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Your guide to classical music online
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Your guide to classical music online
Charles Dutoit’s Prokofiev never has figured prominently among first-rate recommendations. This Double Decca re-release offers a chance at reassessment. While the heavyweight Alexander Nevsky cantata
Decca’s Prokofiev compilation offers all of the composer’s concerted works in one three-disc package. The main attraction, the 1975 Ashkenazy/Previn Piano Concerto cycle, offers Ashkenazy’s
Berlioz’s Lélio actually is a compilation of previously composed pieces, linked by narration into a quasi-dramatic framework. The sole protagonist is Lélio, formerly known as
As the advertising slogan has it: What becomes a legend most? Well, if it’s a legendary singer the answer is a re-release of her best
These are well played, well recorded performances of Rossini’s most popular overtures. Charles Dutoit conducts with an obvious if somewhat restrained sense of the theater.
It’s unfortunate that relatively few listeners will ever have heard Berlioz’s “other” masterpiece, the oratorio L’Enfance du Christ. Admittedly somewhat disjointed in its overall musical
Chausson’s occasionally recorded symphony had two powerful advocates in the 1950s and 60s, namely Charles Munch and Paul Paray, and their discs are considered classics.
Leila Josefowicz says in her booklet note for this release that her “tone is everything”. Indeed, it is her tone that impresses most on this
In recounting the premiere of his Requiem, Berlioz wrote “the terror inspired […..] was indescribable. One of the female choristers suffered an attack of nerves.
Martha Argerich has few peers in this repertoire today, and in terms of sheer spontaneity in performance she’s simply in a class of her own.
