arapov… and, as a world premiere recording, Leonid Gorokhov. The duo’s arrangements of Shostakovich’s Spanish and Jewish songs symbolize a thoughtful approach to foreign cultures. This stands in stark contrast to the current somber reality: Petersburg, once the gateway to Europe, is on the brink of closing itself off.
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Lennart Ginman, Thomas Blachman, Carsten Dahl – What’s to Come! (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 47:34 minutes | 900 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Storyville Records
The three renowned Danish jazz artists, bassist Lennart Ginman, drummer Thomas Blachman and pianist Carsten Dahl, are collectively known under the moniker GinmanBlachmanDahl. Bearing the title, “What’s to Come!”, this record is a testament to the power of spontaneity, unpredictability, and collaboration in the realm of jazz. The combination of these three masterful musicians has resulted in an album that simply oozes swing, timing, dexterity, and imagination. They are simply put – some of the most visionary and innovative Danish jazz musicians and composers, and their music reflects their never-ending quest to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Unlike a conventional studio recording, this album was born out of raw spontaneity and creative synergy within the trio – every note, every chord, every rhythm was created in the spur of the moment. The result is a sonic journey into the heart and essence of improvisation.
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Kristjan Randalu – Schumann: Dichterliebe (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:25 minutes | 843 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Classics
Kristjan Randalu releases a newly arranged piano version of Robert Schumanns famous song cycle “Dichterliebe”. As a jazz and crossover pianist he has put is own fingerprint on the pieces, improvising here and there and presenting the well-known melodies in an unheard of jazzy style.
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Ketevan Sharumashvili – Connected (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:26 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zefir Records
For this CD, Ketevan Sharumashvili chose piano transcriptions partly because she likes the transformative process behind them. Before you can listen to these compositions many transformations have occurred. Composers, influenced by their emotions, transformed their ideas into compositions which they wrote down on paper. The transcribers of these compositions have added another layer of ideas and emotions. A performer and the recording of it again transforms the music. Finally in the listener the soundwaves are transformed into an emotional experience. The music on this cd is connected through times like a string of pearls from Bach and Rachmaninoff to Gershwin who, in turn, inspired Wild and Volodos. Most pieces are related to the theme of love in its many forms. Love, a force both profound and mysterious, finds its most poignant articulation through melodies and lyrics. Auf dem Wasser zu singen by Schubert and Where beauty dwells by Rachmaninoff are about spiritual connections of our souls with nature, God and the universe. Schubert’s Ständchen and Gershwin’s Embraceable you are about romantic love between two people just as Liszt evoked the love between Lohengrin and Elsa as composed by Wagner. In April in Paris by Trenet the coming of spring brings love in the air.
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Jack Liebeck & Anna Tilbrook – The Music of Frederick Laurence (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:11 minutes | 904 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
“The Music of Frederick Laurence” is an intriguing new album featuring many previously unknown works from the British composer Frederick Laurence, performed by two of the country’s best-known musicians, violinist Jack Liebeck and pianist Anna Tilbrook. This unique collection exhibits Laurence’s avant-garde writing for solo piano, as well as violin and piano duo, promising a rediscovery of his distinct contributions to early 20th-century British music. The album showcases Laurence’s transformative journey, marked by experimental compositions and a name change in the aftermath of World War I. The composer’s rich early works include the unconventional Interludes for Pianoforte, Op.11, and the daring Phases, Op.18. Noteworthy is the Sonata for Violin and Piano, a work reflecting Laurence’s peak creative period. As a prominent figure in film accompaniment history, Laurence’s legacy unfolds through his original score for the Russian fairy tale film Morozko (1924). Violinist Jack Liebeck, renowned for collaborations with leading orchestras worldwide, and pianist Anna Tilbrook, a regular in major concert halls, celebrate a composer whose influence extends from classical stages to pioneering film scores.
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