Your guide to classical music online
In 2005 Grotto Productions brought out a double album containing world-premiere recordings encompassing Paul Paray’s complete output for piano. I reviewed this release for Classicstoday.com,
They don’t like Mahler, Lorin Maazel reportedly said of the To access this content you must login to your Insider account, or purchase a subscription for $5 monthly, or $49 annually.
As with just about all the Mahler symphonies, Abbado has To access this content you must login to your Insider account, or purchase a subscription for $5 monthly, or $49 annually.
The good news is that the sonics in both regular stereo and SACD multichannel playback are excellent. The bad news is that this performance, while
Markus Stenz recorded a thrilling performance of this symphony with the Melbourne Symphony for ABC Classics, but this new version is nowhere near as good.
Reviews
They don’t like Mahler, Lorin Maazel reportedly said of the To access this content you must login to your Insider account, or purchase a subscription
As with just about all the Mahler symphonies, Abbado has To access this content you must login to your Insider account, or purchase a subscription
Revisiting this performance reveals issues emblematic of what’s wrong with […]
Anyone familiar with this repertoire, so intimately associated with Russian […]
During the 1940s and 1950s the “World’s Most Popular Classical […]
[Note: As Easter, 2023 approaches, it’s time to remember–and revisit–this […]
In 2005 Grotto Productions brought out a double album containing world-premiere recordings encompassing Paul Paray’s complete output for piano. I reviewed this release for Classicstoday.com,
The good news is that the sonics in both regular stereo and SACD multichannel playback are excellent. The bad news is that this performance, while
Markus Stenz recorded a thrilling performance of this symphony with the Melbourne Symphony for ABC Classics, but this new version is nowhere near as good.
Here are four discs respectively devoted to four pianists who made the final rounds in the 2013 and 2016 International Queen Elisabeth Competition, all in
Not all listeners warm to classical saxophonists’ smooth and seamless timbres, in contrast to the disparate individuality typifying great jazz artists. That said, Huw Wiggin’s
[This review from our archives is in memory of Grace Bumbry, January 4, 1937-May 7, 2023.] This is not to be confused with the (rightly)
If I Could Choose Only One Work By...CHABRIER
It Would Have To Be...España
Mahler called it "the birth of modern orchestration," and right he was!
The List So Far...
1. Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Ballet)
2. Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
3. Schubert: String Quintet in C major
4. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
5. Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
6. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
7. Debussy: Preludes for Piano (Books 1 & 2)
8: Handel: Saul
9. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
10. Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G major
11. Vaughan Williams: Job
12. Bach: Goldberg Variations
13. R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
14. Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
15. Haydn: “Paris” Symphonies (Nos. 82-87)
16. Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
17. Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor
18. Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor
19. Chopin: Preludes
20. Verdi: Rigoletto
21. Roussel: Symphony No. 2
22. Copland: Appalachian Spring (complete original ballet)
23. Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 and 2
24. Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
25. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2
26. Rimsky-Korsakov: Opera Suites (Scottish National Orchestra/Järvi) Chandos
27. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire
28. Smetana: Ma Vlást
29. Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
30. Bizet: Carmen
31. Elgar: In the South
32. Sullivan: The Mikado
33. Dvořák: Symphony No. 8; Cello Concerto (Piatigorsky/Munch/Boston Symphony) RCA
34. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies
35. Monteverdi: Orfeo
36. Scarlatti: Sonatas
37. Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op. 17
38. Berg: Wozzeck
39. Hermann: Psycho (film score)
40. Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini
41. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
42. Holst: Suites for Military Band
43. Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex
44. Respighi: Three Botticelli Pictures
45. Sibelius: Symphony No. 5; Pohjola’s Daughter (Bernstein, New York Philharmonic) Sony
46. Britten: The Turn of the Screw
47. Borodin: String Quartet No. 2
48. Janácek: The Cunning Little Vixen
49. Korngold: Violin Concerto
50. Tallis: Spem in Alium
51. Nielsen: Symphony No. 5
52. Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915
53. Hindemith: Symphony in E-flat
54. Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov
55. Franck: Violin Sonata
56. Rossini: La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie)
57. Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 “Egyptian”
58. Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins
59. Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
60. Albeniz: Iberia
61. Bernstein: Mass
62. Schreker: Chamber Symphony
63. Walton: Variations on a Theme by Hindemith
64. Dukas: Piano Sonata
65. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
66. Tippett: Piano Concerto
67. Poulenc: Songs (ATMA, 5 discs)
68. Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No. 1
69. Gluck: Alceste
70. Vivaldi: L’estro armonico, Op. 3
71. Puccini: La Bohème
72. Hanson: Symphony No. 2 “Romantic”
73. Alkan: 12 Etudes in All the Minor Keys, Op. 39
74. Dutilleux: Métaboles
75. Glinka: Kamarinskaya
76. Crumb: Makrokosmos III (Music for a Summer Evening)
77. Biber: Sonata violino solo representativa
78. Josquin: Missa Ave maris stella
79. Arnold: Symphony No. 5
80. Fauré: Piano Quartets (Trio Wanderer) Harmonia Mundi
81. Hovhaness: Fra Angelico
82. Martinu: Symphony No. 6 “Fantaisies symphoniques”
83. Grainger: Lincolnshire Posy
84. Corelli: 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6
85. Bellini: Norma
86. Ives: “Concord” Sonata
87. John Williams: Jaws (film score)
88. Honegger: Le Roi David (King David)
89. Kodály: “Peacock” Variations
90. Milhaud: Une Vie Heureuse (10 CD Set, Erato)
91. Scriabin: Piano Sonatas (Hamelin/Hyperion)
92. Casella: Concerto for Orchestra
93. Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus
Review: 50 Fantastic Pražák Quartet CDs from Praga
Make no mistake, the Pražák Quartet is one of the great ones, as these 50 indispensable CDs attest. If you care about great chamber music playing, don't hesitate for a minute.
Film Score: The 49th Parallel by Vaughan Williams
Vaughan Williams: The 49th Parallel (complete score). BBC Concert Orchestra, Martin Yates (cond.) Dutton Epoch
Review: Byron Janis' Marvelous Mercury Masters
Byron Janis: The Mercury Masters (9 CDs plus 1 Blu-ray disc). Works by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Liszt, Schumann, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Chopin, Mozart, others. Various Conductors and Orchestras (Mercury Living Presence)
How I Discovered...SCHUMANN
Schumann's music has never impressed me as much as that of his contemporaries and successors, for a variety of reasons. But eventually I started to come around because, well, he was a genius whose works are often extraordinary. But I couldn't take anyone else's word for it. I had to find my own path forward, and it's a project still in the making.
Review: Finally, Blomstedt's Complete Decca Recordings
And they're fabulous--all 33 CDs' worth, including amazing extended series of works by Nielsen, Sibelius, Hindemith and Strauss.. Get this one before it's too late.
There are many composers in recent years who have written works to commemorate an event, honor a person,
Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue, New York; April 12, 2023—Now coming up on its 10th year,
Carnegie Hall, NY; March 23, 2023—Richard Strauss famously said “I may not be a first-rate composer, but I
