To mark Mieczysław Weinberg’s centenary, David Fanning explores the ever-growing catalogue of the Russian composer’s extraordinary and underappreciated music Twenty-five years ago, bedridden, with only 14 months to live, Weinberg celebrated his 75th birthday. The Russian musical world, however, did not. Concert life in post-Soviet Russia was in poor shape – one wry observer commented […]
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From our archives For this 2018 Raumklang release, Laurence Cummings and the Harmony of Nations deliver works by Johann Sebastian Bach that involve the number 3. Obvious picks for such a numerically based theme are the Concerto for 3 violins in D minor, after BWV 1063, and the Concerto for 3 violins in D major, […]
The Alpha label has been reconfigured into part of the larger OutHere group, with a general repertory replacing the Renaissance and Baroque specialties of the sumptuously packaged former label. One thing has remained the same, however, at least in this release by conductor Paavo Järvi and the ad hoc but highly talented Estonian Festival Orchestra: […]
Of the large crop of tenors reaching their prime years in the late 2010s, Malta’s Joseph Calleja has shown strong signs of breaking out from the pack, and this Verdi recital can only help him. Calleja combines a rich, smooth middle range with a bright, edgy top in which he can convincingly explode in emotion. […]
Ivan Hewett (The Telegraph) analyses what qualities are needed to make a great composer and takes issue with the suggestion that Stravinksy is not among the finest. What makes for greatness in classical music? My colleague Damian Thompson had some fun with this question in his Saturday column. He declared that only pompous music lovers […]
Between light and shade … pianist Momo Kodama. Photograph: Marco Borggreve Kate Molleson writes … Debussy looked east for inspiration, enthralled by Javanese gamelans and Japanese woodcuts. Toshio Hosokawa, born in Hiroshima in 1955, writes wispy music rooted in the western tradition. Pianist Momo Kodama grew up in Osaka and studied in Paris; her first […]
Claudia Pritchard … Britten’s sole violin concerto is constructed from simple scales rising and falling expressively over exotic Spanish rhythms, but within this framework, from the opening silken thread to passages of great passion and profundity, the concerto unfolds into a piece of great magnitude. Continue HERE
Katie Derham hosts the climax of the world’s greatest classical music festival, the Last Night of the Proms, live from the Royal Albert Hall, drawing a unique season of live performances to a celebratory close. Soprano Golda Schultz and violinist Lisa Batiashvili join Dalia Stasevska, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers in a […]
From the archives: His first concerto recording for Decca has just been released. The Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, newly signed to Decca, has just released his first concerto recording for the label: Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Gramophone’s editor-in-chief James Jolly caught up with Kavakos when he was in London to perform the work at the Barbican […]
Listen to female composers speaking in these exclusive archive recordings. Please click HERE to view
Though several of the works Dvorak wrote during his four year stay in the New World reflect his interest in the folkloric music he heard there (most famously, the “New World” Symphony and the “American” Quartet), the cello concerto harkens back to his native Czechoslovakia with a sense of longing and nostalgia that’s unusually personal. […]
Geoffrey Norris writes: Neither the Grieg Concerto nor Prokofiev’s Third is exactly a stranger to the catalogue, but Nikolai Lugansky’s collaboration here with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester refreshes, rejuvenates and, in terms of interpretation, replenishes each work with a whole range of perceptive refinements. The Grieg concerto is so ubiquitous that it is easy to forget […]
Vasily Petrenko ensures the proportions and sometimes wild discourse of this symphony are held in perspective, says Geoffrey Norris. The chequered performance history of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony has lent it a mystique over and above all the interpretations of what his message – whether public or private – might have been in the other 14 […]
Christian Zacharias first appeared in Gramophone’s pages in November 1978 with his debut recording of Schubert’s Piano Sonata No 18, D894. In her review at the time, Joan Chissell noted that ‘Zacharias emerges as an extremely thoughtful player, someone seeking the musical truth rather than trying to spotlight himself.’ And so it is a great […]
The Editor-in-chief of Songlines magazine, Simon Broughton, speaks to members of the Kronos Quartet about their fascinating new collaboration with Trio da Kali Continues HERE
The Keen Collector (RIP). As a species, the ‘collector’ is, I think, a dying breed. This is not only reflected in the reduced sales of classical LPs and CDs, but also things like Cameras, Books, and other collectibles. My wife notices it with vintage Jewellery. People don’t collect the way they once did. The ‘value’ […]
Pianist Angela Hewitt has played Bach everywhere from Beijing to Bogotá. But she always avoided his final work – thinking it was too tough. She relives how she overcame fear and major surgery to love The Art of Fugue. In August 2007, I set off on a 14-month recital tour performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterpiece […]
From the New York Times: Liszt’s piano music is something between a mirror and a lie detector. Think flashy and self-serving as you play it, and so it responds. Think better thoughts, and the music transforms itself. Jon Nakamatsu, playing three Liszt pieces at the end of his recital at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday, […]
Andrew Clements writes: Imogen Cooper sets out on her survey of Schumann’s complete piano music for Chandos with two of his greatest cycles. Alongside Carnaval and the Davidsbündlertänze, the eight pieces of the Fantasiestücke Op 12 and the eight of Kreisleriana Op 16 perhaps define Schumann’s special qualities as a composer for the piano better than […]
The German violinist Antje Weithaas, an independent-minded player with a career as soloist, chamber musician and conductor/director, has released her third volume of Bach and Ysaÿe. It’s a treat. Between pliant accounts of …… Continues HERE
From the archives: Mozart and Verdi would be “outraged” to hear classical music was considered the “exclusive preserve of an educated elite”, Clemency Burton-Hill says. “Rock stars” of classical music such as Mozart and Verdi would be “outraged” to know their works are considered the “exclusive preserve of an educated elite”, Clemency Burton-Hill has said, […]
These Concerti a due cori — concertos for two choirs (of instruments) — have occasionally received good recordings; Trevor Pinnock led one some years ago. But they’re not common items despite coming from the years in the late 1740s when Handel was revered. Their neglect may result from the fact that the music in them […]