Recently in Recordings
06 May 2008
At the centenary of the birth of the conductor Herbert von Karajan various commemorations are occurring, an among them is the concise CD and DVD release by Deutsche Grammophon, with both discs bound into a booklet that includes a short prose tribute to the man illustrated with some well-chosen photographs from various parts of his career. »
06 May 2008
Consumers might opt for a highlights set instead of a full recording of an opera for many reasons. »
06 May 2008
Naxos's DVD division has already released the performances on this disc of Virgil Thomson's scores for The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River, as soundtracks for a re-release of the original films. That DVD (Naxos 2.110521) contained, as... »
27 Apr 2008
As difficult as it is to identify a single score as representative of its composer, Symphony no. 8 in C minor by Anton Bruckner is an essential work that may be regarded as the quintessence of his accomplishments in the form. »
21 Apr 2008
This production offers a different view of Norma. As Stage Director Guy Joosten explains in the introduction on the first of a 2-disc set, he wanted to give the audience “more” of what he believes the modern audience expects. »
08 Apr 2008
If Friedrich August Kummer is not a household word in your home, no reason for concern — he is one of the prolific Kleinmeistern of the post-Beethoven generation, a generation for which the cost of printing had dropped so much that it was financially possible for a composer to produce hundreds of published opuses. »
06 Apr 2008
This installment of John Eliot Gardiner’s impressive Bach Cantata Pilgrimage comes from close to the end of his millennial Wanderjahr, presenting cantatas for Christmas week. »
06 Apr 2008
Timeless values of great opera conducting fill this disc of overtures and preludes, all conducted by Tullio Serafin. »
30 Mar 2008
William Byrd’s affinity for the Latin motet found various outlets. »
30 Mar 2008
A frequent complaint about contemporary operas — or most any after Puccini's Turandot — is the lack of that memorable lyricism found in the standard repertory. »
30 Mar 2008
From a relatively obscure label — Osteria — comes this 1962 live recording of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, featuring a relatively obscure soprano, Gré Brouwenstijn. »
30 Mar 2008
With single CD versions of full-length operas, isn't the term "highlights" presumptuous? »
16 Mar 2008
This an intriguing two-disc DVD set. The primary disc is the opera itself, while the other disc is a film called “Adieu Mozart” that tells us about the unique relationship Mozart had with the City of Prague.
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16 Mar 2008
The Spanish comical lyric genre of the zarzuela has long been considered the stepchild of opera. »
16 Mar 2008
The BBC Proms webcasts all of its performances, and many are available for extended periods through BBC Radio's archives. »
16 Mar 2008
As evidence of Deutsche Grammophon's proud status as a classical record label of the "old school," there appears this CD document of a typical opera gala affair, from July of 2007 in Baden-Baden. »
16 Mar 2008
While a number of fine recordings of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony have been released in recent years, the prospect of a performance conducted by Pierre Boulez is attractive for many reasons. »
02 Mar 2008
The large number of recordings of Bach’s Mass in B minor predispose one to look for distinctions between them. »
02 Mar 2008
A typical film soundtrack today might not fill the length of a CD, while being padded with any pop music hits for which the producers would cough up the money for the rights. As often as not the scoring would... »
02 Mar 2008
The handsome face of tenor Juan Diego Florez naturally gets the cover of his latest CD, and his arguably unusually slim physique is on view too: on the inside cover of the booklet, on both the interior and rear of the jewel case, and on the back of the booklet. »
25 Feb 2008
Many an anthology of Puccini's "greatest hits" has found its way to market, and many more will follow this latest from Decca, Puccini Gold. »
22 Feb 2008
With the tenth anniversary of her death approaching, Orfeo has released a double-CD box set tribute to Leonie Rysanek in their Wiener Staatsoper Live series. »
18 Feb 2008
Jonas Kaufmann’s debut album is a treat to the ears of opera lovers. »
10 Feb 2008
The Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, after suffering a calamitous fire in the early 1990s, reopened in 1999, lovingly restored. TDK has released a series of DVDs from the Liceu since that date, providing ample evidence of the world... »
06 Feb 2008
Premiered posthumously, the symphonic song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) remains one of his defining works because of its synthesis of song and symphony, two genres he pursued throughout his career. »
03 Feb 2008
