Classical CDs
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Bernstein: Wonderful Town Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress, Nathan Gunn, London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (LSO Live)Wonderful Town’s one problem is that it isn't On the Town or West Side Story. If you didn’t already know those scores, you'd consider it a belter, a brilliant sequence of very witty, tuneful songs. That the words are great isn't a surprise, Bernstein teaming up again with Betty Comden and Adolf Green, the trio holed up in a cramped New York apartment in 1953 and finishing the piece in around five weeks. Based on a popular 1940 play, Wonderful Town follows two Read more ...
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Boris Blacher: Dance Suite, Hamlet, Poème, Concertante Music Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Johannes Kalitzke (Capriccio)Boris Blacher’s stock would presumably be higher had he opted to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power. He was an influential teacher whose later pupils included Aribert Reimann and Kalevi Aho, though his progressive musical sympathies meant that he was prevented from teaching during the war years. As heard on this disc, Blacher’s orchestral music is fluent, transparently scored and diverting while it lasts. His stylistic range was broad: traces of Poulenc, Read more ...
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Stravinsky: Petrushka, Agon (arranged for piano duet and two pianos by the composer) Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo (Wergo)Stravinsky's long career is traversed in black and white here, with ballet scores early and late accompanying a pair of shorter works. Petrushka and Agon are both masterpieces of orchestral colour, but the composer's piano duo reductions are so skilfully wrought that you never feel short-changed. Helen Bugallo and Amy Williams give us Stravinsky's piano duet transcription of the fuller textured 1911 score. It's as tight a performance as you'd expect from two players Read more ...
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Shostakovich: Symphonies 4 &11 Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons (DG)Shostakovich's 4th Symphony was famously withdrawn before its 1936 premiere, the composer wisely recognising that this violent, sprawling work might not do his reputation much good. Eventually performed eight years after Stalin’s death, it's a fabulous listening experience but not something you feel like returning to very often. Andris Nelsons’ new live version is brilliant, but you might need a few Poulenc CDs on hand to cheer yourself up afterwards. Shostakovich's opening march has terrifying energy here, Read more ...
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Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: Orchestral Works, Volume 2 BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/John Wilson, with Howard McGill (saxophone) (Chandos)Asked by an American journalist whether his music was ‘great’, Richard Rodney Bennett replied that “some of it is beautiful, and a lot of it is useful, and that's the most I’ll say.” The music on this second volume of John Wilson's Bennett series is frequently extremely beautiful, and it repeats the first instalment’s trick of demonstrating Bennett's extraordinary versatility. His single movement Symphony No 2 was premiered by Bernstein and the New Read more ...
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Bernstein: Symphonies 1-3, Prelude, Fugue and Riffs Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano (Warner Classics)Antonio Pappano refers to “the curse of West Side Story” in the sleeve notes to this new set of Leonard Bernstein's three symphonies, Bernstein's more ostensibly serious scores languishing in the musical’s shadow. West Side Story is indeed great, but these symphonies do contain some impressive music. The first, subtitled “Jeremiah” is a wartime work par excellence (it was premiered in 1944), the doomy Old Testament narrative prompting a coruscating Read more ...
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Berio: Rendering, Schubert: Symphony No 9 Soloistes Européens, Luxembourg/Christoph König (Rubicon)Schubert's unfinished Symphony No 10 has been completed by various hands. I took part in a performance of Brian Newbould’s realisation several decades ago and had totally forgotten about the piece: how its chirpy first subject sounds like a G&S overture, and how modern-sounding the trombone passage near the close of the first movement is. This is vintage, exploratory Schubert. Luciano Berio's Rendering takes a different tack, treating Schubert's sketches as a three-movement fresco to Read more ...
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Louis Couperin: Dances from the Bauyn Manuscript Pavel Kolesnikov (Hyperion)We’ll get the entertaining trivia out of the way first, namely that the musical Couperin dynasty came from Chaumes-en-Brie. I’m struggling to think of another example of cheese/classical music crossover – please leave feedback if you’ve any examples. Plus, 17th century French musicians referred to F sharp minor as the “key of the goat”. No explanation for this is given here. Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov’s sumptuously recorded disc focuses on dances by Louis Couperin (1626-1661), the short-lived uncle of the better- Read more ...
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Sibelius: Finlandia, The Swan of Tuonela, En Saga, The Oceanides BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Thomas Søndergård (Linn)Earlier releases in Thomas Søndergård’s ongoing Sibelius cycle were marred by indifferent engineering, so it’s nice to report that this collection of tone poems and incidental music boasts excellent sound, with impressive playing from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. This En Saga has plenty of energy, Søndergård never letting the tension flag. He even manages to make Finlandia seem freshly-minted, the evergreen Big Tune preceded by a dark, glowering opening. Best of all Read more ...
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Sverre Indris Joner: Con cierto toque de tango Henning Kraggerud (violin), Norwegian Radio Orchestra/Sverre Indris Joner, with Tango for 3 (Lawo Classics)Sverre Indris Joner is described in this disc’s notes as “the doyen of Latin American music in Norway”. Besides composing, playing, teaching and researching, he’s also found the time to act, illustrate and write plays. The Finnish love for Argentinian tango is well-documented; presumably Norwegians are also getting in on the act. Joner himself writes about the challenges of orchestrating and arranging tangos, and his solutions are Read more ...
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Mozart: Piano Concertos nos 12 and 13, Double Concerto in Eb Marie-Pierre Langlamet and Joan Rafaelle Kim (harps), Varian Fry Quartet (Indésens)Mozart himself adapted three of his piano concertos for soloist and string quartet. Here, two of them are played by French harpist (and Berlin Philharmonic principal) Marie-Pierre Langlamet. The harp's lighter, cleaner sound means there’s no danger of it overwhelming the strings, and the results are delicious. Langlamet is exceptionally good, and she's smartly accompanied by the Varian Fry Quartet, its players also drawn from the BPO. Mozart doesn’t Read more ...
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Handel: Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo The Brook Street Band (Avie)A slimmed-down Brook Street Band give us nine of Handel's violin sonatas on this disc. Autograph manuscripts only survive for five of them, but the other four sound sufficiently Handelian to have convinced many musicians, despite some scholarly niggles. These performances are winning, the playing fizzing with energy. Violinist Rachel Harris’s bright, clear sound is a consistent pleasure, and she's given fullsome, bubbly support by Tatty Theo and Carolyn Gibley on baroque cello and harpsichord respectively. Handel's Read more ...