Mar 14, 2021 | Outstanding [category w.e.f. January 2021], Recording Reviews
Two impressive recent half-hour Symphonies from London-born (in 1964) Matthew Taylor. The Fourth (2015-16, for large orchestra), in memoriam John McCabe and dedicated to his widow Monica, has three movements played without a break. It opens brightly shining and...
Mar 13, 2021 | Outstanding [category w.e.f. January 2021], Recording Reviews
Priceless individuality and imagination inform the eighteen piano Etudes that György Ligeti left us (at the time of his death in 2006 he was drafting some more). If these gems are very much the preserve of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, it’s good to have a challenge to the...
Mar 7, 2021 | Outstanding [category w.e.f. January 2021], Recording Reviews
Judging from the repertoire on this superbly recorded BIS release, produced and engineered by Thore Brinkmann at Potton Hall in Suffolk (December 2019), Clare Hammond is a pianist who stimulates the interest of the adventurous music-lover – and then delivers top...
Mar 7, 2021 | Outstanding [category w.e.f. January 2021], Recording Reviews
The Concerto (Elgar’s Opus 61, for Fritz Kreisler) was recorded during September last year at LSO St Luke’s, the London Symphony Orchestra photographed in the booklet as adopting social-distancing seating. The sound is excellent, spacious yet tangible, the orchestra...
Feb 21, 2021 | Outstanding [category w.e.f. January 2021], Recording Reviews
It’s good to have a record of some recent orchestral music by Raymond Yiu (born 1973). In these BBC Symphony Orchestra concert tapings (applause removed), the first work, The London Citizen Exceedingly Injured (2012), is a scintillating scherzo, neon-coloured,...
Feb 13, 2021 | Outstanding [category w.e.f. January 2021], Recording Reviews
Whether the tag of “the English Rachmaninov” helps or hinders the cause of London-born composer and pianist York Bowen (1884-1961; in the mid-1920s he made the first recording of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto) is a moot point. However, as superbly recorded here by...