![Eusebius Quartet, Alasdair Beatson – Korngold: Chamber Works (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/01/19/g0cf50xjisxdb_600.md.jpg)
Eusebius Quartet, Alasdair Beatson – Korngold: Chamber Works (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM Recordings throws new, invigorating light on the Chamber Music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, performed by the Eusebius Quartet and pianist Alasdair Beatson. Hailed by musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky as “the very last breath of the romantic spirit of Vienna”, Korngold’s stellar beginnings in Europe’s concert halls and opera houses were later overshadowed by his success in America where his soaring symphonic signature forged the template for the Hollywood soundtrack.
![Elsie Suddaby, BBC Symphony Orchestra – Vaughan Williams Live, Vol. 2 (Live) [Remastered 2022] (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/23/xedfrfc300otb_600.md.jpg)
Elsie Suddaby, BBC Symphony Orchestra – Vaughan Williams Live, Vol. 2 (Live) [Remastered 2022] (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]
SOMM Recordings’ celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ birth continues with Volume 2 of Vaughan Williams Live, featuring historic performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult in new, signature remasterings by Lani Spahr with authoritative booklet notes by Vaughan Williams’ biographer Simon Heffer. Two works featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus include a 1945 BBC radio broadcast of the first performance of the wartime masterpiece Thanksgiving for Victory – with soprano Elsie Suddaby, organist George Thalben-Ball and Valentine Dyall as the speaker – and the rapturous Serenade to Music from the opening night of the BBC’s Third Programme (now Radio 3) in 1946. First performed in 1938 in celebration of Henry Wood’s jubilee as a conductor and originally composed for 16 solo singers, it appears here in it’s version for orchestra, chorus and four soloists – Isobel Baillie (soprano), Astra Desmond (contralto), Beveridge White (tenor), and Harold Williams (baritone). It’s dedicatee, Boult, conducts a performance of Job: A Masque for Dancing in 1946 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra before he made his four studio recordings of the work. Volume 1 of Vaughan Williams Live (SOMM Ariadne 5016) was hailed by All About the Arts as “beautifully remastered [and] sounding like pure gold” and was The Symphonist’s Record of the Week. SOMM’s other Vaughan Williams recordings include the Gramophone Award-winning Symphony No.5 and Dona Nobis Pacem with the LPO/BBCSO (SOMMCD 071), and The Piano Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Mark Bebbington and Rebecca Omordia (SOMMCD 0164), described by International Piano as “compelling”.
![Dimitri Mitropoulos, New York Philharmonic – Vaughan Williams Live Vol. 4 (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/09/gy8uwzur26pqc_600.md.jpg)
Dimitri Mitropoulos, New York Philharmonic – Vaughan Williams Live Vol. 4 (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 44,1 kHz]
SOMM RECORDINGS continues its acclaimed Vaughan Williams Live series celebrating the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ birth with Volume 4 featuring his signature Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, the Concerto for Two Pianos and Eighth Symphony in recordings conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos and Sir John Barbirolli. The Tallis Fantasia is a live recording from Carnegie Hall in 1943 with Mitropoulos, a committed advocate for Vaughan Williams’ music, conducting the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra. They are also heard in the Concerto for Two Pianos, again from Carnegie Hall in 1952, when the soloists were Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, who forged a widely popular and critically acclaimed piano duo partnership in America in the middle of the last century. Recorded in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1964, the Symphony No.8 is blazingly conducted by its dedicatee, Sir John Barbirolli, leading the Hallé Orchestra.
