Recently in Recordings
28 Aug 2007
Recorded live at the Stiftsbasilika, St. Florian (Austrian) on 12 and 13 September 2006, this DVD offers a special performance of the famous Cleveland Orchestra outside its home at Severance Hall. »
28 Aug 2007
Among the available DVDs of Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, the recent release of the production Rolf Liebermann made into a film i the late 1960s stands out for various reasons. »
28 Aug 2007
Opera singers today have become almost as famous and publicly worshipped as movie-stars; yet this has always been the case in operatic history. »
27 Aug 2007
Carlos Cogul is a London vocal coach and an appreciated baritone giving many a recital ……in the London Tube while commuters hastily pass by to catch their trains. Judging from the photo on this CD he is not a young man any more. »
27 Aug 2007
The choice between this recording made at the Pesaro Festival in August 2005 and the Opera Rara recording of 2000 will partly be made for non-musical reasons. »
27 Aug 2007
Almost thirty years ago a century old tradition ended with the last performance of I Maestri Cantatori. »
04 Jul 2007
An ingenious and handsome staging, in the proper period and full of delicious color, fashion and furnishings, a production that honors the compatibility of tradition with good fun, and four singers who look their parts, play the farce, and are as easy on the ears as on the eyes — what more could you want from a Don Pasquale? »
04 Jul 2007
The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is one of more engaging composers of the early twentieth century. »
04 Jul 2007
When hearing the final work of a composer whose life was cut short, one can not help but wonder, “What if?” »
27 Jun 2007
Established in 1985 by the United Nations, the World Philharmonic Orchestra gave its inaugural concert on 12 December 1985 under the auspices of UNICEF and the Konserthus, Sweden. »
27 Jun 2007
La Scala di Seta, composed in Venice in 1812 (Rossini was 20; Tancredi and fame were a year off; Barbiere and immortality were four years down the road), shares the fortune of La Gazza Ladra: that is, until recently, the public knew the overture quite well but nothing else from the opera which, indeed, lacks the spectacular arias and hilarious ensembles that might have kept it on the boards. »
25 Jun 2007
Produced by Rolf Lieberman and directed for television by Joachim Hess, this 1968 studio recording of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz has much to recommend as a traditional production of the opera. »
24 Jun 2007
Il Viaggio a Reims was a pièce d’occasion, part of the official tributes to Charles X of France on his coronation in 1825, but unlike most such creations – which tend to dreary platitudes of the Oscar speech variety – Viaggio has a cheeky personality and delicious music from Rossini at the top of his game, music he planned to recycle in subsequent operas – which he did. »
24 Jun 2007
As indicated in the copy on the CD, itself this is indeed a “unique collection of mostly short works” by Igor Stravinsky. »
24 Jun 2007
In charting the history of music in the West, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Paris loom large as a golden age of innovative polyphony, a golden age that is much the fruits of two composers, Leoninus and Perotinus. »
22 Jun 2007
This live concert recording assembles a trio of late eighteenth-century Viennese composers; the program is strong in evocation of time and place, but admittedly less so in substance. »
17 Jun 2007
Among Lasso’s vast output there are few works more imposing than his collected settings of the seven penitential psalms. »
17 Jun 2007
Franz Waxman was working with librettist James Forsyth on an opera, Dr. Jekyll, when the composer’s wife died. »
17 Jun 2007
Mahler: Urlicht is a recording of selected songs for voice and piano from various collections of
the composer’s Lieder, including his early settings from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the later Wunderhorn Lieder that Mahler set in the 1890s in versions with both orchestral and keyboard accompaniment, and also his Rűckert-Lieder, performed by the young mezzo soprano Christianne Stotijn accompanied by Julius Drake. »
11 Jun 2007
In 2001 the recording company Naïve and the Istituto per beni musicali in Piemonte began a large-scale undertaking of recording the vast holdings of Vivaldi’s musical library. »
05 Jun 2007
Doktor Faust eclipses most of Ferrucio’s Busoni’s other work in terms of popularity. Surprisingly, though, he wrote little song. Only 40 pieces remain, many written in his youth. »
04 Jun 2007
“We’ll discuss the greatest tenor in history, Jussi Björling, and his astounding voice.” »
04 Jun 2007
I was never much impressed by the Russian performances of this most famous of Rubinstein’s
many operas. »
31 May 2007
Naxos’s DVD venture has produced a fascinating document, the original documentary shorts The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River, filmed by Pare Lorentz, with the Virgil Thomson scores re-recorded by the post-Classical Ensemble, led by Angel Gil-Ordóñez. »
31 May 2007
