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Zeb Soanes, Britten Sinfonia Voices, Britten Sinfonia & Jamie Phillips – Delius: Hassan – complete incidental music (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:25 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Although he had initially declined the commission, Delius was persuaded to write the incidental music for Hassan by the actor and director Basil Dean, in July 1920, for performances he was planning for His Majesty’s Theatre, London, the following year. Much of the music was drafted within a few weeks, and the score would eventually prove one of the greatest successes of Delius’s career. Dean’s plans for the project encountered significant obstacles and delays, however, and he had to commission additional music from Delius to cover the production’s complex scene changes. The London première eventually took place on 20 September 1923 and was a critical sensation. Flecker’s play is a sinuous double-narrative that intertwines the twin stories of the lovelorn but worldly wise Hassan, confectioner at the court of the cruel and vindictive Caliph Haroun al Rashid (called Haroun ar Rashid in Flecker’s play), and the young lovers Pervaneh and Rafi, caught up in the aftermath of a failed uprising and condemned to a terrifying and brutally protracted death. In tone and setting, Flecker’s text drew on nineteenth-century English translations of One Thousand and One Nights as well as other heavily fictionalised accounts and travel literature. Very much a product of the racial and class-based attitudes of its time, the play revels in imaginary scenes of a despotic Eastern.
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Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia – Donizetti: L’esule di Roma (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:05:45 minutes | 4,43 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Opera Rara
To celebrate the 225th anniversary of Gaetano Donizetti’s birth, Opera Rara has restored L’esule di Roma (1828), an opera which is considered a milestone in the composer’s illustrious career. Set in Imperial Rome, L’esule di Roma is filled with political conspiracy, romantic intrigue and great sacrifice. Vocal fireworks fly in this opera, punctuating remarkable ensembles and touching arias.Carlo Rizzi, Opera Rara’s Artistic Director, leads a star cast with Nicola Alaimo in one of Donizetti’s finest roles for bass-baritone, soprano Albina Shagimuratova, The Times’ “new queen of bel canto”, and tenor Sergey Romanovsky in the title role.
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Elizabeth Watts & Britten Sinfonia – Richard Blackford: Songs of Nadia Anjuman (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 18:14 minutes | 330 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nimbus Alliance
Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) was an Afghan poet writing during a period of turmoil. In 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat, her birthplace, women’s liberties were drastically reduced. A gifted student, Nadia faced a future with no hope of education. With other women she attended an underground educational circle, Golden Needle Sewing School. Meeting uder the guise of learning how to sew, the meetings were in fact discussions on literature with Herat professors. While earning her degree in literature she published her first book of poetry. The five poems chosen are wide-ranging and cover extremes of emotion: from love; to delight in being a poet; to despair at her lack of freedom; and even contemplation of suicide.
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Choir of Kings College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia & Daniel Hyde – Rutter: Orchestral Carols (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 23:19 minutes | 908 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Kings College Cambridge
The album joins the label’s other critically and commercially successful recordings, which continue to be streamed by thousands of listeners around the world, including In The Bleak Midwinter which was released in 2021. Rutter Orchestral Carols includes beautiful orchestral arrangements of well-known favourites such as Silent Night and Sans Day Carol as well as Rutter’s original carols All bells in paradise and All the stars looked down, which is dedicated to the late Sir Stephen Cleobury. “It was a pleasure to record a handful of John’s carols, some old, some new, in these colourful orchestrations… hopefully these new tracks will add a bit of magic to people’s Christmas this year,” said Daniel Hyde, Director of Music, King’s College
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Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia & Richard Pinel – Grayston Ives: Requiem (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 42:46 minutes | 735 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
Bill Ives has enjoyed a rich and varied career as both performer and composer (Grayston Ives). These experiences, culminating in nearly two decades as Informator Choristarum (Director of Music) at Magdalen College, Oxford, are reflected in a compositional style which is complex yet accessible, rich and colourful. His choral music comes from the heart, and this deeply personal reaction to the texts enables the performer or listener to engage with and enjoy the music to its full extent.
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Ex Cathedra & Britten Sinfonia – The Traveller • Earth and Sky (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:24 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
The Traveller, for choir, children’s choir, orchestra, tenor, violin and speaker, was the third in a series of four major works with words by Vikram Seth and music by Alec Roth, commissioned jointly over four years by the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals (2006-09). Each work featured the violinist Philippe Honoré as soloist, and each took a different geographical/cultural area as its starting point.
Earth and Sky, for children’s choir and piano (with optional percussion), was commissioned by the BBC for the Proms 2000 season. In keeping with the millennial theme, a work presenting a vision of the future was requested.
Ex Cathedra has performed Alec’s music in over 200 concerts since 2007. There have been large scale commissions and recordings, alongside many short ‘gems’. It is of consistently high quality with moments of absolute genius. The relationship continues to flourish.
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Choir of Merton College, Oxford, Benjamin Nicholas & Britten Sinfonia – Orchestral Anthems: Elgar | Finzi | Dyson | Howells (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:06 minutes | 948 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Delphian Records
For the Choir of Merton College, Oxford’s first collaboration with Britten Sinfonia, Benjamin Nicholas has brought together a collection of sacred works from the first half of the twentieth century.A little-known fact is that these stalwarts of the English repertory were either originally intended to be heard with orchestra, or subsequently orchestrated by their composer or a close colleague.
