The cellist Valentino Worlitzsch delivers a fiery debut in his Genuin album on the Primavera-Edition, the series that so meritoriously presents the award-winners of the German Music Competition. Why the young musician won the first prize in the 2016 competition and was a favorite of the audience is revealed in these wonderful recordings. Together with the excellent pianist Elisabeth Brauss, Worlitzsch plays multifaceted and spirited musical works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Britten and presents himself as a soloist with the truly electrifying solo sonata by Eugene Ysaye. Hopefully, there will soon be more!

Within the earlier part of his long career William Byrd published three volumes of Cantiones Sacrae – sacred songs to Latin words. The first, in 1575, was a joint venture with his master Thomas Tallis, each composer contributing seventeen items. The others, called by Byrd the ‘Uber primus’ and ‘Uber secundus’ of sacred songs, appeared in 1589 and 1591; they contain respectively sixteen and twenty-one items (several of them being in two or more separately numbered sections). The present set of three CD’s contains a generous selection of items from these three collections. The first disc also includes three of Byrd’s keyboard pieces, interspersed with the vocal music.

Alpha is now reissuing three recordings from its back catalogue, the first album is of the conductor Teodor Currentzis. An opportunity to discover or rediscover three very different styles, and three facets of the talen tof ''the enfant terrible of classical music'', as Le Figaro called him, for whom ''music is intended to transport into the waking world the sentiments we feel when we dream''. With their invitation to travel through different periods and territories, these reissues may be appreciated both separately and as a triptych revealing the artistic approach of Teodor Currentzis and his ensemble MusicAeterna, from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14 by way of Mozart's Requiem, the Salzburg composer's last work, here given an invigorating reinterpretation.

Sir William Walton wrote two operas, the second - The Bear - far more readily acclaimed than the first, and more often performed. Its premiere took place in Aldeburgh in June, 1967 as part of the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival, and followed the disastrous reception of Walton's first opera, Troilus and Cressida, a piece seen as too traditional for the taste of those austere postwar times. So second time round Walton was taking no chances: everything in The Bear is on a modest scale: a chamber opera in one act, for three singers only, no chorus, and the orchestra is chamber-sized, with a small number of strings (originally solo players). Not only did this specific recording bring the piece to fame but it also proved a revelatory album for soloists, Della Jones, Alan Opie, and John Shirley-Quirk, who would go on to become multi-award-winning soloists and whose achievements in British music would become increasingly successful.

Together with his friend Holst, at the beginning of the 20th century Ralph Vaughan Williams deliberately took the course of liberating himself from ''German influence'', as they called it, working for original British music. He found models and inspiration in original English folk music. Most of the works recorded here rank among the less known pieces by the composer, but all of them very clearly reflect the personal hue, the absolutely ''personal style'' of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

This 1994 recording is one of the first Holst collections made by Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia, an orchestra he conducted for thirty-seven years, until his death. Having brought neglected works by Holst to a more deserved fame in the early 1990's, Hickox returned to Holst in 2007, embarking on a new series with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He was recording what would have been the second volume of this new survey when he was suddenly taken ill. While he was never able to finish that second volume himself, the first instalment was released in January, 2009 and seen as a recording triumph.

John Ireland's Cello Sonata in G minor was written in 1923 and premiered the following year on April 4th by the Cellist Beatrice Harrison wit pianist Evlyn Howard-Jones at teh Aeolian Hall, London. The composer himself performed the Sonata many times as pianist with several cellists including Antoni Sala, who prnounced it ''the best cello sonata of modern times'', and recorded it with Ireland on the Columbia label in October, 1928. Frederick Delius' four violin and piano sonatas were written between 1892 and 1930 and so chart comprehensively his creative development. Violin Sonata No. 3 forms a part of the remarkable Indian summer of composition made possible by the blind and paralyzed composer's collaboration with Eric Fenby. Lionel Handy arranged the Sonata for cello and piano in 2012 and on November 23 of that year he gave the first public performance of his transcription with Nigel Clayton as pianist at a concert held in The Warehouse, London to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Delius's birth. Arnold Bax is widely regarded as an orchestral composer. However, he also wrote a significant quantity of chamber music. One of his most impressive works for the instrument, the Cello Sonata in E flat was writte in 1923 at a time when his popularity and standing aong British composers was at its height. Completed on November 7 of that year, the Sonata was premiered on February 26, 1924 at the Wigmore Hall with Harriet Cohen accompanying Beatrice Harrison, to whom the score was originally dedicated.

