Independent on Saturday

1 min read

WHAT better way to enjoy a Valentine’s weekend than with an outdoor morning concert of fine music in a spacious garden in the heart of the Kamberg Valley in the Midlands? Four of Durban’s top musicians - Maggie Deppe (piano and oboe), Cathy Peacock (

Hi Fi News

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Harmonia Mundi HMM902420 (downloads to 96kHz/24-bit res) The two early Beethoven Symphonies here are each prefaced by short three-movement ones by CPE Bach, which prove far less conventional and extremely adventurous (for which they were disliked by

BBC Music Magazine

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Organ Works – Le tombeau de Georges Rouault; St Andrews’ Suite; Offertorium; Toccata, etc Stephen Farr (organ) Resonus RES 10266 55:25 mins Stephen Farr is making quite a speciality of single-composer albums devoted to contemporary UK organ music.

BBC Music Magazine

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Clarinettist Alexander Fiterstein introduces favourite recordings from his collection  Yona Ettlinger played principal clarinet in the Israel Phil, made a number of great arrangements and was interested in Baroque music. This is the first concerto t

BBC Music Magazine

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Sharon Bezaly is renowned – and revered by flautists – for her powerful, full-bodied tone and iconic 24-carat gold flute. The Israeli’s technical abilities have inspired reams of major works including those by José Serebrier, Sally Beamish and Christ

Hi-Fi Choice

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CD LAWO THESE COLOURFUL SHOWPIECES have long been popular demo pieces due to their glittering orchestration. Petrenko and a very fine Oslo Orchestra deliver vivid, extrovert, highly musical performances. The orchestra plays with precision and stunnin

Hi-Fi Choice

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HOT PICK CD Harmonia Mundi HERE IS BEETHOVEN played with fire and passion. The music leaps out at you – bearing its teeth like a hungry tiger. LvB’s untamed wildness and willingness to shatter boundaries shocked contemporary listeners. But, as the tw

Pianist

2 min read

Near the end of last year I attended an astounding recital by Arcadi Volodos. Oh, how it feels like half a lifetime away. Just a few months later, the world is a different place, and the doors to the Barbican and all our other culture palaces are fir

Hi-Fi Choice

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CD Champs Hill Records THIS WELL-FILLED CD mixes well-known Strauss with pieces that are extremely rare – including an early string quartet. The disc begins and ends with late pieces – the silvery prelude to Capriccio and the moving Metamorphosen, wr

Pianist

1 min read

Beethoven wrote several groups of bagatelles – short pieces without a fixed form – throughout his life. The seven Op 33 Bagatelles date from 1802, and, as we say a fond farewell to Beethoven’s big 250th anniversary year, we are delighted to feature t

BBC Music Magazine

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These little gems exist for several instrumentations, but it’s the cello version that grabs me, especially through Shafran’s heart-melting playing in this 1957 recording. Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze possessed this art of writing directly int

Pianist

1 min read

In 1789, Haydn composed an Allegro and Minuet, possibly intending them to stand as a two-movement keyboard sonata. The following spring he added an Adagio e cantabile to create a three-movement work, Sonata No 49. Although the autograph carries a ded

Popular Science

2 min read

Who needs a human orchestra when you have an AI cover band? Pixabay Consider the sound of a human crudely whistling the theme music from the Indiana Jones movies. Then, imagine a computer listening to the whistled version of that song, and imitating

BBC Music Magazine

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Much of the world’s music-making continues to be on ice and nowhere is that felt more keenly than in the US where, just recently, the Nashville Symphony announced it was suspending operations for a year. It’s bittersweet, then, to have them in the Or

BBC Music Magazine

5 min read

The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I Trevor Pinnock (harpsichord) DG 483 8436 117:32 mins (2 discs) In the booklet notes accompanying this recording, Trevor Pinnock rightly observes that the preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier were not i

