Classical CDs
graham.rickson
William Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony, Ulysses Kay: Fantasy Variations, Umbrian Scene ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Arthur Fagen (Naxos)William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony was, briefly, a roaring success after Leopold Stokowski gave the first performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, and it should have made Dawson a household name. Instead, he returned to his teaching post at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, heading its School of Music until retiring in 1955. Dawson continued to compose and arrange spirituals and achieving recognition as a choral conductor, and that Read more ...
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Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 Australian World Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (ABC Classics)I love Bruckner’s mature symphonies, but they still baffle me. Mostly in terms of how certain performances work, or don’t work, and the near-impossibility of understanding and explaining exactly why. Then there’s the question of tempo, and how incredibly expansive performances can feel shorter than quick ones. A BBC Music Magazine poll in 2016 asked conductors to nominate their favourite symphonies, and Sir Simon Rattle included Bruckner 8 in his top three. He’s recorded two impressive accounts of the " Read more ...
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Sir John Barbirolli – The Complete Warner Recordings (Warner Classics)This month marks the 50th anniversary of Sir John Barbirolli’s death, one of several British conductors who dominated the UK’s post-war record industry. Barbirolli made most of his recordings for EMI and Pye, so this release’s title is a little misleading, Warner Classics not coming into existence until 1991. That’s my sole niggle, as this is a marvellous box set. Superficially pricey, yes, but it contains an eye-popping 109 CDs. That’s enough to keep anyone happily exploring for months. Years, even. Barbirolli’s Read more ...
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Ives: Universe, Incomplete (Accentus DVD)Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony, conceived for 4,000 musicians positioned on different mountain tops, never saw the light of day. Sketches for the work span his creative life, some made as late as 1948, and several composers have created speculative performing editions. Ives did leave a note, explaining that “in case I don’t get to finishing this, somebody might like to work out the idea.” You suspect that he had no intention of completing it. This DVD set contains Christoph Marthaler’s Universe, Incomplete, performed during the 2018 Read more ...
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Coriún Aharonián: Una carta Ensemble Aventure, SWF-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden/Zoltán Peskó (Wergo)Uruguayan composer Coriún Aharonián (1940-2017) was born in Montevideo to Armenian parents. His output is described here as “a complex melange of influences” – namely European modernism and indigenous music. Aharonián himself talked about mastering “the models created in the centres of cultural power… without losing connection to one’s own community” as the route to creating a distinct, independent style. Though stylistically very different, the pieces on this disc occasionally suggest Read more ...
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Holst: The Planets; Nielsen: Helios Overture Mythos (Bjarke Mogensen and Rasmus Schjaerff Kjøller, accordions) (Mythos)Pairing Nielsen’s Helios Overture with Holst’s The Planets makes total sense, and one’s surprised that it’s not been done before. Nielsen’s musical depiction of the sun, which “wanders its golden way” before sinking slowly back in the sea, never quite lives up to its magical opening and close, the central faster section wandering just a bit too much for comfort. It’s still good to hear though, Bjarke Mogensen and Rasmus Schjaerff Kjøller’s ingenious transcription for Read more ...
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Mendelssohn: Octet, Enescu: Octet Gringolts Quartet & Meta4 (BIS)Mendelssohn began work on his delicious Octet at the age of 16. He’d been composing for several years previously, though this work, along with the equally miraculous overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sounds like the work of a composer who's found their voice. Getting the tone right in performance is tricky, mostly in terms of balancing youthful exuberance with enough gravitas. This collaboration between Ilya Gringolts’ Zurich-based quartet and Finland’s Meta4 gets things right. The first movement tempo isn’t too Read more ...
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Franck: Psyché, Le Chasseur maudit, Les Éolides RCS Voices, Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Jean-Luc Tingaud (Naxos)Franck by Franck: Symphony in D Minor, Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Mikko Franck (Alpha Classics)You bemoan the lack of decent modern recordings of César Franck’s orchestral music, and then these two discs appear in succession. Rather than choose between them, I’ll to cover both. A few seconds’ exposure to Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit should have you wondering why this punchy short work isn’t a repertoire standard. Jean-Luc Read more ...
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Chopin: Études Sonya Bach (piano) (Rubicon)Chopin’s solo piano études helped push the genre into uncharted territory. He would have practiced examples by Czerny and Clementi in his youth, but his own Op. 10 and Op. 25 sets make far more extreme demands on any pianist. I’m not a keyboard player, and a few minutes’ exposure to the more flamboyant numbers can leave me feeling dizzy. Performing the whole collection in sequence is a tall order, and I’d suggest that listening to them is best done in small doses. Sonya Bach attacks the more extrovert études with a near-reckless abandon. She’s Read more ...
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Rêverie et caprice, La mort d'Ophélie, Sara la baigneuse Utah Symphony/Thierry Fischer, with Philippe Quint (violin) (Hyperion)Just two big symphonies by French composers can be counted as standard repertoire. Having recorded the current box office favourite as part of their excellent cycle of Saint-Saëns symphonies, Thierry Fischer’s Utah forces now tackle the other one, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. A few of Fischer’s interpretative decisions prompted me to look at the score to see if he’d changed anything. I’m used to the horn and woodwind snarls at Read more ...
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Korngold: Violin Concerto, String Sextet Andrew Haveron (violin), RTÉ Concert Orchestra/John Wilson, Sinfonia of London Chamber Ensemble (Chandos)Erich Korngold began writing his String Sextet in 1914, when he was just 17. Listeners immune to the pleasures of Korngold’s late Violin Concerto and Symphony in F Sharp might reconsider if they listened to the Sextet first. This is a big, four-movement work, technically brilliant and emotionally rich, largely devoid of the showy flamboyance that can thrill or irk in the orchestral works. Your attention is grabbed at the outset; it’s as if Read more ...
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Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 1, Symphony No. 1 in C, Gounod: Petite Symphonie Scottish Chamber Orchestra/François Leleux (Linn)Initial impressions are disconcerting, the bass thwacks at the start of the first suite extracted from Bizet’s Carmen by Ernest Giraud almost too polite, but the ears adjust quickly; what we get is what you’d hear in an orchestra pit. I’d forgotten how good this music is in its original form, having spent too much time recently marvelling at Rodion Shchedrin’s offbeat string transcription. François Leleux’s Scottish Chamber Orchestra are superb, flautist Silvia Read more ...