Frederick Delius and Arnold Bax both made significant contributions to the part-song repertoire, each leaving a compelling testament to his highly individual creative personality. Delius's earlier choral songs are nostalgic for the worlds of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Grieg, while the brooding contours of On Craig Ddu results in one of his most remarkable creations. The allure of landscapes and elemental forces was powerful for both composers; the subtle tensions and gorgeously layered harmonies of Bax's settings also evoking historical remoteness and other-worldly enchantment.

SOMM Recordings is proud to release this album of Elgar recordings, including the first-ever release of Elgar's april, 1933 recording of Elegy, Op. 58 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In August, 1933, Elgar recorded teh work for a second time with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and it was this recording that was released shortly after Elgar's death in 1934. In 2015, a test pressing of the earlier recording was discovered and is now being released for the first time. There is no doubt that this recording has more energy with a greater sense of "line" and ebb-and-flow than the later performance and its neglect by Elgar and HMV is something of a mystery. In addition, this album contains a recording of the composer's Sonatina, played by its dedicatee, Elgar's niece, May Grafton. Privately recorded in 1958 at her home by the Elgar biographer, Jerrold Northrop Moore, this is an enchanting reminder of a close relationship that flourished particularly when Miss Grafton acted as Elgar's secretary. The great violinist Albert Sammons performed the Elgar concerto with the composer over many years. However, they were each contracted to different record labels so in 1929 Sammons recorded teh concerto complete with the New Queen's Hall orchestra, led by Sir Henry Wood. Sixteen years earlier, Sammons and Wood made the first recording of the concerto in a version cut by Wood to fit on four sides of 78rpm discs. This recording has not been reproduced in any other form since its release in 1916, until now.

The opera- or rather and properly the musical interlude- At the Boar’s Head was written in 1924. Gustav Holst composed it at his home in Thaxted, where he was resting after collapsing, probably due to being overladen with work. By the time his health deteriorated, the composer had taught in a number of schools and played as an orchestra trombonist, devoting all his free time to composing. The libretto, which Holst also composed, is based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV parts 1 and 2. Also included in this release is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea, a short one-act opera based on the play of the same name by John Millington Synge. The opera has remained largely in the realm of students and amateurs until Sadler Wells added it to their repertoire in 1953.

The profoundly moving, elegiac lyricism of Elgar and the wistful charm and brilliance of Tchaikovsky are on full display in this irresistible new release from Pentatone played with consummate virtuosity by the German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Andrew Manze. Composed at the end of the First World War, Elgar's powerful Cello Concerto in E minor is one of his best-loved and most deeply-felt works. The soloist's wrenching chords which open the work announce a mood of profound resignation and loss - gone is the youthful swagger of his earlier works, replaced instead with lonely introspection and longing, especially in the sublimely beautiful Adagio. The cello is given free rein in the vigorous final movement but the opening mood prevails as an anguished outburst from the cello brings the work to a close. No such dejection hangs over Tchaikovsky's delightful Variations on a Rococo Theme which ooze elegance, ineffable charm and daring displays of technical brilliance. While the Pezzo capriccioso finds Tchaikovsky in a more restrained mood, with the Nocturne and Andante Cantabile he wears his romantic heart full on his sleeve. The great Russian writer Leon Tolstoy is said to have wept when he heard the Andante Cantabile and its sumptuous theme shows Tchaikovsky's unerring gift for haunting melodies. It remains a special gem in the repertoire. The cellist Johannes Moser is no stranger to these works. Winner of the top prize at the 2002 Tchaikovsky Competition, he was also awarded the Special Prize for his interpretation of the Variations on a Rococo Theme. Described by Gramophone as "one of the finest among the astonishing gallery of young virtuoso cellists" and by the LA Times as a musician who "...connects with the audience in a way that only great artists do", this is Moser's third recording for Pentatone.

