Classical CDs
graham.rickson
Imants Kalniņš: Complete Symphonies and Concertos Liepāja Symphony Orchestra/Atvars Lakstīgala and Māris Sirmais (Skani)If the eye-catching box design doesn’t attract your attention, the first track on CD 1 will, an extract from the veteran Latvian composer Imants Kalniņš’s 1973 score to the popular Latvian film Blow, Wind. Based on a folk song and lushly orchestrated, it could pass for a slice of Vertigo-era Bernard Herrmann, at least until the electric guitar solo starts. It makes for a perfect appetiser. Skani haven’t arranged Kalniņš’s seven symphonies in chronological order, so to Read more ...
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Louise Farrenc; Symphonies 1&3 Insula Orchestra/Laurence Equilbey (Erato)Louise Farrenc’s music is good as you’d expect from a precocious talent who’d studied piano with Hummel and composition with Reicha. Born in 1804, Farrenc’s misfortune was to be a female composer in 19th century Paris, a city with a highly progressive musical culture but antediluvian sexual politics. She was a renowned pianist and teacher, becoming a Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1842 and having to fight to receive the same salary as her male colleagues. Farrenc’s three symphonies are Read more ...
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Riccardo Muti – The Complete Warner Symphonic Recordings (Warner Classics)As with Warner Classics’s recent André Previn box set, begin at the end. Jon Tolansky’s audio documentary is on the last disc in this 91-CD box, chronicling Riccardo Muti’s galvanising effect on a moribund New Philharmonia Orchestra in the early 1970s. Muti, aged 31, made his UK debut in December 1972 in Croydon’s Fairfield Hall; Tolansky recalls the rehearsals, and the fact that “within minutes it was vividly evident what he wanted and what he very quickly obtained: colour, nuance, contrast, character – and knife Read more ...
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Martha Argerich Edition (EuroArts)Almost eight hours of Martha Argerich on film. What a glorious prospect! This six-DVD set mostly consists of recordings of live concerts. The set was released to celebrate the great Argentinian’s 80th birthday last month. Again and again in performance, she finds depths, colours and transcendence that simply stop you in your tracks. There is a Prokofiev 3rd Concerto with the LSO and Previn recorded in Croydon in 1977, where she switches from the most delicate of dream sequences to playing which is forceful, propulsive, totally commanding. And there are Read more ...
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Reicha Rediscovered, Volume 3 Ivan Ilić (piano) (Chandos)Antoine Reicha’s L’Arte de varier tantalises before you’ve heard a note; the composer’s Opus 57, its theme followed by 57 variations. Reicha was an exact contemporary of Beethoven and reportedly the two composers discussed their approaches to variation form. Reicha’s Op. 36 set of fugues had ruffled feathers upon their publication in 1804, and this large-scale set of variations on a simple F major theme is similarly intriguing. All but eight of the variations share the theme’s key signature, the theme usually instantly Read more ...
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One Movement Symphonies: Music by Barber, Scriabin and Sibelius Kansas City Symphony/Michael Stern (Reference Recordings)Placing these three single movements together serves to highlight just how great Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 is, and just how hard it is to create a genuinely cohesive single movement symphony. Schoenberg’s early Chamber Symphony is another convincing example, sounding far less cohesive in the composer’s orchestral transcription. Samuel Barber wrote his Symphony No. 1 in the mid-1930s. If you’ve only heard Barber’s Adagio or the Violin Concerto you’ll be surprised by Read more ...
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André Previn: The Warner Edition – Complete HMV & Teldec Recordings (Warner Classics)Flicking through this box set will provoke a Proustian rush if you’re of a certain age. These recordings were mostly made for EMI, though Warner Classics have wisely kept the LPs’ original sleeve art, reminding us of just how ubiquitous a presence André Previn once was in the UK. Many of these recordings were bestsellers, familiar to anyone who frequented record shops or public libraries in the 1970s or 1980s. A multilingual child prodigy, Previn began his musical career as a conductor and arranger Read more ...
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Dennis Brain: Homage (Warner Classics)Eleven CDs, assembled to mark the centenary of the legendary hornist’s birth. Whoop whoop. Start at the beginning, with a 1938 recording of Mozart’s K334 Divertimento. The horn writing isn’t spectacular but the two players are perfectly blended, phrasing as one. This was the 16-year-old Dennis Brain’s recording debut, sat alongside his father Aubrey in Abbey Road Studios. Dennis’s clean, pure tone was a constant throughout his short but spectacular career, the move from a narrow-bore piston instrument to a modern Alexander horn managed without any Read more ...
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Beethoven: Piano Sonatas 30-32 Boris Giltburg (Naxos)It's worth noting that Beethoven's final piano sonatas weren't his last works; there was still a lot of music in him. Performing them as weighty, epic closing statements can smother the sonatas’ inventiveness, so it’s good to hear Boris Giltburg emphasising Beethoven’s charm and invention (he wrote about his filming of all 32 sonatas last week on theartsdesk). He doesn’t undersell the gravitas, but lightness and energy are what draw us in. Reach the understated close of No. 32’s “Arietta” and there’s a feeling of frustration that we’ Read more ...
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Joseph Lauber: Symphonies 1 and 2 Sinfonie Orchester Biel Solothurn/Kaspar Zehnder (Schweizer Fonogramm)Two CDs from boutique Swiss label Schweizer Fonogramm have recently caught my ear. One presents a pair of symphonies by the long-lived Joseph Lauber (1864-1952), remembered, if at all, as Frank Martin’s composition teacher. Lauber wrote six symphonies, the scores of nos. 1 and 2 rescued from a Lausanne university library by Kaspar Zehnder and recorded last summer in Berne. As long as you’re not expecting Mahler or Bruckner, you’ll be delighted. Both symphonies are exactly as you’d Read more ...
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Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, Piano Concerto No. 4, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Lahav Shani (piano and conductor) (Warner Classics)Poor Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year saw most of the projected live events cancelled, but good new recordings have continued to appear. One reason for liking this one, performances aside, is the content; pairing a mature piano concerto with a late symphony makes for a satisfying concert in a handy package. Lahav Shani’s Beethoven is powerfully positive, the shadows having more impact because they contrast so strongly with the prevailing mood. Directing Read more ...
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Bach: St Matthew Passion Gaechinger Cantorey/Hans-Christoph Rademann (Accentus)Your shelves may already be overburdened with recordings of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, but make a small space for this one. Recorded in November 2020 under lockdown conditions, it has everything going for it: excellent soloists, crisp orchestral playing and immaculate choral singing. The restrictions must have given the sessions an extra sizzle, conductor Hans-Christoph Rademann explaining in the booklet that the process was “extremely difficult… every musician has to act more like soloists and yet be part of Read more ...