The best new classical albums this week (May 5, 2023)
Friday, May 5, 2023
Discover new recordings of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, Stanford's Requiem and more
Today sees the release of new albums from violinist María Dueñas, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber, La Serenissima and Adrian Chandler, and Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe. Explore them all below, read reviews and listen on Apple Music.
2023 looks set to be a very special year for violinist María Dueñas, with the release of the debut album for DG today coming just months before her first performance at the BBC Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall, where she will play Lalo's Symphonie espagnole with the BBC SO and conductor Josep Pons. Her debut album features a live performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and the great Beethoven conductor Manfred Honeck on the podium. Dueñas has composed the cadenzas for this recording herself and the album also includes showpieces for violin and orchestra by Kreisler, Saint-Saëns, Spohr, Wieniawski and Ysaÿe.
Martyn Brabbins leads a live performance of Stanford's Requiem with soloists Carolyn Sampson, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, James Way, Ross Ramgobin, the University of Birmingham Voices and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, recorded to mark the 125th anniversary of the premiere.
Devotees of Stanford's music will know that Brabbins has already recorded the Violin Concerto with soloist Anthony Marwood (a Recording of the Month in February 2001 – read the review) and the First Piano Concerto with pianist Piers Lane (read the review). This new recording of the Requiem, however, looks set to be an exceptionally significant addition to the catalogue of Stanford recordings.
Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber are an outstanding multiple-Gramophone Award-winning partnership, having triumphed with 'Frage' (Solo Vocal Award, 2019), 'Nachtviolen' (Solo Vocal Award, 2015) and Schubert Lieder (Vocal Award, 2006), and been shortlisted for Awards for Mahler Lieder (Solo Vocal Award, 2010), Schumann: Alle Lieder (Song Award, 2022), Schumann: Myrthen (Solo Vocal Award, 2020).
This new recording of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde sees the duo joined by tenor Piotr Beczala.
La Serenissima and Adrian Chandler are leading interpreters of Italian Baroque music, and have won Gramophone Awards for recordings of concertos by Vivaldi, Corelli, Tartini and Caldara. Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in E minor, RV277 'Il favorito', is included as part of 'An Englishman Abroad', but the main focus of the album is the music of Nicola Matteis the Younger, who was born in London (c1675) and had an Italian father and English mother. Matteis left England in 1700 to make music for the Imperial Court in Vienna. Matteis's music is placed into context by Telemann's Ouverture-Suite in G Major, TWV55:G5 and Brescianello's Overture-Suite for strings.
Both Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe will be performing at Gramophone's 100th Anniversary Concert at Wigmore Hall on May 14 (buy tickets), 'Broken Branches' is their first collaboration on record. An eclectic programme opens with Dowland's Time stands still, moves through works by Monteverdi, Rodrigo, Takemitsu, Harvey and traditional songs to Britten's Songs from the Chinese.
Sean Shibe has won Gramophone Awards for 'Bach - Pour La Luth Ò Cembal' (read the review) and 'softLOUD: Music for Acoustic & Electric Guitars' (read the review).