Given the fine recent recordings of Mahler’s Second Symphony on both CD and DVD, the release of Pierre Boulez’s performances from 26 and 27 March 2005 at the Philharmonie, Berlin, is a further contribution to the interpretations of this important work. »
30 May 2007
Just as sausage can be best enjoyed without any extensive knowledge of its preparation and
contents, one should slide slowly into the luxuriant bath that is Massenet’s Esclarmonde and leave the libretto far to the side. »
30 May 2007
Released in early 2007, Marin Alsop’s performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is an exciting, new recording of this familiar and durable scenic cantata, based on medieval lyrics in Latin and German. »
30 May 2007
Verboten und verbannt — forbidden and banned — a phrase used with Jewish composers whose music was proscribed by the Nazis brings to mind more than musical censorship, but also the atrocities that culminated in the Holocaust. »
30 May 2007
Curmudgeons and aesthetes may have to fight their gag reflex to enjoy some luscious music-making on the latest disc, Angel Dances, from that hot studio band, The Twelve Berlin Philharmonic Cellists. »
29 May 2007
Towards the end of his life Britten became interested in the idea of developing the opera experience beyond the technical confines of the stage. He would have, I think, loved this film because it’s so intelligently sensitive to his fundamental ideas. It is, no less, a work of art built around a work of art. »
20 May 2007
This recording is a souvenir in more than one sense. »
20 May 2007
The quality packaging of Anonymous 4’s latest recording indicates the group’s importance to their label, Harmonia Mundi. »
09 May 2007
In the countless performances of Leoncavallo’s masterpiece Pagliacci since its 1892 premiere, there must have been times when the light tenor singing Beppe watched the other tenor, of heavier voice, in the lead role of Canio and wondered if someday he (the Beppe) would take on the dramatic role of the homicidal clown. »
09 May 2007
Audrey Stottler’s Wagner recital provides ample evidence of a voice with the range and heft for
the challenging roles of Brünnhilde and Isolde, as well as Sieglinde, a role often sung by a vocalist with less firepower. »
09 May 2007
Dare one assume that with this disc, Alison Balsom becomes the first artist to bring her lung power to both Norma’s “Casta Diva” and Die Zauberflöte’s “Der hölle rache” in the same recital? »
03 May 2007
I often wonder who decides what records will be used to produce historical vocal issues. »
03 May 2007
For those who didn’t long ago purchased or exchanged this Salzburg recital via the pirate
connections, this is a fine opportunity to get maybe the best testimonial of this artist. »
03 May 2007
The commitment of Naxos to American music is substantial and admirable. »
02 May 2007
Filmed for television in 1971, this performance of the German translation of Orphée aux enfers (1858) as Orpheus in der Unterwelt breaks the conventional wisdom that some espouse about the weaknesses of opera or opera when conceived for the small screen. »
02 May 2007
Among the virtues of hearing Bach cantatas performed in liturgical order—one of the hallmarks
of John Eliot Gardiner’s stunning Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000—is the chance to savor Bach’s range of approach to unified text themes. »
01 May 2007
Dynamic brought its cameras to the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy, in August 2005 to
record Bianca e Falliero, one of Rossini's so-called “serious” operas, and one that had only been rescued from many decades of neglect by the festival itself, in 1986. »
25 Apr 2007
Over a century after its premiere, Mahler's Second Symphony continues to be a compelling work and is as relevant now as it was when the work was conceived. »
25 Apr 2007
More than ever, compilations of previously released material fill the shelves of those stores still
selling classical music. »
19 Apr 2007
Krzyzstof Penderecki (b. 1933) has contributed a body of works to the modern repertoire, and his Symphony no. 7, which he composed 1996 (premiere 1997 in Jerusalem), is an impressive composition. »
16 Apr 2007
The orchestral songs of Gustav Mahler remain an important contribution to the genre, and stand
well alongside similar works by Berlioz, Wolf, and Strauss. »
15 Apr 2007
This sumptuous 2006 release was recorded live in the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in late
1993 for European TV broadcast the following year. »
11 Apr 2007
“Linvitation au voyage” is an appropriate title for this collection of French song, which makes available a number of fine performances of both familiar and rare works. »
11 Apr 2007
With a label such as Gala, a purveyor of live recordings of various provenance, some adjustment to compromised sound quality can be expected. »
07 Apr 2007
This excellent disc brings together two ballet scores from the far ends of Leonard Bernstein’s compositional career. »
06 Apr 2007
Kurt Weill’s perennial appeal can be attributed to various factors, not the least of which is the genuine craft of his stage works. »
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