This week two acclaimed rising stars released their debut albums. Audiences will also get a chance to engage with two rarely performed works and a legendary recording.

Konu Kim 

Tenor Konu Kim released his debut album on the Orphee Classics Label showcasing rarely performed gems of the Italian Bel Canto. The album features selections from Donizetti’s “L’ange di Nisida,” “Les Martyrs,” “L’Elisir d’Amore,” “La Fille du Regiment,” and “Poliuto” as well as Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri,” “Guillaume Tell” and Bellini’s “I Puritani.”

Kim is joined by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra led by Francesco Cilluffo.

 Il delirio della passione

Anna Lucia Richter returns to PENTATONE with a full recording of Monteverdi treasures. The new album showcases Richter working alongside Ensemble Claudiana and Luca Pianca, one of the most eminent Monteverdi interpreters of our age.

In a statement, Richter noted, “When, shortly after my graduation, I first acquainted myself with Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and was allowed to sing La Musica and Euridice in the beautiful Sasha Waltz production with the Freiburger Barockorchester, I immediately fell in love with this music. This incomparable tonal language of Monteverdi opened up a new world for me. On the one hand, it is very close to the melody of speech, while on the other often creating an almost unfathomable emotional depth with just a few, but all the more sophisticated, means. I held this repertoire in awe: with Monteverdi every word, every comma and every point is deliberately there and important. A great task for every interpreter! There is another reason why this recording is special to me: none of us could have known in January during the recording that a few weeks later a terrible pandemic would roll over us and would virtually bring our lives to a standstill. It has changed all of us and it feels as if I am listening to my old self, even if it is only a year ago. In the meantime, I have decided to continue my singing career as a mezzo-soprano, making this album my last recording as a soprano.”

And the sun darkened

GRAMMY-nominated vocal quartet New York Polyphony released a new album on BIS Records dedicated to new and ancient works organized around texts appropriate for Passiontide, the last two weeks of the Lenten season in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

The album includes the world premiere recording of Loyset Compère’s Officium de Cruce, an elaborate, Andrew Smith’s Salme 55, Adrian Willaert’s Pater noster–Ave Maria, and Cyrillus Kreek’s Taaveti laul 22.

Saint Matthew Passion

Warner Classics re-released Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s landmark recording of Bach’s masterpiece featuring Bernarda Fink, Dietrich Henschel, Oliver Widmer, Michael Schade, and Christoph Prégardien. The recording won the Grammy Award of Best Choral Performance and a Diapason d’or de l’année in 2001, and is one of the 100 Greatest Recordings from Gramophone. Audiences can experience the digital release first and then obtain a physical copy on March 19.