For the Record: Jan. 12, 2024.
Shouting out three outstanding classical music recording series that enlivened 2023, plus listings for new and upcoming releases.
For the Record rounds up details about new and pending recordings of interest to the new-music community: contemporary classical music and jazz, electronic and electroacoustic music, and idioms for which no clever genre name has been coined, on CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital-only formats… you name it.
This list of release dates is culled from press releases, Amazon, Bandcamp, and other internet stores and sources, social-media posts, and online resources such as Discogs. Dates cited typically correspond to initial U.S. release, and are subject to change. (Links to Amazon, used when all else fails, do not imply endorsement.)
These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to nightafternight@icloud.com.
All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views of any employer.
The lead-in.
When I published “2023, for the record,” my survey of the 2023 recordings that resonated with me most, I omitted any mention of canonical classical music since it falls outside this newsletter’s admittedly vague new-music designation. But after enjoying classical picks cited by other critics – in particular the exhilarating universally acclaimed Ensemble Pygmalion recording of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, and the Ébène Quartet and St. Lawrence Quartet recordings Alex Ross named in The New Yorker – I reckoned it would be worth taking a moment to shine a light on a few classical recordings I admired last year.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth, and we should expect to be awash in recordings of his works, many likely superfluous. (Not all: Bruckner from the Archives, a new six-volume series of historical rarities remastered by Lani Spahr for the Somm label, is tantalizing.) The Austrian label Capriccio got a running start three years ago when it launched its Complete Versions Edition, for which conductor Markus Poschner is recording all 11 of Bruckner’s symphonies in “all versions published or to be published under the auspices of the Austrian National Library and the International Bruckner Society in the Neue Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe,” to borrow the project boilerplate.
I’m not going to play Dave Hurwitz here and try to tell you which symphony is best in what version—and yes, some editions are better left forgotten. Instead, I’ll say that this has been a consistently illuminating journey, with one mighty peak after another along the way. Poschner proves a fine conductor for the assignment, and the two orchestras splitting the journey – the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Bruckner Orchester Linz – play with passion and conviction.
Four releases in the series came out last year, but I’m going to direct you instead toward the latest release, which came out last Friday. I’ve never paid much attention at all to the Symphony No. 1 in any version; this recording I listened to three times straight, completely spellbound by what I’d ignored previously. It’s splendidly, sumptuously Wagnerian, and yet somehow its own thing, as well—the Scherzo in particular is a surprise and a delight.
Strongly recommended, as they say. You’ll find an authorized playlist of the entire recording here.
I’ve also been enjoying another prodigious ongoing series headed toward an even bigger anniversary: the Haydn 2032 edition, pegged to Franz Joseph Haydn’s 300th birthday in, you guessed it, 2032. Conductor Giovanni Antonini is also working with two crack ensembles, Il Giardino Armonico and the Basel Chamber Orchestra. The recordings are on the Alpha label, familiar to new-music types for its Barbara Hannigan and Patricia Kopatchinskaja releases. They’re elegantly packaged, and each volume mixes works from different parts of Haydn’s creative life, and often with works by other composers of the era, for contrast.
Two volumes in this series came out in 2023: Vol. 13: Hornsignal, featuring Il Giardino Armonico, and Vol. 14: L’Impériale, with the Basel ensemble. They’re both delights; if I had to choose just one, it would be Hornsignal for the crisp instrumental sound – those gusty natural horns!! – and the added delight of a perky Telemann concerto tucked in at the end. But really, you can’t go wrong.
The first 10 discs in this series have also been reissued in a slim, tidy box, but no one will blame you for wanting to stick with the sexier original packages. You can stream Vol. 13 in its entirety here, and Vol. 14 here.
I’m less familiar with British ensemble The Mozartists, who also, as it turns out, are working on an anniversary scheme called Mozart 250, set to culminate in 2041. (Ambitious!!) This period-instruments group evidently was founded in 1997 as Classical Opera, and has made Mozart’s vocal works a specialty. I’m getting to know the band through its stylish Sturm und Drang series on the Challenge Classics label, which perhaps surprisingly feature almost nothing by Mozart—in fact, he doesn’t turn up at all until the third volume, issued last October.
Instead, the series focuses on the 18th-century artistic era of the title, when the strong emotional tides headed toward Romanticism had begun to sweep away Classical decorum and rigor. Included in Sturm und Drang, Vol. 3, alongside Mozart’s stage-setting Adagio & Fugue in C minor (K. 546), are segments from two operatic rarities, Anton Schweitzer’s Alceste and Giovanni Paisiello’s Annibale in Torino – both featuring the excellent American soprano Emily Pogorelc – plus a Symphony in G minor by Leopold Koželuch and Haydn’s Symphony No. 44 in E minor (“Trauer”).
The playing has spirit and polish to spare… I look forward to more.
New last week.
Noah Jenkins - Without Persistent Environments (Sawyer Editions)
Kory Reeder - Snow (Sawyer Editions)
Matt Sargent - Illuminations (Sawyer Editions)
Elliott Sharp - Köln Solo (Zoar; recorded 2013)
Germaine Sijstermans & The Prague Quiet Music Collective - Tracings (Sawyer Editions)
Ben Zucker - ( )hole complex (per_formance_eration) (Sawyer Editions)
New this week.
Robert Cahen - La nef des fous (Recollection GRM)
Julius Eastman - Femenine - Talea Ensemble, Harlem Chamber Players (Kairos)
Kory Reeder - If the Thought Evaporates (Full Spectrum)
Matthew Shipp/Steve Swell - Space Cube Jazz (RogueArt)
Josh Sinton - Couloir & Book of Practitioners Vol. 2: Book W (FiP Recordings)
Horacio Vaggione - Schall/Rechant (Recollection GRM)
Upcoming releases.
January 26
Carlos Simon - Tales: A Folklore Symphony - National Symphony Orchestra/Giandrea Noseda (NSO Media)
Taku Sugimoto - Since 2016 (Full Spectrum)
February 1
Eventless Plot - After the rain (Granny)
February 2
Osnat Netzer - Dot : Line : Sigh - performances by Osnat Netzer, Geoffrey Landman, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Mivos Quartet (New Focus)
February 16
Nathalie Joachim - Ki moun ou ye (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)
February 22
Chris Pitsiokos - Irrational Rhythms and Shifting Poles (Eleatic)
February 23
Michael Hersch/Stephanie Fleischmann - Poppaea - Ah Young Hong, Steve Davislim, Silke Gäng, Ensemble SoloVoices, Ensemble Phoenix Basel/Jürg Henneberger (New Focus)
March 1
Ben Frost - Scope Neglect (Mute)
March 15
Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones - New Monuments (We Jazz)
April 1
Adrián Demoč - Piano - Miroslav Beinhauer (elsewhere)
April 5
Matthew Shipp - New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk’)
April 19
claire rousay - sentiment (Thrill Jockey)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.