![Dante Quartet – Stanford: String Quartets, Vol. 3 (2020) [FLAC 24 bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/05/ove79za8uyuuc_600.md.jpg)
Dante Quartet – Stanford: String Quartets, Vol. 3 (2020) [FLAC 24 bit, 88,2 kHz]
SOMM Recordings’ historic complete survey of Charles Villiers Stanford’s String Quartets by the Dante Quartet reaches its end with a third volume focusing on Nos. 1 and 2, and the first recording of No. 6. Already acclaimed as a composer of choral music, Stanford came relatively late to the string quartet form, composing his first two at the age of 39 in 1891. Six more followed over the next three decades, including the Op. 122 String Quartet, No. 6 in 1910. This final volume features the early String Quartets, Opp. 44 (No. 1) and 45 (No. 2) which share a concern for meticulous use of individual instrument voices and a leaning towards lyricism. Allusions to Beethoven and Mozart are contained within Stanford’s own beautifully crafted music. Heard here in its premiere recording, the Sixth String Quartet is a work of rich contrasts, restless energy and some of Stanford’s most expressive writing for the medium. Volume I (SOMMCD 0160) was admired as “an excellent disc in every respect” (MusicWeb International), applauded as “most enterprising and thoroughly likeable” (Classical Ear) and acclaimed “a really worthwhile release” (Gramophone). Volume II (SOMMCD 0185) was described as “essential listening… SOMM and the Dantes have broken important new ground with impressive commitment” by Gramophone and by Limelight as being “played with great élan and sensitivity by the excellent Dante Quartet”.
![Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann – The Reeds by Severn Side (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/05/17/ndn5ujbkfdypc_600.md.jpg)
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann – The Reeds by Severn Side (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM Recordings announces the release of The Reeds by Severn Side, a ravishing collection of choral works by Edward Elgar, sung by the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, led by director William Vann, accompanied by organist Joshua Ryan.
![Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann, Joshua Ryan, Richard Horne – I Vow to Thee, My Country (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/01/07/muw4fpkry0xda_60068fd768d7ae40acb.md.jpg)
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann, Joshua Ryan, Richard Horne – I Vow to Thee, My Country (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM RECORDINGS announces the release of I Vow to Thee, My Country, believed to be the first recording to feature all of Gustav Holst’s sacred choral music, by the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea directed by William Vann, with organist Joshua Ryan and Richard Horne on tubular and bass bells.
![Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann – In Remembrance (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/11/xemu4l4mg30pc_600.md.jpg)
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann – In Remembrance (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
In the centenary anniversary year of the end of the First World War and on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War, SOMM Recordings pays tribute to those who fought and fell in battle with In Remembrance. A moving compendium of music spanning 130 years, it features the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Choir of Chelsea Pensioners, Staff and Volunteers, sopranos Katy Hill and Leah Jackson, baritone Gareth John and organists James Orford and Hugh Rowlands under the direction of William Vann. Founded in 1682 by King Charles II, the Royal Hospital is home to the world-famous Chelsea Pensioners – retired veterans of the British army – whose contributions on three tracks adds its own special poignancy to In Remembrance. Moving choral works commemorating courage and offering comfort by Hubert Parry (his anthemic Jerusalem), Gustav Holst (the stirring I Vow to Thee, My Country) and Edward Elgar (his serene partsong They are at rest) are heard alongside equally affecting pieces by their contemporaries and successors, Charles Villiers Stanford, John Ireland, Douglas Guest and Charles Harris.
![Chamber Ensemble of London, Peter Fisher – Eclogue (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/21/vk9u41bbcinfc_600.md.jpg)
Chamber Ensemble of London, Peter Fisher – Eclogue (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce the release of Eclogue. British Chamber Music, a collection of British chamber music from the 19th to the 21st centuries including nine first recordings featuring the label debut of the Chamber Ensemble of London in their 25th anniversary year with director Peter Fisher.
![Christopher Kent, Gamal Khamis – R. Strauss: Enoch Arden, Op. 38, TrV 181 & The Castle by the Sea, TrV 191 (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/21/d5u9jngw5mohb_600.md.jpg)
Christopher Kent, Gamal Khamis – R. Strauss: Enoch Arden, Op. 38, TrV 181 & The Castle by the Sea, TrV 191 (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 192 kHz]
SOMM Recordings announces a major addition to the Richard Strauss catalogue with new recordings of his settings of two era-defining melodramas: the epic poem Enoch Arden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, England’s revered and longest-serving Poet Laureate, and German poet Ludwig Uhland’s atmospheric interrogation of a traveller returning from a mysterious mediaeval fortress, The Castle by the Sea. Making their SOMM Recordings debuts are actor Christopher Kent and pianist Gamal Khamis.
