Classical

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Christopher Breunig  |  Sep 17, 2019
This month we review: Tippett, Beethoven, Bruckner and Haitink - The Early Years
Christopher Breunig  |  Aug 28, 2019
This month we review: JS Bach, Chopin, Mahler and Shostakovich
Christopher Breunig  |  Jul 25, 2019
This month we review: Schubert, Berlioz, Mozart and Sibelius
Christopher Breunig  |  Jun 20, 2019
This month we review: Stravinsky, JS Bach, Debussy and Leonard Bernstein
Christopher Breunig  |  May 14, 2019
This month we review: Mahler, Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov/Stravinsky, and Schubert
Christopher Breunig  |  Apr 03, 2019
This month we review: Stravinsky, Bruno Walter, Ravel & Schubert
Christopher Breunig  |  Mar 06, 2019
This month we review: Elgar, Bartók/Enescu, Haydn/Schoenberg & Rachmaninov
Christopher Breunig  |  Dec 01, 2018
This month we review: Sibelius, JS Bach, Beethoven/Brahms/Mozart and The Rotterdam PO Collection
Christopher Breunig  |  Nov 01, 2018
This month we review: Schubert, Bruch, Ravel/Gershwin, and Mozart.
Christopher Breunig  |  Oct 01, 2018
This month we review: Haydn, Dream Album, Mendelssohn/Fanny Mendelssohn, and R Strauss.
Christopher Breunig  |  Sep 01, 2018
This month we review: Bruckner/Wagner, Handel, Mahler, and Scarlatti
Christopher Breunig  |  Dec 10, 2010
These concert recordings supplement rather than displace Curzon, Gilels, Kempff, Serkin, et al, yet the opening bars of the Fourth Concerto immediately reveal Fellner’s very beautiful piano sound – which we already know from his Bach on ECM – and subsequently that he completely understands the imperatives of Beethoven’s expressive writing: in dynamic gradations, the function of trills and turns, etc. Furthermore he is very sympathetically accompanied by Nagano – the unfolding of the dramatic dialogue in 4(ii) has rarely sounded so interesting. Alas the ‘Emperor’ falls well below its companion here. Sound Quality: 65% .
Christopher Breunig  |  Dec 10, 2010
Dorati’s extensive experience as a ballet conductor is set out in his Notes Of Seven Decades. He left a substantial Mercury catalogue – the late producer Wilma Cozart Fine had once been his secretary – with his complete LSO Firebird (Watford Hall, 1959) ever after an audiophile choice. One hopes Speakers Corner will issue it separately. The Minneapolis Le Sacre, excitingly fast, has an air of authority.
Christopher Breunig  |  Dec 10, 2010
The frail Romanian pianist was not always so lucky with her recording conductors. In these 1955 reissues she is partnered by Ferenc Fricsay, a significant figure in the postwar DG catalogue. In an essay written shortly before his early death he described Mozart as ‘a golden-feathered messenger of God’. Haskil’s unerring, needle-sharp fingerwork suggests no less a messenger of this composer.
Christopher Breunig  |  Dec 10, 2010
After finally being allowed to come to the West in 1960, Richter soon made LPs for CBS, RCA, DG, EMI and Philips. Extraordinary! His UK debut with Kondrashin was at the Albert Hall in July ’61 in Chopin, Dvorak and Liszt; the two Liszt Concertos (which you can find ‘live’, with the Hungarian Fantasy and Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise, on BBC Legends 4031-2) were then produced over three days at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, by a Mercury team. With more than nine hours of tape to hand, the pianist asked for a complete retake of the First Concerto, most of which was used for the edited master. The results subsequently have become the benchmark coupling.

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