Classical CDs
graham.rickson
Reynaldo Hahn: Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet, Songs Karim Sulayman (tenor), Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Chandos)I’ve been a fan of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for some time, having heard them in concert and on their excellent previous albums, which often seek out under-recorded composers and give them the spotlight: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Fanny Mendelssohn, Alma Mahler, Luise Adolphe le Beau. This album is another example of that, comprising chamber and vocal pieces by Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947), not someone whose music I was previously familiar with. From being a darling Read more ...
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Paavo Järvi: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Big box sets celebrating great conductors are piling up thick and fast, and this one, unusually, features an artist who’s very much alive. Paavo Järvi is just 62 (still young for a conductor). These 31 discs contain the albums he released for Virgin Classics, EMI and Erato between 1996 and 2015: classical CDs were still a big thing back in the late 1990s, and it’s remarkable to see how much quirky repertoire Virgin Classics allowed Järvi to record, including Stenhammar, Arvo Pärt, Eduard Tubin and Erkki-Sven Tüür. One of the earliest Read more ...
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I’m a sucker for a well-produced box set, and some of this year’s choices examples included celebrations of conductors Paavo Berglund (Warner Classics), William Steinberg (DG) and Louis Lane (Sony). The Berglund box contains no fewer than three Sibelius cycles, my favourite being the earliest one, recorded while Berglund was Chief Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the 1970s. Other highlights include his pungent, earthy Shostakovich (try his terrifying version 11th Symphony) and cogent performances of music by Bliss, Britten and Vaughan Williams.DG’s William Steinberg Read more ...
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Ravel: The Complete Works with Piano François-Xavier Poizat, Philharmonia/Simone Menezes et al(Aparté)Ravel was by no means a prolific composer but, including absolutely everything in his catalogue that includes piano, François-Xavier Poizat’s collection stretches to six CDs. Even as someone pretty familiar with Ravel there was lots here I was finding for the first time, alongside much-loved favourites like Le Tombeau de Couperin and Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.Lots of Ravel’s orchestral pieces (including the two just mentioned) started out as piano pieces which he later orchestrated Read more ...
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Trio Mediæval: Yule (2L)Pick of my Christmas discs is this sublime collection from Trio Mediæval on the Norwegian audiophile label 2L, reflecting yuletide’s origins in Northern European pagan culture. Imaginative and idiomatic-sounding arrangements, using, variously, kantele, hardanger fiddle, violin, trumpet, organ, bass and percussion invariably suit the material, and the engineering is stunning: sample the organ sound and drum thwacks in ”Lussinati Lange”, or the kantele in “Josefines Julesame” The group have been performing and recording since 1997, and there’s something unearthly Read more ...
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Brahms: Piano Concertos 1 and 2, Solo piano works Igor Levit (piano), Wiener Philharmoniker/Christian Thielemann (Sony)Who’d have thought that Igor Levit and Christian Thielemann would be such effective partners? Levitt is one of the most cerebral and thoughtful of pianists with a string of excellent Sony albums, and there’s the worry that any collaborator won’t successfully step up to his level. But this set of Brahms Concertos is excellent, the dialogue between the two musicians transcribed in this set’s booklet suggesting that this was a bromance made in heaven. Concerto No. 1’s Read more ...
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Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 1, Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy Alexandre Kantorow (piano) (BIS)I’d previously encountered pianist Alexandre Kantorow via his exuberant set of Saint-Saëns piano concertos, sparky, lovable performances conducted by his father Jean-Jacques. This solo disc contains weightier repertoire but the Kantorow’s elucidatory abilities prevent things ever getting oppressive; if there’s a more accessible reading of Brahms’s Op. 1 Piano Sonata on disc, I’ve not heard it. Questions of technique don’t arise here, and unless you follow with a score it’s easy to forget how Read more ...
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Schubert: Sonata in G major D. 894, Moments Musicaux D. 780, Fantasy in F minor D. 940 Maurizio Pollini, Daniele Pollini (pianos) (Deutsche Grammophon)What a superb cover image for the last recording by Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024). Pollini ‘père’ is seated at the piano, backlit. His son Daniele (b.1978) stands behind him, looking over his shoulder. Cosimo Filippini’s photograph tells the story of this album so well. Pollini is in the role of the authoritative guide, as if teaching his son – and us listeners – lessons about this music. I can somehow imagine him repeating Paul Read more ...
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Georges Prêtre plays Francis Poulenc (Erato)Georges Prêtre and Francis Poulenc’s working relationship began in 1959 when Prêtre conducted the first staging of La Voix humaine with soprano Denise Duval. Already an experienced opera conductor, Prêtre’s performance moved Poulenc to tears, and he was soon entrusted with the French premiere of the Gloria. It’s a little frustrating that Prêtre’s first recording of this work, taped with Rosanna Carteri as soloist, isn’t included in this 7-disc box set. Nor is his pioneering account of the Stabat Mater. Instead, we get the 1980s remakes with Read more ...
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Joan Sutherland: The Complete Decca Recordings – Recitals & Oratorios (Decca)The voice of La Stupenda must have been the most recorded in history, given Decca’s lavish heyday (La Divina, Callas, just missed EMI's stereo best). Even before we get to the two boxes of complete operas, with no release date in sight, the recital and oratorio set numbers 37 CDs. And they really do run a surprising gamut. The earliest is the least typical, Bliss’s A Song of Farewell in 1954; a year later, Sutherland would be the first Jenifer in Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage. The famous Royal Opera Read more ...
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Antonio Pappano: Complete Symphonic, Concertante and Sacred Music Recordings Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Warner Classics)Exploring this compendious 27 CD box set has been a lot of fun. Rome’s Santa Cecilia Orchestra began life in 1908, "the first orchestra in Italy to devote itself exclusively to the symphonic repertoire”. The group has enjoyed a much higher international profile in the last few decades, much of the credit due to Antonio Pappano, the orchestra’s Music Director from 2005 to 2023. We get 27 discs here containing an impressively broad range Read more ...
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Fauré: Requiem, Gounod: Messe de Clovis Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet (Alpha-Classics)It was as an avid fan of the short story author Saki that my eye was drawn to the title of Gounod’s Messe de Clovis, although the Clovis here is the 14th century king of France, who became, like Joan of Arc, an emblematic figure for the French people after defeat by Prussia in 1870. Paired with a recording of Fauré’s Requiem, which are ten-a-penny, this seems to be the only available recording of the Gounod, whose music I have become more interested in over the last couple of years. Gounod was Read more ...