![Carolyn Sampson – From 5 Continents: Choral Music & Songs (2020) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/06/hx0s9vo61zhua_600.md.jpg)
Carolyn Sampson – From 5 Continents: Choral Music & Songs (2020) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
Somm Recordings is delighted to announce the release of an intriguing new recording, introducing the melodious, rhythmically vibrant choral music and songs of Penelope Thwaites. Featuring 19 premiere recordings, From Five Continents celebrates a lifetime of making music around the world to showcase Thwaites’ distinctive compositional signature. The disc’s centrepiece, a moving new Missa Brevis, is coupled with four Psalm settings, songs influenced by the sounds of Indian and African music, folk-styles from the Americas and an evocation of the vast Australian outback.
![Corinne Morris, Petr Limonov – Belle Époque 1886 (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/31/jnpce6qkxn2tb_600.md.jpg)
Corinne Morris, Petr Limonov – Belle Époque 1886 (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM RECORDINGS: Belle Époque 1886 celebrates a golden age of French chamber music, uniquely coupling Cello Sonatas by César Franck and Benjamin Godard. Francks A major and Godards D minor Sonatas were both composed in 1886 when French composers were replacing Austro-German dominance with a native, vernacular style. Making their debuts on SOMM are cellist Corinne Morris and pianist Petr Limonov. Of Anglo-French heritage, Morris continues to reveal herself a formidable musician. She made a triumphant comeback after a shoulder injury forced her to withdraw from the concert platform for more than five years. She has been hailed by Mstislav Rostropovich as Corinotchka, my colleague while Paul Tortelier wrote My warmest wishes are for Corinne and her art. With a burgeoning profile at the keyboard and conductors podium, Russian-British pianist Petr Limonov has been described as an extremely multi-faceted, phenomenal musician who has an endless array of abilities (Classical Music magazine). Francks Cello Sonata an arrangement by cellist Jules Delsart of his Violin Sonata, originally composed for violinist Eugène Ysaÿes wedding and the only alternative version sanctioned by the composer is notable for the lyrical, singing quality of its cello writing while boasting complex harmonies and sophisticated thematic devices throughout. A prolific composer, versatile musician and close associate of Francks, Godards Cello Sonata, says Gavin Dixon in his booklet notes, demonstrates an innate knowledge of the instrument, especially of the varied expressive potential of its different ranges. It is shot through with vivid coloring of the cellos voice in shifting registers and Godards penchant for the operatic.
![José Serebrier, Concerto Malaga – José Serebrier Conducts Granados (2017) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/30/0748871017122_600.md.jpg)
José Serebrier, Concerto Malaga – José Serebrier Conducts Granados (2017) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]
This delightful disc of Spanish music arranged for strings and celebrating the 150th anniversary of Enrique Granados, was recorded by legendary conductor José Serebrier and Concerto Málaga String Orchestra founded in 1996. The orchestra is now one of the foremost ensembles in Spain, best known for its dedicated research into string repertoire ranging from the 17th century onwards. Their recording pays tribute to one of Spain’s most important composers, Enrique Granados and also includes works by Granados’s contemporaries and successors who played active roles in promoting Barcelona’s and Madrid’s musical life in the middle of the 19th century.
![Cordelia Williams – Cascade (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/09/28/pg91p1jevgmsc_600.md.jpg)
Cordelia Williams – Cascade (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM Recordings announces Cascade, the exhilarating new recital by pianist Cordelia Williams featuring music by Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev.
Cascade explores music’s mercurial ability to change in an instant, to reveal depths beneath the surface, and to illustrate, as Williams says, “that the whole world can change entirely in one twist of perspective, one change of angle, to offer a glimpse of something bigger”.
![Cordelia Williams – Nightlight (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/31/mr08adoa4nwjb_600.md.jpg)
Cordelia Williams – Nightlight (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 88,2 kHz]
SOMM Recordings announces the return of pianist Cordelia Williams with Nightlight, a compelling exploration of the contrariness of night, its turmoil, terror and tenderness, and the longing for light.
