Lang Lang, the Chinese super-virtuoso pianist, can do anything he wants with the piano. The question is: what does he want to do? In this Deutsche Grammophon coupling of Beethoven's First and Fourth piano concertos with Christoph Eschenbach leading the Orchestre de Paris, Lang plays the right pitches in the right rhythms -- and plays them with ...
Pairing Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 in C minor, "Organ," and Francis Poulenc's Concerto for organ, strings, and timpani in G minor is common enough in practice, but the growing popularity of Samuel Barber's Toccata Festiva for organ and orchestra, Op. 36, may signal a change from the usual way of programming these works. The arrangement on ...
The music of Albert Roussel is not easy to pigeonhole, due to the evocative Impressionism of his early compositions and the more abstract neo-Classicism of his later works, composed after World War I. With its emphasis on timbres and textures over themes and development, the Impressionist style may not seem particularly well suited to symphonic ...
When it comes to Schubert's music for piano duet, there are the more and the less interesting works. And when it comes to Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz's two volumes of Schubert's music for piano duet, volume two -- this volume -- got the more interesting works. For one thing, it has far and away Schubert's best piece for piano duet, the ...
Renée Fleming's interpretation of Heidenröslein (D. 257) is so coy, so arch, so smarmy, and so condescendingly smug that you almost wishe it weren't so fabulously well sung. But it is, so what can you do? All the irritation felt for her interpretation turns to admiration of her performance -- and that's the way the whole disc is. Fleming's Im Fr ...
This set is a remastered issue of Eschenbach's recordings from the mid-'70s. His reading of these great, late Beethoven sonatas is fascinating. The slower movements, such as the Adagio of the Hammerklavier, and even places within the second movement of the Sonata No. 32 and the Bagatelles, become almost stream of consciousness music, but these are ...
While he was held in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, Olivier Messiaen composed the Quartet for the End of Time in response to his "colored dreams," which had been induced by hunger. Apocalyptic visions of the angel Gabriel, surrounded by a swirling rainbow, inspired this deeply mystical and elevated work. The timbres of the instruments ...
When Leopold Stokowski had the Philadelphia Orchestra (1912-1939), they recorded for RCA in the U.S. When Eugene Ormandy had the Philadelphia (1939-1977), they recorded for CBS. When Riccardo Muti (1980-1993) and Wolfgang Sawallisch (1993-2003) had the Philadelphia, they recorded for EMI in England. With Christoph Eschenbach in charge of the ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
![Brahms: Complete String Quartets, Quintets & Sextets [Box Set]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/l95925ra4ma_t.jpg)
![Mozart: Piano Sonatas [Box Set]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/l60960zr6cw_t.jpg)
![Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Martinu: Memorial to Lidice; Klein: Partita for Strings [Hybrid SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m15907lwv9d_t.jpg)
![Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante, K364; Concerto for Violin & Piano, KAnh56 [SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/l75638k95sy_t.jpg)
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.