Hi-Fi Choice

1 min read

2x CD and DVD Deutsche Grammophon AS EVER, THE masterly Sokolov plays with a commanding authority that is unmistakable. His playing is strong and assertive, but unselfconscious. Beethoven’s Sonata Op 2 No.3 is delivered with patrician nobility, while

BBC Music Magazine

1 min read

The Rogue Valley Choral in Medford, Oregon performed its annual Holiday Faire concert virtually this year. One item played by the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra was an Ariette con Variazzioni by FWH Benda and the director, Morgan O’Shaughnessey, said it

Chat

1 min read

What do you get if you multiply the opus number of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony by the year of its debut performance? Fit these numbers into the grid. One number doesn’t fit. This is the prize answer. 119 134 164 272 282 364 388 463 691 833 1781 4195 5

BBC Music Magazine

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Julian Bliss has just recorded an all-Rachmaninov programme at Saffron Hall in Essex. The clarinettist performs an arrangement of the composer’s Cello Sonata with pianist Julien Quentin and the pair have also captured previously unrecorded arrangemen

BBC Music Magazine

1 min read

The Royal Opera House brings in Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with a sold-out new production of the great composer’s only opera. Its starry cast includes Lise Davidsen and Jonas Kaufmann in the leading roles. Opera on 3: 28 March, 5pm Join the

BBC Music Magazine

1 min read

The complete ballet performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony and Edinburgh Festival Chorus under Donald Runnicles PLUS! Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi talks to James Naughtie; Malcolm Hayes explores how storms have been depicted in classical music; Fr

BBC Music Magazine

2 min read

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons BR Klassik 900185 53.48 mins If you want a testimony to what it was we lost when Mariss Jansons died, listen to this disc. In big symphonic works Jansons always had a flair for bringing out both the

BBC Music Magazine

3 min read

Which living British composers will have their music played a century from now? As I type that question, I realise that answering it will bring me only scorn on social media. And to what end? The bumpy career and wildly fluctuating reputation of Malc

Indianapolis Monthly

4 min read

WAS THERE ANY HESITATION ABOUT JOINING THE ISO WITH MUSIC DIRECTOR KRZYSZTOF URBAŃSKI LEAVING SOON AND HIS SUCCESSOR UNKNOWN? I find that exciting, actually. I’m sad to see Krzysztof go, but 10 years is a long time for a musical director. Hopefully,

BBC Music Magazine

3 min read

Richard Bratby Elliot & Thompson 978-1-783-96453-6; 288pp (hb) £25 Named after the city’s motto, ‘Forward’, this centenary appraisal of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra builds impressively on Crescendo, Beresford King-Smith’s excellent

Hi Fi News

1 min read

Bavarian RSO/Mariss Jansons BR Klassik 900183 (downloads to 48kHz/24-bit resolution) Schnittke’s 1967 adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen (with bits of L’Arlésienne and Maid of Perth impudently thrown in) was scored for strings and 47 percussion instruments

India Today

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At first blush, Tushar Lall seems like most 22 year olds, fond of going out, hanging out with friends and playing the occasional game of tennis whenever time permits. But predictable is far from the prefix you would attach to his personality type. F

BBC Music Magazine

1 min read

I don’t suppose I was alone in eagerly waiting by the radio for Stephen Hough’s lunchtime performance from Wigmore Hall at the beginning of June. Yes, it was only a piano recital but, as the first broadcast since lockdown, it felt like so much more t

BBC Music Magazine

1 min read

Nicola Matteis, A Neapolitan In London: works by Banister, Dowland, Finger, Locke and Matteis Alice Julien-Laferrière (violin); Ground Floor Harmonia Mundi HMN 916117 59:17 mins This delightful disc paints a portrait of the ‘Baroque Paganini’, Nic

Philippine Tatler Traveller

1 min read

16 June - 14 November 2018 London, England Sponsored by Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, the V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum) explores how Frida Kahlo fashioned her iconic identity. The first exhibition out of Mexico to display over 200 pieces of Kahlo’s c