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REVIEW:

This is a most unusual account of the Elgar Concerto, one that’s both musically gripping and recorded at relatively close quarters. And again in the Rococo Variations of Tchaikovsky, Moser offers a performance that combines sensitivity, agility and brilliance, while Manze and the Suisse Romande Orchestra are consistently on the ball. Altogether a wonderful CD, then, both major works granted recordings that are among the finest we’ve heard in recent years.

– Gramophone

Led by Mark Williams, the Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge continue their critically-praised series of recordings on Signum with this new recording of works by British composers Benjamin Britten and William Byrd. Byrd and Britten, their respective careers separated by about three hundred and fifty years, share one very significant characteristic. They were both, in quite different ways, outsiders. As a devout Catholic existing within an alien environment - a state which ultimately viewed Catholicism as the equivalent of sedition - Byrd was obliged to pursue a kind of double life, expressing his spiritual exile in music of emotional intensity. Like Byrd, Britten became highly regarded by the establishment for his artistic achievements, but reservations regarding his homosexuality prevented his complete acceptance. Both his pacifism and his sexual orientation made him an outsider.

The charm of this opera is in that it contains everything, like Cervantes’ Don Quixote: any life experience is within it. Love, hate, death, dream, despair, the innocent and the wicked play. Purcell’s awareness in portraying such opposite feelings is amazing as well as the room that he leaves to the conductor. So, here is why a new “Dido”: as an artist in love with this opera, Fabio Bonizzoni wants to deliver his reading. He wants to translate Purcell’s “sign” his own way, how much this opera is alive, lively, modern, contemporary. How Purcell’s genius was able to convey Dido’s despair and Aeneas’ cowardice and how much Purcell himself had fun in depicting the plot. Fabio Bonizzoni, one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation, graduated in organ, organ composition and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class. He frequently enjoys commitments as guest conductor: in recent times he has been invited by Capella Cracoviensis and Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra in Poland, by the Holland Bach Society in The Netherlands, and by the Orchestra Barroca de Sevilla.

This recording has been reissued in the Essential Baroque Masterpieces collection with an exclusive interview of Skip Sempé:

"At this point of heritage, I think that the only thing one could really have inherited from Leonhardt is his musical conviction. Other than that, it is perhaps important to mention that it is France that has inherited much from Leonhardt, through his tradition and the subsequent creation a new generation of harpsichordists – some of whom studied with him and some of whom did not. In the 1960s and 70s, the French musical scene was extremely resistant to Leonhardt and to his approach, then, little by little, his approach eclipsed all previous influences in France, those of Landowska and the Ancien Régime. The direct result of this is that there are more fine harpsichordists in France than anywhere in the world. All this via Leonhardt, who began his career with Bach and finished it with Forqueray. This is somehow appropriate – even the finest harpsichords from his personal collection are now here with his old friends. And this very recording – as well as several others among Leonhardt’s last recordings – was made for a French label, largely due to the fact that Paris has become the centre of the harpsichord world.

I particularly miss him when I hear his fine organ playing. And when I play on his own harpsichords. Perhaps even more when I hear my friends and students play on them. Today, he is still extraordinarily present for me."

- Skip Sempé

Also available on Blu-ray

Seventy years after its Glyndebourne world premiere, Benjamin Britten's first chamber opera is welcomed home with "a performance of enthralling emotional power and physical beauty" gifted with "piercingly intelligent, immaculately realized staging and superb singing, acting an playing" led by "Fiona Shaw's supremely nuanced direction" and underpinned by "febrile playing" from members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (The Telegraph, five stars). The production eloquently and tastefully tackles the difficult subject, which is lent emotional weight by "Christine Rice's grandly sung Lucretia, noble in tone yet tragically vunerable", along with baritone Duncan Rock's "forthright" Tarquinius and the "smooth bass" of Matthew Rose as the caring Collantinus (The Guardian, five stars).

Picture Format: NTSC, 16:9
Audio Formats: LPCM 2.0, DTS Digital Surround
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese Korean
Region Code: 0 (Worldwide)
Running Time: 114 mins (Opera), 17 mins (Extras)