In 1851 during his first season as music director in Düsseldorf, Robert Schumann presented a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, and unsurprisingly adapted the score both to nineteenth-century taste and nineteenth-century practicalities. »
03 Feb 2008
The centrality of dance at the French court helped bring grace, order, and political allegory into the characteristic prominence they enjoyed during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV; theatre presentations of all stripes were infused with choreographic diversions. »
03 Feb 2008
In tandem with the recently released set of Sir Simon Rattle’s recordings of Mahler’s symphonies on EMI Classics, the set of the complete symphonies by Jean Sibelius merits attention. »
24 Jan 2008
As much as Richard Wagner espoused opera reform in his theoretical writings by bringing to his works for the stage a closer unity between music and text, his actual means of doing so at times involved the use of orchestral forces that sometimes overwhelmed the sung word. »
24 Jan 2008
The budget label Gala purveys live performances both historic and relatively recent; of the three discussed here, the La Scala Fedora dates back to 1931, while the Attila comes from a 1987 La Fenice performance. »
22 Jan 2008
National styles of music in the seventeenth century were often distinctive, and in the case of French and Italian music, famously so. »
21 Jan 2008
With its recent release of Mahler’s symphonies conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, EMI Classics makes available in a single place an outstanding contribution to the composer’s discography. »
21 Jan 2008
This DVD records and commemorates a 1981 production of Parsifal in its Bayreuth lair, and the singers of 1981 are as fine as recollection might paint them. »
20 Jan 2008
Once the custom of the world's opera houses was to translate great operas into the language of each respective country. »
20 Jan 2008
Repackaging older recordings having become the primary focus of a classical recording company's business, Deutsche Grammophon budgeted some funds for art direction for its budget series called "Opera House" (although that appellation only appears in a link found on the back inside cover of the sets' booklets). »
20 Jan 2008
Of Rosenkavaliers on DVD, the classics tend to be lovingly detailed productions, going back to the film of Herbert von Karajan leading an exemplary cast, with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's iconic Marschallin. »
20 Jan 2008
Despite an unsurprising degree of conservatism in liturgical music, devotional life in Rome often found ways of taking advantage of modern musical style. »
16 Jan 2008
“Her fioritura is priceless, breathtaking, and effortless.” »
13 Jan 2008
The English composer Nicholas Maw has been a major voice since the 1960's, with a wide range of works that include the 2002 opera, "Sophie’s Choice," a violin concerto for Joshua Bell (1993), and the monumentally-scaled orchestral work, "Odyssey" (1972-87). »
13 Jan 2008
As is often the case, last works that remain incomplete at the time of a composer’s death, are quick to invoke controversy and conspiracy theories. »
07 Jan 2008
This is a valuable new recording of a work that is only rarely heard, but was widely influential and wildly popular during the eighteenth century. Philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote both the libretto and the music, with mixed success. »
07 Jan 2008
This disc is well worth the price for the first track alone: the opening measures of Jean-Féry Rebel’s “Cahos,” (Chaos), written in 1737 or 1738, may cause you to wonder if you accidentally left a Stockhausen or Ligeti disc in the changer. »
30 Dec 2007
This recording made half a century ago will not be anyone’s first choice unless one is a die-hard fan of one of the principal singers; neither of them belonging to the absolute top in their profession. »
27 Dec 2007
The glorious universe of the Baroque has been receiving tribute from the wonderful talent of countertenor and early music guru René Jacobs for more than thirty years now. »
27 Dec 2007
Although considered among Ravel’s finest works, Daphnis et Chloé may be known best through excerpts, particularly the second suite that the composer derived from his score. »
26 Dec 2007
A 1979 recording originally released on LP in 1985, the CD reissue of this classic performance of Schoenberg’s 1913 cantata Gurrelieder as part of its series entitled Originals makes this fine account of this magnificent work available to another generation of listeners. »
14 Dec 2007
You will wonder what designer Rosalie could have been thinking when she put Brunnhilde in trousers twice as wide at the waist as the soprano wearing them, with a nippled plastic bustier above. »
04 Dec 2007
Johanna Kinkel (1810-1858) was a talented contemporary of Fanny Hensel, and other fine musicians of the first half of the nineteenth century. Her legacy includes some fine Lieder, which are collected as An Imaginary Voyage through Europe in an arrangement that represents the various themes she explored in her music. »
