Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Sibelius, Thomas Wilson

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Brahms with period pianos, Sibelius from Watford and a pair of Scottish symphonies

Brahms with period pianos, Sibelius from Watford and a pair of Scottish symphonies

 

Brahms PrimroseBrahms: The Piano Quartets The Primrose Piano Quartet (Meridian)

Classical CDs Weekly: Dove, Leighton, Martin, Vaughan Williams

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Two very different British composers, and a pair of mass settings

Two very different British composers, and a pair of mass settings

 

Dove on AmazonThe Orchestral Music of Jonathan Dove BBC Philharmonic/Timothy Redmond, with Lawrence Zazzo (counter-tenor) (Orchid Classics)

First Person: Conductor Maxime Pascal on Stockhausen at the Southbank Centre

FIRST PERSON: MAXIME PASCAL On conducting Stockhausen at the Southbank Centre

The man in control of a cosmic opera tonight on its visionary German composer

Stockhausen stands alongside Monteverdi and Beethoven as a composer who exploded the understanding of his art. Stockhausen deeply changed the relationship between space, time and music; there’s a human, intimate dimension to his composition, and he predicted the future.

British Paraorchestra: The Nature of Why, Brighton Festival 2019 review - it's a happening!

★★★★ BRITISH PARAORCHESTRA, BRIGHTON FESTIVAL It's a happening!

Onstage melee of players and audience that is as much about human experience as music

The Nature of Why is not so much a concert as a multi-discipline happening. To assess it is to relate a human experience rather than just an aesthetic appreciation of the new orchestral work by Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory which is at its heart. On the surface, it’s an hour-long piece in nine short movements, interspersed with old BBC recordings of the Nobel Prize-winning American physicist Richard Feynman explaining how magnetism is unexplainable in layman’s terms.

Classical CDs Weekly: Mozart, Poulenc, Jeremy Denk

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Strings and winds from Vienna & Paris, eight centuries of keyboard music

Strings and winds from Vienna and Paris, plus eight centuries of keyboard music

 

Klenke Mozart 5tetsMozart: The String Quintets Klenke Quartet (with Harald Schoneweg, viola) (Accentus Music)

Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Mysliveček, Tippett

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Beethoven, Mysliveček, Tippett

19th century piano music, and symphonies from a 20th century British maverick

 

Uchida's BeethovenBeethoven: Piano Concertos 1-5 Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)

Robin Hood, The Opera Story, CLF Café review - folk hero re-imagined as Tory villain

★★★★ ROBIN HOOD, THE OPERA STORY, CLF CAFE Folk hero re-imagined as Tory villain

The plot is over-stuffed, but this new opera has some riveting moments

What’s the one thing everyone knows about Robin Hood? That he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. So it was quite a brave decision to re-cast Robin as a rapacious Tory shires MP, doing his best to stop the poor becoming rich. At least, I think that was what happened: in much of the story is opaque, even having read the synopsis carefully.

Best of 2018: Classical CDs

BEST OF 2018: CLASSICAL CDS A Kazan Shostakovich, Messiaen's birds, Bernstein the pianist

From the year's favourites: a Kazan Shostakovich, Messiaen's birds, Bernstein the pianist

Record shops may be thin on the ground, but CDs are still very much with us. No sensible soul would ever rate listening to a recording over experiencing music live. But if, like me, time, money and geography limit one’s opportunities to nip out to concerts, a well-produced CD can plug the gap very nicely. I’m still a fan of the physical product over the download: removing shrink wrap and flicking through sleeve notes are one of life's minor pleasures, and several releases in this list score highly in terms of aesthetics as well as music making.

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