![Mark my words, Sir – Elder conducts Sibelius & Debussy [Hallé]](http://www.colinscolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/halle-3-400x250.jpg)
Mark my words, Sir – Elder conducts Sibelius & Debussy [Hallé]
Unless he has designs on Kullervo, with numbers 4 & 6 Sir Mark Elder completes his Sibelius Symphony Cycle for the Hallé’s own label; superb performances that make me regret I have not yet heard the previous issues in this series. The bleak and tragic Symphony 4,...
Neeme Järvi conducts Artur Kapp, Artur Lemba & Mihkel Lüdig [Chandos]
Neeme Järvi (head of the Järvi conducting clan) digs well below the core repertoire line for this collection from Estonian composers schooled in St Petersburg. On the evidence of these selections, Kapp (1878-1952), Lemba (1885-1963) & Lüdig (1880-1958) all wrote...
![The Early Horn – Ursula Paludan Monberg [Hyperion]](http://www.colinscolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/horn-400x250.png)
The Early Horn – Ursula Paludan Monberg [Hyperion]
The Early Horn – the title bringing Carry On connotations to my mind – is explained thus in Hyperion’s annotation: “Exploring the natural horn’s pivotal role in eighteenth-century chamber music, this album celebrates the instrument’s dramatic arrival from its rustic...
Met Orchestra to tour internationally in June 2021, for the first time in almost 20 years [belated News posting]
New York, NY (February 24, 2020)—The Metropolitan Opera today announces that the Met Orchestra will tour Europe in the summer of 2021, immediately following its annual residency at Carnegie Hall. With all performances conducted by the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer...
Classic FM & The Hebrides … and Rob Cowan
Mendelssohn’s overture, that is. It’s a regular on Classic FM, as are numerous other pieces, to their detriment when they appear for the umpteenth time, and usually in the same recording, in Mendelssohn’s case Edward Gardner’s on Chandos, making whoever is presenting...
Arlene Saunders RIP
From Alexander Campbell. "Just hearing that American soprano Arlene Saunders has died from Covid-19. She was a lyric soprano who later in her international career took on rather more demanding repertory. She sang Pamina at Glyndebourne in 1966, and her Covent Garden...
![Thomas Adès & Boston Symphony Orchestra – Adès World Premiere Recordings of Piano Concerto & Totentanz [Deutsche Grammophon]](http://www.colinscolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ades-400x250.jpg)
Thomas Adès & Boston Symphony Orchestra – Adès World Premiere Recordings of Piano Concerto & Totentanz [Deutsche Grammophon]
Thomas Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a conscious title of equal billing, premiered in 2019 (see link below), and his Totentanz (first heard at the BBC Proms in 2013) are captured from Boston Symphony concerts in excellent performances (Adès is a fine...
Beethoven 250: Jonathan Biss records the 32 Piano Sonatas [Orchid Classics]
I spent a few hours this afternoon in the company of Jonathan Biss, who has now journeyed his survey of Beethoven’s Complete Piano Sonatas, recorded between 2011 and last year. The layout of the individual discs (all separately available) is maintained for the box,...
NSO Goes It Alone – Noseda conducts Billy the Kid & Dvořák’s New World Symphony
The National Symphony Orchestra (based in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center) now has its own record label. This is the first release. Gianandrea Noseda, recently installed as NSO music director, isn’t as ‘inside’ Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid (Suite) as Leonard...