New Releases

New Release: Ólafur Arnalds’ “re:member”

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Pulse, pattern, and expansive, ambient soundscapes blend into an intoxicating brew on re:member, an album released last August by Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds (b. 1986). In an earlier post, we explored the similarities between the gradual, hypnotic inevitability of Arnalds’ looping patterns and the music of minimalist composers like Steve Reich. Here, Arnalds takes the leap into a brave new world of computer-influenced composition. The music of re:member was written using Stratus, a new software program the composer helped …

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New Release: Víkingur Ólafsson Plays Bach

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The music of J.S. Bach travels well. It is some of the most perfect and highly-ordered music ever written. Yet it’s also some of the most durable and versatile. These 300-year-old notes continue to come alive in new and exciting ways. We got a sense of this earlier in the month with violinist Hilary Hahn’s fiery, romantic approach to solo Bach, reminiscent of the free and distinctive interpretations of twentieth century artists like Kreisler, Heifetz, …

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New Release: “Hilary Hahn Plays Bach”

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Violinist Hilary Hahn released her first solo Bach album more than twenty years ago as a teenager. Now, she has returned to this music with a newly-released recording featuring Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor, Partita No. 1 in B minor, and Sonata No. 2 in A minor. Completed nearly 300 years ago, this sublime collection of Baroque dances stands at the center of the violin repertoire. Hahn’s conception of this music moves away …

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New Release: Rossini’s “Semiramide,” Sir Mark Elder and Opera Rara

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“Rossini’s music is primarily rhythmic,” says British conductor Sir Mark Elder. “It bubbles. Even in the saddest music, there is a sense of bubbling going along underneath.” According to Elder, control of the tempo is more important than the tempo, itself. It is a sense of collective precision that keeps the audience “leaning forward.”  Sir Mark Elder and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment put these concepts to work in a new studio recording of Rossini’s Semiramide. Based …

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New Release: Rachel Barton Pine and Jory Vinikour Play Bach Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord

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Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour have released a new album featuring J.S. Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019. This marks the duo’s first recording collaboration. Barton Pine uses a baroque bow and plays a 1770 Nicola Gagliano violin which is in its “original, unaltered condition.” Also included on the album is the Cantabile, BWV 1019a which Bach originally wrote for the Sonata, BWV 1019. Likely composed between 1717 and 1723 during Bach’s Köthen period, these …

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New Release: Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque

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English violinist, conductor, and Baroque specialist Rachel Podger has released an invigorating new recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons in collaboration with Brecon Baroque, an ensemble she founded in 2007. This collection of concertos, published in 1725, is so familiar to us today that it’s easy to forget how bold, innovative, and virtuosic this music must have seemed to its first audiences. Accompanied by sonnets, also written by Vivaldi, these works stand as some …

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New Release: Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra

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A spectacular new hybrid SACD recording of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, featuring Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra, came out earlier this month on the Swedish label, BIS Records. This is the second installment in a project which will include the complete cycle of Mahler Symphonies. (The Fifth Symphony was released last July). Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra have already recorded the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Sibelius. The hybrid recording technology attempts to capture …

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