2017

Haglund Tommie: Flaminis aura 2017 [SACD Hybrid]

The exceptional collaboration and friendship between the late Einojuhani Rautavaara and the internationally acclaimed bass-baritone Gerald Finley culminates in this unique album of orchestral songs by Sibelius, on which the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Edward Gardner. <br/><br/>The album offers orchestrations, by Sibelius and others, of songs which Sibelius originally wrote for voice and piano, and includes the premiere recording of In the Stream of Life, seven songs orchestrated by Rautavaara for his friend. Throughout, the poetry perfectly reflects the instinctively felt relation between Finnish nature and Sibelius's music. <br/><br/>As Finley reveals: 'the recording of [In the Stream of Life] became a very personal project when the sessions took place only a few weeks after [Rautavaara's] death, in the same week as his funeral... and I am so thankful that a final addition was made possible when in the last months of his life [Rautavaara] agreed to orchestrate "Hjärtats morgon" and include it in the group.'

Vaughan Williams: Job & Symphony No 9 (Davis) [SACD Hybrid]

Pettersson Allan: Symphony No 14 (C Lindberg) [SACD Hybrid]

The women appearing before our ears throughout this programme range from the Virgin Mary and Dido, queen of Carthage, to Shakespeare's Desdemona and the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, waiting for her execution in the Tower of London in 1536. But the disc also features four other heroines - the Italian composers Claudia Sessa, Francesca Caccini, Lucrezia Vizzana and Barbara Strozzi. All active between 1590 - 1675, they will have required great courage to rise above the social conventions of the time, but this surprisingly productive period for female composers also offered an opportunity that would disappear in later centuries: the all-female environment provided by the convent. More than half of the women who published music before 1700 were nuns, including Sessa and Vizzana, who are here represented by brief meditations on the suffering and death of Christ. Caccini and Strozzi, on the other hand, lived very much in the secular world - Caccini at the Florentine court and Strozzi as a free-lance musician and composer in Venice. Unhindered by the restrictions imposed by the church on sacred music they both adhered to the new stile moderno championed by Claudio Monteverdi. Celebrated for their singing, they composed vocal music which makes 'the words the mistress of the harmony and not the servant', to quote Monteverdi's brother Giulio Cesare. The soprano Ruby Hughes has already made her name for herself in a wide-ranging repertoire, but has a special love for the constellation of lute, cello and voice. With Jonas Nordberg and Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann - who also contribute instrumental solos - she here revels in the dramatic and expressive potential offered by this trio combination, and by the music by these female composers and their English colleagues Henry Purcell and John Bennet.

Langgaard: Piano Works vol 3 (B Johansen Tange) [SACD Hybrid]

"Watch out for the live recording on LSO Live' Richard Morrison, The Times 'Irresistible...the performance was being recorded for LSO Live. I shall be first in the queue to buy it.' Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph 'Roll on the recording...' BachTrack 'Rattle's relationship with this score is a long one, and it unfolds here in spontaneous, giddy arcs...picked out in gilded detail by the musicians of the LSO.' Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk 'Rattle's moving statement of intent. Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars go headstrong into a bright future with the London Symphony Orchestra...' The Guardian 'Rattle draws shimmering beauty from the forest...' The Standard 'Rattle's conducting was immaculate... the performance has made me think about the work again, wondering how far I should prod that glorious surface to see what lies beneath.' The Spectator 'A magnificent achievement.' Seen and Heard International Sir Simon Rattle leads an all-star cast in this highly anticipated new recording of Debussy's evocative opera Pelleas et Melisande. It was captured in January 2016 during performances of an innovative collaboration between Rattle and Peter Sellars, two of the boldest creative minds in music and theatre today. Supported by the London Symphony Chorus, prepared by renowned choral director Simon Halsey, it is a moving statement of intent for Rattle's tenure as LSO Music Director. The plot, a love triangle between Prince Golaud, his wife Melisande and his brother Pelleas, is shrouded in mystery and full of gripping twists and emotion-filled turns, ultimately ending in Pelleas's untimely death. The sensuous score contains some of Debussy's most exquisite music and perfectly crystalises the atmosphere of Maeterlinck's original play. Debussy himself explained the appeal of the work: 'The drama of Pelleas which, despite its dream like atmosphere, contains far more humanity than those so-called "real life documents", seemed to suit my intentions admirably. In it there is an evocative language whose sensitivity could be extended into music and into the orchestral backcloth.'