Written for enthronements, coronations and the nation’s grandest choral festivals, these national ‘standards’ arehere brought back to life, their orchestral accompaniments affording them the richness, pomp and majesty associated with that epoch.
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Nicholas Daniel, Britten Sinfonia, James MacMillan – Ralph Vaughan Williams & James MacMillan: Oboe Concertos (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:05:54 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
It is the 1944 Oboe Concerto of Ralph Vaughan Williams, so distant from the terrors of war and so congruent in its combination of reed-instrument soloist and pastoral signs, that gets top billing here. That’s natural enough; it’s a crowd-pleasing work, and because star oboists are a rare breed, it’s not as often heard as other works by this composer. The big news here, however, is that the other oboe concerto on the program, the 2010 Oboe Concerto of Scots composer James MacMillan, just might inspire the evolution of a few more star oboists. Within its mere 24 minutes are large musical spaces with a great variety of musical colors and external references, leading up to an impressive finale that takes corners quickly at the top of the oboe’s range. MacMillan himself, leading the Britten Sinfonia, wisely brackets this work with appropriate chamber-orchestra works: Benjamin Britten’s late Suite on English Folk Tunes: A Time There Was, Op. 90, and his own One, for chamber orchestra. But the star here is oboe soloist Nicholas Daniel, equally adept in the blazing MacMillan finale and in the calmly dreamy Vaughan Williams and the quite grave slow movement of the MacMillan concerto. An impressive addition to the oboe discography, with some of the gnarliest oboe writing since Vivaldi’s concertos for his orphan virtuosi at the Ospedale della Pietà.
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Matilda Lloyd, Britten Sinfonia & Rumon Gamba – Casta Diva – Operatic arias transcribed for trumpet (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:42 minutes | 1018 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Hailed as ‘remarkable’ by The Daily Telegraph, Matilda Lloyd is a young instrumentalist with exceptional poise and musicality. She studied music at the University of Cambridge, Royal Academy of Music, and with HAkan Hardenberger at Musikhogskolan i Malmo. She has since captivated audiences and critics alike with her artistry, communication, and, in the words of Saarbrucker Zeitung (March 2020), ‘flawless sound and virtuosic technique’, with which she brings a unique flair to every performance. She won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Brass Final in 2014, and in 2016 made her debut at the BBC Proms. Casta Diva is Matilda’s debut album on Chandos, about which she writes: ‘Every trumpet player has studied the ultimate technique book, by Jean-Baptiste Arban – a monumental tome affectionately known as ‘The Trumpet Bible’. At the end of the book are sets of theme and variations – my favourite, the Variations on Bellini’s Norma, became the point of departure for this album inspired by nineteenth-century Italian opera, as it uses the aria ‘Casta Diva’, from Bellini’s 1831 opera, as its theme. The album explores the voice of the trumpet in that golden age of opera, highlighting works by Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. I hope that the album showcases the beauty, musicality, and technical brilliance of the instrument, and that you find as much enjoyment in listening to, as we did in arranging and recording, these fantastic pieces of music!’
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Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia – Mercadante: Il proscritto (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:03:48 minutes | 2,19 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Opera Rara
Set near Edinburgh in the middle of the 17th century, Il Proscritto (1842) weaves a tragic tale of lost love and political treachery during the rule of Oliver Cromwell.
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Thomas Adès & Britten Sinfonia – Beethoven: Complete Symphonies & Barry: Selected Works (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 07:00:31 minutes | 7,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records
To mark their 30th Anniversary, Britten Sinfonia and Thomas Ades are releasing their acclaimed Beeethoven and Barry cycle as a box set. The works were recorded between 2017 and 2019 at Barbican Hall, London and Theatre Royal, Brighton.
Read more![Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Adès - Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7-9 – Barry: The Eternal Recurrence (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/12/xuxmwycc8cb2b_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Adès – Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7-9 – Barry: The Eternal Recurrence (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:19:04 minutes | 4,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Signum Records
The final instalment in the ‘Beethoven & Barry’ recording series which, over three volumes, has traced all nine of Beethoven’s Symphonies coupled with music by the celebrated Irish composer Gerald Barry.
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Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Gould – Bach, Sitkovetsky: Goldberg Variations (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:12:50 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) supposedly wrote his Goldberg Variations at the request of Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk who wanted some clavier pieces for his harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. However, there is no evidence that this was the case, particularly given that Goldberg would only have been fourteen years of age when the variations were written. The indications are that the Goldberg Variations were intended to be an integral part of Bach’s Clavier-Übung series to which they bring an impressive finale.
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Britten Sinfonia, Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Graham Ross & William Vann – Pan’s Anniversary (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:44 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Albion
In 2022, we celebrate Vaughan Williams’s 150th birthday, and the pinnacle of Albion Record’s contribution to this important milestone is this Pan’s Anniversary album, which contains five world premiere recordings.
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