Recordings

COR16182
30 Sep 2020

Henry Purcell, Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II Vol. III: The Sixteen/Harry Christophers

The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc. »

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20 Jul 2008

Der Rosenkavalier highlights on Classics for Pleasure

For the opera of average length, a decent highlights disc can feature as much as half the score. »

13 Jul 2008

Rossini Opera Festival on Dynamic

At the Rossini Festival held in Pesaro, Italy, Dynamic recorded two Rossini rarities in August 2006. »

13 Jul 2008

Gustav Mahler: Symphony no. 9; Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklärung

The late Guiseppe Sinopoli (1946-2001) became established as an estimable conductor of nineteenth-century music, and his legacy includes a number of fine recordings. »

06 Jul 2008

BELLINI: Norma

The best thing about this set, a Norma recorded live at the Teatro delle Muse di Ancona in late 2004, is the booklet essay by Marco Beghelli, offered in both English and Italian (no credit to any translator). »

06 Jul 2008

Two Aida’s from TDK

At one time, Verdi’s Aida figured as the most performed opera. »

22 Jun 2008

MEYERBEER: Semiramide

This Dynamic recording of Meyerbeer's Semiramide, an opera title more familiar with Rossini's name appended, mixes the pleasure of a modestly appealing surprise with regret at key aspects of the performance. »

22 Jun 2008

Choral Music by Dvořák and Brahms

Among the choral music of Anton [Antonin] Dvorak, the familiar Stabat Mater, Op. 58, is known to modern audiences through various live performances and recordings. »

19 Jun 2008

Mozart and Lortzing from Hamburg Opera on film

A nostalgic charm permeates these filmed productions from the early 1970s of Lortzing's Zar und Zimmerman and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, collaborations between the Hamburg State Opera and German TV director Joachim Hess. »

19 Jun 2008

Karajan opera highlights on Classics for Pleasure

The opera highlights series from Classics for Pleasure continues its recycling of the EMI catalogue with selections from two of Herbert von Karajan's recordings. »

09 Jun 2008

Songs by Henry & William Lawes

With this recording of songs by Henry & William Lawes, musical brothers who flourished in Caroline England, countertenor Robin Blaze with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny continue their exploration of early English song for Hyperion, and the results are stunning. »

04 Jun 2008

Joye: Les plaintes de Gilles de Bins dit Binchois

The title of this recording “Joy: the Laments of Gilles Binchois” introduces a seeming contradiction, one that plays on a contemporaneous description of the composer as "pére de joyeusetè"—the father of joy—in tension with an affinity for melancholy in his works. »

04 Jun 2008

SCHOENBERG: Moses und Aron

Even though it is one of the important operas of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron is, perhaps, more esteemed than performed. »

25 May 2008

HINDEMITH: Cardillac

Premiered in 1926, Paul Hindemith’s opera Cardillac is a three-act work based on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story Das Fräulein von Scuderi. »

25 May 2008

WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde

In the 1983 production designed, staged, and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, this recording of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is a solid and well-thought performance that has much to offer. »

15 May 2008

STRAUSS: Opernszenen | Scenes of Operas.

Recorded between 1938 and 1942, the excerpts from performances of Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Arabella, and Daphne at the Dresden Staatsoper are all conducted by Karl Böhm. »

06 May 2008

Karajan: The Music, the Legend.

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

French Opera highlights on Classics for Pleasure

Consumers might opt for a highlights set instead of a full recording of an opera for many reasons. »

06 May 2008

THOMSON: The Plow that Broke the Plains

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

Bruckner: Symphony no. 8 in C minor, WAB 108 (1890 [Second Version])

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

BELLINI: Norma

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

KUMMER: Cello Duets

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

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantatas [BWV 64, 151, 57 and 133]

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

Serafin: Overtures and Preludes

Timeless values of great opera conducting fill this disc of overtures and preludes, all conducted by Tullio Serafin. »

30 Mar 2008

William Byrd. Laudibus in sanctis.

William Byrd’s affinity for the Latin motet found various outlets. »

30 Mar 2008

HANSON: Merry Mount

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

Verdi: La Forza del Destino

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

Classics for Pleasure opera highlights: Puccini

With single CD versions of full-length operas, isn't the term "highlights" presumptuous? »

16 Mar 2008

MOZART: Don Giovanni

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. »

16 Mar 2008

Zarzuelas — Arrieta: Marina; Bretón: La verbena de la paloma; Vives: Bohemios and Doña Francisquita

The Spanish comical lyric genre of the zarzuela has long been considered the stepchild of opera. »

16 Mar 2008

Best of British from the BBC Proms 2007

The BBC Proms webcasts all of its performances, and many are available for extended periods through BBC Radio's archives. »

16 Mar 2008

The Opera Gala — Live from Baden-Baden

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

MAHLER: Symphony no. 8.

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

Johann Sebastian Bach. H-moll-Messe, BWV 232.

The large number of recordings of Bach’s Mass in B minor predispose one to look for distinctions between them. »

02 Mar 2008

The Sea Hawk and Deception

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

Juan Diego Florez: Voce D'Italia - Arias for Rubini

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

Puccini Gold

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

Leonie Rysanek Live Recordings 1955-1991

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—Romantic Arias

Jonas Kaufmann’s debut album is a treat to the ears of opera lovers. »

10 Feb 2008

Italian Opera at the Liceu

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

MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde

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

J. S. Bach, arr. Robert Schumann. Johannes Passion.

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

DE LALANDE: Les Folies de Cardenio.

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

SIBELIUS: Symphonies 1-7

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

Wagner: Orchestral Hightlights from the Operas

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

Italian opera on Gala

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

Echo de Paris: Parisian Love Songs 1610-1660

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

MAHLER: Symphonies 1-10

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

WAGNER: Parsifal

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

Historic opera performances in Russian on Gala

Once the custom of the world's opera houses was to translate great operas into the language of each respective country. »

20 Jan 2008

Deutsche Grammophon budget opera sets

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

STRAUSS: Der Rosenkavalier

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. »