© 2024 WRTI
Your Classical and Jazz Source
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Sunday Classical: New Release Highlights for October 2024

Michael Waldron conducts the London Choral Sinfonia.
Courtesy of the artist
Michael Waldron conducts the London Choral Sinfonia.

On the first Sunday of every month, WRTI broadcasts a special edition of Sunday Classical, focused on classical new releases. Join host Mark Pinto on WRTI on Oct. 6 from 3-6 p.m. to hear highlights from each of these albums.


American Road Trip
Augustin Hadelich (violin), Orion Weiss (piano)

Hop in the back seat and enjoy this fascinating, cross-country musical trek. Augustin Hadelich, an American citizen since 2014, and Ohio native Orion Weiss showcase a diverse array of music by American composers from the 19th to 21st centuries. In works by Charles Ives and Amy Beach to contemporaries Daniel Bernard Roumain and Stephen Hartke, they uncover a veritable melting pot of inspirations and influences, from European Romanticism to church hymns to bluegrass, blues and jazz.

Dvořák - Symphonies Nos. 7-9 and Overtures
Czech Philharmonic, Semyon Bychkov (conductor)

Celebrating the work of Czech composers and musicians, the Year of Czech Music has been observed every 10 years since 1924. In recognition of the event’s centennial this year, the Czech Philharmonic and their Music Director Semyon Bychkov offer this masterful new take on Dvořák’s great three last symphonies, including No. 9 “From the New World,” and his “Nature, Life and Love” trilogy of concert overtures. Dvořák doesn’t sound any better than this!

Prokofiev Piano Concertos
Stewart Goodyear (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton (conductor)

Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear displays a triumph over adversity in his new recording of Prokofiev made following the lifting of pandemic restrictions, the death of his mother and his overcoming of a mysterious physical setback that affected his right arm and hand. Goodyear presents one of the most demanding concertos in the repertoire, Prokofiev’s Second, alongside the perennially popular Third Concerto and the “wartime” Piano Sonata No. 7.

Impressions Parisiennes
Quatuor van Kuijk

String quartet transcriptions of French music originally written for piano and/or voice is the theme of this delightful program from the critically acclaimed French quartet. Debussy’s Petite Suite and Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, plus well-known songs by Poulenc, Fauré and Satie, are lovingly presented here in luminous new arrangements.

AIGUL
Aigul Akhmetshina (mezzo), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Daniele Rustioni (conductor), others

From her roots in a rural mountain village in southwest Russia, mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina has taken the opera world by storm, becoming the youngest artist ever to sing the title role of Bizet’s Carmen at the Met and Royal Opera. Now 27, she’s released her debut album tracing the trajectory of her meteoric career in some of the roles she has conquered, in the operas of Bizet, Bellini, Rossini, and Massenet. It’s your opportunity to catch this fast-rising star now!

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, A Tale
Ensemble K, Simone Menezes (conductor), Golshifteh Farahani (narrator), Kristin Winters (narrator)

The story of Scheherazade is twice told in this eye and ear-opening new release from France’s Ensemble K. Transcribed for the forces of this 14-piece chamber group, Rimsky-Korsakov’s beloved masterpiece is heard on its own and in dramatized form with texts adapted from One Thousand and One Nights and ancient love poems, depicting the character of Scheherazade as the heroine of the story.

Fantasia
Magdalena Hoffmann (harp)

As Magdalena Hoffmann notes, by the 18th century the term “fantasia” denoted a composition in which “improvisatory freedom and formal rigor come together to create a living, breathing entity.” The German harpist channels the Baroque spirit of improvisation in her performances of music of the Bach family and contemporaries originally written for lute or keyboard instruments. An utterly charming release.

Mendelssohn
Isata Kanneh-Mason (piano), London Mozart Players, Jonathan Bloxham (conductor)

Music of the Mendelssohns, brother and sister, is brought to life and light by Isata Kanneh-Mason, the piano star of the exceptional British family of musicians. Representing Felix is his virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 1, along with solo transcriptions by Rachmaninoff, Moszkowski and Liszt of some of his other well-known works. Another enticement here is Isata’s revelatory performance of Fanny’s Easter Sonata, a piece lost for 150 years and formerly attributed to Felix.

The French Album
London Choral Sinfonia, Nick Pritchard (tenor), Miriam Allan (soprano), James Orford (organ), Michael Waldron (conductor)

Hailed for championing contemporary British choral music, the London Choral Sinfonia and its founding Artistic Director Michael Waldron, present this album of familiar, and less familiar, French choral music from the 19th and 20th centuries. Capped off by Jean Langlais’ grand Messe Solennelle and unearthing Marcel Dupré’s Quatre Motets, the Choral Sinfonia also treats us to such favorites as Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine and Franck’s Psalm 150 and Panis Angelicus.

Faure: Requiem - Gounod: Messe de Clovis
Emőke Baráth (soprano), Philippe Estèphe (baritone), Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet (conductor)

Known and lesser-known mix in this release of French sacred music by the renowned French early music vocal and instrumental ensemble. Fauré’s beautiful and treasured Requiem, in his 1893 orchestration which omits violins and woodwinds, is featured alongside Gounod’s similarly reflective and intimate Messe de Clovis, composed two years prior. Smaller works by Louis Aubert, a composition pupil of Fauré, and Andre Caplet round out the program.

Shostakovich Symphonies 4, 5 & 6
Oslo Philharmonic, Klaus Mäkelä (conductor)

Shostakovich wrote his Fourth Symphony at a time when he was already in hot water with the Soviet authorities. The Fifth helped get him out of trouble, and the Sixth continued his rehabilitation in the eyes of the powers that were. Composed between 1936 and 1939, the symphonies receive fresh takes by the Oslo Philharmonic and their chief conductor, who have been touring with these seminal 20th century works.

A Philadelphia native, Mark grew up in Roxborough and at WRTI has followed in the footsteps of his father, William, who once hosted a music program on the station back in the '50s.