![Bath Camerata – Songs of Renewal (2019) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/23/rzp3k0iihdksb_600.md.jpg)
Bath Camerata – Songs of Renewal (2019) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
The promise of rebirth and rejuvenation is celebrated by SOMM Recordings’ Songs of Renewal, a collection of choral works – including two first recordings – by seven living British composers performed by Bath Camerata under musical director Benjamin Goodson. Joining the ensemble are soprano Elizabeth Cragg and composer-pianist Huw Watkins, whose Shakespeare setting The Phoenix and the Turtle (2014) moves puissantly from monotone chanting to solemn chorale for an allegorical poem mourning the passing of ideal love.
![Barry Wordsworth, BBC Concert Orchestra, Brighton Festival Chorus – Ecce sacerdos magnus (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/12/qzzq76faxqmkc_600.md.jpg)
Barry Wordsworth, BBC Concert Orchestra, Brighton Festival Chorus – Ecce sacerdos magnus (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]
The growing genius of a titan of English music comes vividly into focus in a stunning collection of Edward Elgar’s music for chorus and orchestra from the Brighton Festival Chorus and BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The voice was at the centre of Elgar’s musical life as a child – his sister recalled family evenings when ‘[we] sang and sang for the very joy of singing’ – and it was to play a defining role in his own compositions. Spanning 26 years – from the imposing setting of Ecce sacerdos magnus (‘Behold the great priest’)* in 1888 to the richly realised psalm settings of the 1910s, it is possible to chart in these often moving, occasionally monumental works the development of Elgar’s prowess in setting the voice. Behold the Great Priest presents a treasure-trove of Elgar’s choral compositions intriguingly mapping out his development towards the full-scale masterpieces of Sea Pictures, The Apostles and The Dream of Gerontius. Illuminating, newly commissioned notes are provided by Andrew Neill, chairman of the Elgar Society from 1992-2008. *A rarity on disc, Ecce sacerdos magnus shares its opening notes with the Benedictus from Joseph Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, a 1949 recording an excerpt of which – featuring the Munich Cathedral Choir and Orchestra conducted by Ludwig Berberich – is included demonstrating striking similarities between the two.
![Benjamin Frith, Members of the Dante and Endellion Quartets – Stanford: Chamber Works (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/31/ho5mafj0t97xb_600.md.jpg)
Benjamin Frith, Members of the Dante and Endellion Quartets – Stanford: Chamber Works (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]
SOMM Recordings’ widely acclaimed survey of Charles Villiers Stanford’s chamber music continues with his two String Quintets and Three Intermezzi arranged for cello and piano.
A unique collaboration between members of the Dante and Endellion Quartets, together with pianist Benjamin Frith, sees first recordings of the String Quintet No.2 in C minor and the arrangement of the Three Intermezzi.
![Art Deco Trio, Iain Farrington, Kyle Horch, Peter Sparks – Gershwinicity (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/07/07/w93ym4g6me5pb_600.md.jpg)
Art Deco Trio, Iain Farrington, Kyle Horch, Peter Sparks – Gershwinicity (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]
SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce the debut recording of composer-pianist Iain Farrington’s Art Deco Trio, featuring 15 new instrumental arrangements blending classical and jazz influences of songs by George Gershwin.
![Art Deco Trio – Classical Changes (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/08/m1hsb94kzlhob_600.md.jpg)
Art Deco Trio – Classical Changes (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Classical Changes, a second disc by the Art Deco Trio, which treats favourite classical pieces to delightful and often dazzling jazz-accented re-workings in variegated arrangements by Iain Farrington.
![Anthony Flint, Clélia Iruzun – Treasures from the New World, Vol. 2 (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://i.imgur.com/SZr5THL.jpg)
Anthony Flint, Clélia Iruzun – Treasures from the New World, Vol. 2 (2021) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
SOMM RECORDINGS is pleased to announce the return of pianist Clélia Iruzun and the label debut of violinist Anthony Flint with Treasures from the New World, Volume 2, a revelatory compendium of sonatas and duets by five Brazilian composers who defined the sound and soul of modern Latin American music.