Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Downsized Beethoven and Mahler plus Petrenko's brilliant Strauss

Downsized orchestral music, plus a taste of the great outdoors

 

Beethoven PuntoBeethoven Symphonies 1-3 – arrangements by Ries & Ebers Compagnia di Punto (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)

Elektra/Der Rosenkavalier, Nightly Met Opera Streams review - searing hits and indulgent misses

ELEKTRA / DER ROSENKAVALIER, MET OPERA ONLINE Searing hits and indulgent misses

Challenging direction, great conducting and luxury casting in New York Strauss

A brutal Greek tragedy and a rococo Viennese comedy, both filtered through the eyes and ears of 20th century genius: what a feast on consecutive nights from the Metropolitan Opera's recent archive. There's been real thought behind the wealth of programming in the company's attempts to keep the world happy for free during lockdown, including a whole Wagner week.

Blomfield, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review - sounds of a troubled truce

★★★★ BLOMFIELD, PHILHARMONIA, SALONEN, RFH Three idiosyncratic works tell one story of the world in 1945

Three idiosyncratic works tell one story of the world in 1945

Concert programmes that set out to tell us a story can prove a mixed blessing. Yes, it’s valuable and stimulating to find ideas, and narratives, embodied in the musical flow. But great pieces, well-performed, have a habit of cutting loose from the frame of concepts someone has devised for them.

Classical CDs Weekly: Donnacha Dennehy, Handel, Strauss

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Historial and Bibical tragedies, plus three character-driven tone poems

Historical and Biblical tragedies set to music, plus three character-driven tone poems

 

Dennehy HungerDonnacha Dennehy: The Hunger Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson, with Katherine Manley and Iarla Ó Lionáird (Nonesuch)

Jessye Norman, 1945-2019

JESSYE NORMAN, 1945-2019 The great soprano leaves behind a fabulous legacy

The great soprano has died at the age of 74, leaving behind a fabulous legacy

She was recording Carmen in Paris, and the Radio France auditorium was packed with the press, asking such dazzling questions as "have you been up the Eiffel Tower yet?" and "what do you think of the French men?". I thought, given the statuesque approach, it might be best to wonder if there was a nobility in the characterisation. Jessye Norman refined it to "dignity" and enlarged graciously on that (I can no longer find the transcript or the printed feature).

Kozhukhin, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - more cultured than electrifying

Brahms within bounds and smooth Strauss in a well-measured romantic double bill

With two German giants roaring - Brahms in leonine mode, Richard Strauss more with tongue in armour-plated cheek - it could have all been too much. Not in the eloquent hands of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's Music Director Designate, Vasily Petrenko, or pianist Denis Kozhukhin, the most musically disciplined of Russians.

Damrau, BRSO, Jansons, Barbican review - broad and passionate Strauss

MARISS JANSONS (1943-2019) 'One of the greats' in a Barbican concert earlier this year

Warm and richly coloured performances of 'Ein Heldenleben' and the Four Last Songs

There is no doubting Diana Damrau’s star power. She is not a demonstrative performer, and her voice is small, but the sheer character of her tone, and the passion she invests, make every line special. She is not one to over-sentimentalise either, so there was never any danger of Strauss’s Four Last Songs turning saccharine here.

Sophie Bevan, Philharmonia, Rouvali, RFH review - an Alpine blaze

★★★★★ SOPHIE BEVAN, PHILHARMONIA, ROUVALI, RFH An Alpine blaze

Generously flawed at first, the young Finn's conducting hit ever greater heights in Strauss

With eyes swivelled towards who'll take over from Esa-Pekka Salonen as the Philharmonia's Principal Conductor in 2021, two of the strongest possibilities are to be found within the orchestra's masthead of associates.