Today sees the release of new albums from Klaus Mäkelä with the Orchestre de Paris, François-Xavier Roth with the LSO, Cédric Tiberghien, newly discovered Jessye Norman, and The Philharmonia Orchestra with Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Explore them all below, read reviews and listen on Apple Music.

Klaus Mäkelä is the guest on this week's episode of the Gramophone Podcast, where he discusses this new album of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Firebird made with the Orchestre de Paris. Listen below:

François-Xavier Roth's relationship with the LSO goes right back to 2000 when he won the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition – a crucial breakthrough. As he told Mark Pullinger in Gramophone (December 2018): ‘This was very important for me because it was the beginning, not just because it was the first time I met the LSO and had an opportunity to conduct them, but because it was the first time I had even travelled to London! Can you imagine? I was a young musician arriving at Barbican tube station … it took me hours to find the hall!’

Today sees the release of a new recording of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Debussy's Jeux. Roth has recorded Jeux with Les Siècles on period instruments (read the review), which should prove to make for an interesting comparison with this new account, and has also recorded Also Sprach Zarathustra with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, which was described by Edward Seckerson as 'one of the most satisfying Zarathustras around' (read the review).

Many will be familiar Cédric Tiberghien's approach to Mozart and Beethoven from his outstanding surveys of the violin sonatas alongside Alina Ibragimova (Mozart's for Hyperion, Beethoven's for Wigmore Hall Live). 

This new album is the first in a series which aims to juxtapose Beethoven's complete sets of variations with variations by other composers, in this case Mozart, Schumann and Webern.

These are never-before-heard recordings by Jessye Norman, including highlights from Tristan und Isolde. Recorded with Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1998, the recording features Norman as Isolde, Thomas Moser as Tristan, Hanna Schwarz as Brangäne, and a young Ian Bostridge as the Seamann. Explaining why the recordings are only now coming to light, former Head of Philips and Decca Classics, Costa Pilavachi, says in the booklet notes: ‘A perfectionist, Jessye was hardest on herself and she struggled to get everyone to help her achieve the highest possible standards. Some recordings took years to reach the public and some were never released, although this set rectifies some of these omissions.’ They are now being released with the support of Norman’s family and estate.

Other works in the set include a new recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, made in 1989 with James Levine and the Berlin Philharmonic. Norman’s 1982 recording of the work is considered by many one of the finest in the catalogue – ‘It reveals Norman’s soprano at its mighty peak: a plush sound, highly polished, almost sculpted from marble’, wrote Mark Pullinger in our 2019 tribute to the singer. ‘On receiving the news of her death … many of us immediately reached for that very same recording.’ There’s also a 1992 recording of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, plus a 1994 live recording of Norman performing with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a century-spanning programme of cantatas exploring ancient queens, including Haydn’s Scena di Berenice, Berlioz’s Cléopâtre and Britten’s Phaedra.

The Philharmonia Orchestra is the latest major UK ensemble to launch its own label. Called Philharmonia Records, the London-based orchestra’s first release is conducted by its Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and includes works by Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, the Alpine Symphony, Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. 

The first two of those works were taken from Rouvali’s debut concert in the role, on September 30, 2021. ‘I have such strong memories of this concert, not least because it was the beginning of my tenure, but because of the music-making moments we had lost with the orchestra over the months before,’ Rouvali said.

‘Conducting Strauss is always for me a very deep experience and the Philharmonia players gave their all that night as well as in the studio,’ he added.