It’s one of those weeks when the sheer range and quality of the recordings released recently leaves me quite overwhelmed. From Augustin Hadelich’s supremely assured and wonderfully considered performance of Brahms’s Violin Concerto (complete with his own very fine cadenza – something he talked to me about for a Gramophone Podcast recently) to a pre-release track from Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla’s forthcoming album, of two Mieczysław Weinberg symphonies with the CBSO (a partnership newly signed to DG), is to be deeply impressed at how the classical record industry keeps going, and with such confidence. Along the way there’s a stunning performance of one of Steve Reich’s most beautiful recent scores, Pulse (2015) played by Colin Currie (another Gramophone Podcast subject), and an impressive performance by the Carducci Quartet of Shostakovich’s Second String Quartet, not a work that gets an outing that often, apart from in complete cycles.
A few weeks ago I spoke to Carolyn Sampson about her new recital recording ‘Reason in Madness’ which was inspired by a performance she and her pianist-partner, Joseph Middleton, gave of Richard Strauss’s Ophelia-Lieder – so I’ve included the three they perform on this album, strangely unsettling but intensely felt songs. Staying with the voice, I’ve the closing ‘Der Abschied’ from Adám Fischer’s latest Mahler release, the song-symphony Das Lied von der Erde – Lisa Larsson is the impressive mezzo soloists there. And talking of impressive singers, Decca has posted a pre-release trach from Gramophone’s current Young Artist of the Year, the Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen. Here, with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia, we’ve the Richard Strauss orchestral song, Cäcilie.
A rarity comes in the form of Walter Braunfels’s Sinfonia brevis, a work from 1948 with a powerful language, and authoritatively played by the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz. And there’s also music by Bernstein, Bruckner, Stravinsky and Bach along the way …
James Jolly

Bernstein (arr Fontaine) Candide - Overture

Trio Zadig (Fuga Libera)

Braunfels Sinfonia brevis

Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz / Gregor Bühl (Capriccio)

Stravinsky The Firebird Suite (arr pf)

Alexander Ullman (Rubicon Classics)

Shostakovich String Quartet No 2

Carducci Quartet (Signum Classics)

JS Bach Concerto for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord in A minor, BWV1044

Ulrike Slowik, Marco Brolli; La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni (Challenge Classics)

Reich Pulse

Colin Currie Group / Colin Currie (Colin Currie Records) LISTEN TO PODCAST

R Strauss Ophelia-Lieder – Nos 1, 2 and 3

Carolyn Sampson; Joseph Middleton (BIS) LISTEN TO PODCAST

Brahms Violin Concerto

Augustin Hadelich; Norwegian Radio Orchestra / Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Warner Classics) LISTEN TO PODCAST

Mahler Das Lied von der Erde - Der Abschied

Lisa Larsson; Düsseldorfer Sinfoniker / Adám Fischer (Avi)

Bruckner Symphony No 2 – Scherzo. Schnell

Munich Philharnonic Orchestra / Valery Gergiev (Müncher Philharmoniker) PRE-RELEASE TRACK

R Strauss Cäcilie

Lise Davidsen; Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen (Decca) PRE-RELEASE TRACK

Weinberg Symphony No 21, 'Kaddish' – Presto

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (DG) PRE-RELEASE TRACK