Vanguard Classics' Leon Fleisher: The Journey isn't a typical classical piano recital disc. Concert pianist Leon Fleisher had only been enjoying use of both hands for a decade as the right hand clenched up due to focal dystonia in 1964 and stayed that way for 30 years. That Fleisher was able to play is in itself a miracle, and he didn't take it ...
How can analog recordings from the mid- to late '50s and early '60s stand up to scrutiny in the digital age, or favorably compare with state-of-the-art multichannel hybrid SACDs and DSD technology? If they happen to be vintage Mercury Living Presence half-inch three-track recordings, made with three Telefunken microphones and digitally remastered ...
The annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert, a big splash by Austrian standards, makes for entertaining listening either for its intended purpose or just for any listener looking for a collection of Viennese waltzes and polkas, with the various generations of the Strauss family heavily represented. In fact, it may even be preferable to ...
Simply titled Live, this disc is the maiden voyage of violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's do-it-yourself label, NSS Music, available exclusively through her website at www.nssmusic.com. It is an unusually direct representation of Salerno-Sonnenberg's live duo recitals given at Merkin Hall in New York in April 2004 with pianist Anne-Marie ...
"Why present just Handel's Coronation Anthems for King George II when you can present the whole Coronation?" seems to be the proposition that underlies this two-disc set, entitled The Coronation of King George II, 1727. And, thrillingly performed by Robert King directing the King's Consort and the Choir of the King's Consort, there seems no good ...
Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia's recording of Mahler's First Symphony coupled with his "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" sung by baritone Christopher Maltman is not only the best Mahler's First in decades, it is one of the great recorded performances. Yes, sometimes it is almost a little bit too much. The parody woodwinds in the music do get ...
Every Richter fan will want to hear his performances of four of Bach's English Suites (6) taped in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow on May 20, 1991. Recorded near the end of his career, they are Richter at his most deeply affecting and deeply human. Richter was 76 when he gave these performances, but they reveal no lack of power, no ...
Here are two well filled, sensitively rendered discs, the first volume in a complete traversal of Debussy's solo piano music. Robert Casadesus and Paul Jacobs have traveled this highway with acclaim, and Thibaudet makes his mark here now to impressive effect, as well. While his The Engulfed Cathedral may be a bit stiff and slow, his Arabesques ...
This 13-CD box set of Bruno Walter recordings, known variously as Famous Mahler and Bruckner Symphonies and The Original Jacket Collection: Bruno Walter Conducts Mahler and Bruckner Symphonies, is an example of Sony Music's American division trying to emulate the work (and the success) of the company's Japanese division. Indeed, the whole original ...
Jade's Gregorian Chant -- Dominican Liturgy was made in 1994 as homage to Dominican Friar Thomas Patfoort, who was a singer, teacher, and leader within the Dominican Order that initiated significant reforms in choral singing throughout Europe, but concentrated his efforts in France. The Choir of the Dominican Brothers of the Province of France is ...
Seattle-based composer Andrew T. Miller's cantata The Birth of Christ received its premiere in Dublin in 2006. Its performance was hailed as a landmark event because it brought together Catholic and Protestant choirs. It would be good to report that its musical quality was as significant as its humanitarian achievement, but as a whole, the music ...
Anybody who loves the orchestral music of English composer Edward Elgar -- the brilliant Enigma Variations, the passionate Violin Concerto, the heartrending Cello Concerto, the magnificent symphonies, the spectacular overtures, and the virtuosic Bach and Handel transcriptions -- will sooner or later have to deal with his three sacred oratorios: ...
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