CD
CD

JS Bach Organ Works Vol. IV (Quinney)

Robert Quinney (Coro Connections)
more

Murray Perahia returns to Beethoven in style

Murray Perahia (Deutsche Grammophon)
more

Escher String Quartet perform works by Borodin, Dvořák and Tchaikovsky

This is something of a standard ‘top hits’ compilation of soulful Slavic quartets. 

more

The Delta Piano Trio perform Piano Trios by Auerbach and Shostakovich

The Delta Piano Trio deliver a very powerful and convincing account of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio, one which takes nothing in the music for granted.

 

more

'Vibrant and exploratory': L Anderson and the Kronos Quartet perform Landfall

Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)
more

DoelenKwartet Rotterdam and Vassilakis perform Adès

DoelenKwartet Rotterdam; Dimitri Vassilakis (Cybele)
more

Aline Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien's 'sensitive and lyrical' Mozart

This revelatory series from Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien benefits from offsetting works of Mozart’s middle-period and maturity with some of his earliest compositions. One of the joys of this set, expertly played and annotated (by Misha Donat), is the way these outstanding artists subtly shade the two early sonatas of 1764, fully endorsing Mozart’s original instruction that they ‘can be played with the accompaniment of a violin or transverse flute’.

more

Songs of Vain Glory

This beautifully programmed recital will make you want to rush out and buy as many volumes of British songs as you can. It collects – imaginatively, coherently, and to deeply moving effect – 23 songs on the theme of war.

more

Handel's Last Prima Donna: Giulia Frasi in London

Prima donna Giulia Frasi (1740-74) was well known to London’s concertgoers. 

more

Crossing Borders

So many vocal tics and tricks are used in the making of Danish composer Line Tjørnhøj’s Vox Reportage that it can seem uncomfortably close to a virtuoso demonstration of the manifold noises top chamber choirs are capable of creating nowadays.

more

Calen-O: Songs from the North of Ireland

Northern Irish mezzo-soprano Carolyn Dobbin has set herself the task of collecting and performing art song from her homeland, and here – aided and abetted by one of the most enthusiastically knowledgeable of today’s accompanists – presents a first selection on disc. 

more

Black is the Colour: works by Berio, Ravel and Falla

Black is only one of the myriad colours on this inventive and absorbing collection. 

more

Stile Antico performs Victoria

Victoria seems to have composed these works in Rome since they were published in 1585, two years before he returned to his native Spain. The texts come from services commemorating the dramatic events of Holy Week including that ‘dark’ (‘tenebrae’) period when Christ was ‘out of action’ between his crucifixion and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

more

Williams and Glynn perform Schubert's Winter Journey

Here is the greatest song cycle, indeed one of the supreme works of art, a great singer at the height of his powers, and an admirable accompanist – exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

more

The Brabant Ensemble and Stephen Rice perform Obrecht

The late 15th century musical scene on the continent was dominated by Josquin des Prez, Johannes Ockeghem and Jacob Obrecht (1457/8-1505). We hear quite a lot about the first two, but Obrecht seems to have had a problematic life and ended up dying of plague in Ferrara. Only a handful of his splendid works have been recorded before – and most on this disc are new to CD.

more

Appl and Johnson perform Brahms

This is the seventh in Graham Johnson’s planned series of ten discs covering the entire piano-accompanied vocal works of Brahms, several hundred settings shaped by the varied musical, literary and artistic influences he absorbed over half a century.

more

JS Bach: Soprano Katherine Watson sings in two Mass in B minor sets

Hyperion added a ‘Bach in B minor’ to its catalogue as recently as 2014, and now here comes another – like Arcangelo’s, recorded after the experience of performing the work in concert. There the similarities end. Jonathan Cohen mustered a choir of 20.

more

'Diverse and colourful' recording of JS Bach

Listening to the three cantatas on this disc, we are, as so often, almost overwhelmed by the diverse and colourful means by which Bach harnessed and deployed his compositional genius.

more

Vocal ensemble Siglo de Oro 'strikes gold' with Hieronymous Praetorius

Although he met Michael, the most famous Praetorius of the age, Hieronymous was no relation, and worked for the most part in his home city of Hamburg where, in 1586, he eventually succeeded his father as organist of the illustrious Jacobikirche. Among

more

Choir of Trinity College and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment perform JS Bach: Mass in B minor

Hyperion added a ‘Bach in B minor’ to its catalogue as recently as 2014, and now here comes another – like Arcangelo’s, recorded after the experience of performing the work in concert. There the similarities end. Jonathan Cohen mustered a choir of 20.

more

JS Bach: Cantatas, BWV 101, 103 and 115

Listening to the three cantatas on this disc, we are, as so often, almost overwhelmed by the diverse and colourful means by which Bach harnessed and deployed his compositional genius.

more

Striking Gold with Hieronymous Praetorius

Vocal ensemble Siglo de Oro follows its excellent recording debut with a real find
more

Duets by Bizet, Boito, Donizetti, Verdi, Gounod, Lara and F. Hermann

This is boys having fun. And the CD is at its best when the composer is having fun too. So Rolando Villazón and Ildar Abdrazakov make the most of Donizetti’s Act I duet from L’eslisir d’amore, with Villazón a plaintive love-sick Nemorino and Abdrazakov a snake-like Dulcamara.

more

Fun Sun Kim conducts Lehár's Der Graf von Luxemburg

With a handful of exceptions, the operetta repertoire is eschewed by the bigger UK companies. This new recording of Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg – which debuted in Vienna in 1909, but is heard here in the composer’s second version (1937) – derives from live performances at the Frankfurt Opera (2015-16). 

more
This website is owned and published by Our Media Ltd. www.ourmedia.co.uk
© Our Media 2023