Nov 15, 2020 | Recording Reviews
Well, here it is, recorded July last year, the three-movement (slow-fast-slow) Piano Concerto by Jaap Nico Hamburger, born in Amsterdam and now living in Canada – I got that bit off the net, for apart from presenting this twenty-two-minute work by itself, Leaf Music...
Nov 13, 2020 | Recording Reviews
Previously published on October 30 A Tchaikovsky Symphony Cycle begins. This first release includes Francesca da Rimini (Symphonic Fantasy after Dante), one Hell of a performance, an opera for orchestra, incisive, intense, suitably fiery and tempestuous, vivid, raw –...
Nov 8, 2020 | Recording Reviews
The time: Saturday evening/Sunday morning. The place: my bedroom/office. The music: Schubert’s Eight Symphonies (those composed by his own hand: numbers 1-6; the Unfinished; and the Great C-major). The intention: to listen to the whole cycle uninterrupted (save for...
Nov 7, 2020 | Recording Reviews
With a dramatic flourish, Nicolas Hodges introduces Beethoven’s Fantasy (Opus 77) and goes on to parade the work’s multifaceted nature with relish as well as superb playing, recorded, as throughout this notable release, with exemplary presence and clarity in November...
Nov 1, 2020 | Recording Reviews
This eighty-seven-minute release completes Andrew Litton’s Bergen Philharmonic survey of Prokofiev’s Seven Symphonies (preferring the revised version of No.4) for BIS. The Haydn-tribute ‘Classical’ Symphony is nicely done, the first two movements especially,...
Nov 1, 2020 | Recording Reviews
This generous eighty-three-minute selection of pieces from the three ballet scores by Léo Delibes (1836-91) – Coppélia, La Source, Sylvia; thirty-two tracks – makes for charming and uplifting listening: the music is wonderfully insouciant, spirited and colourful, for...