Latest News: Classical, Recording of the Week
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Recording of the Week,
Santiago a cappella 30th August 2010
Sir John Eliot Gardiner takes us on a journey through medieval and Renaissance Spain as he and the Monteverdi Choir follow in the footsteps of the pilgrims who travelled to the shrine of Saint James the Great.
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Recording of the Week,
Elīna Garanča goes Spanish 23rd August 2010
The Latvian mezzo sings the title-role in Bizet’s Carmen from the Metropolitan Opera on DVD, and explores gypsy music still further on her new recital Habanera, which includes music from zarzuela, operetta and musical theatre.
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Recording of the Week,
Rued Langgaard - Music of the Spheres 16th August 2010
Composed during World War One when the Danish composer was just 26, this experimental and forward-looking work received its UK premiere only last week – Thomas Dausgaard does it proud in this new recording with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
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Recording of the Week,
50 Years of the Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg 2nd August 2010
The Austrian festival celebrates its half-century by re-issuing a25-CD boxed set featuring five complete operas, ten orchestral concerts and two recitals – including the first release of an Alfred Brendel recital from 2007.
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Recording of the Week,
Gustav Mahler 26th July 2010
Deutsche Grammophon and EMI commemorate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth with lavish complete editions featuring performances from artists including Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Otto Klemperer and Simon Rattle.
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Recording of the Week,
Ronald Brautigam's Beethoven 28th June 2010
The Dutch fortepianist completes his outstanding cycle of the complete sonatas on BIS, with revelatory accounts of Opp. 101 and 109-111.
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Recording of the Week,
Handel's Berenice 14th June 2010
Alan Curtis presides over a highly persuasive account of Handel’s late opera with Il Complesso Barocco, starring Klara Ek in the title-role and Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli as Demetrio.
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Recording of the Week,
Alfredo Casella 31st May 2010
Gianandrea Noseda and Francesco La Vecchia offer sterling advocacy for the Italian composer’s first two symphonies, composed in the first decade of the twentieth century and full of ‘imaginative orchestration and dark sonorities’.
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Recording of the Week,
Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues from Melnikov 24th May 2010
The Russian pianist brings atmosphere, mystery, weight and solemnity to the 24 Preludes and Fugues dedicated to Tatiana Nikolayeva.
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Recording of the Week,
The multi-talented Julia Fischer 17th May 2010
The German violinist joins Martin Helmchen at the keyboard for the F minor Fantaisie for Piano Four Hands in her debut recording as a pianist, following the Grand Duo D574 and the Fantasie in C for violin and piano D934.
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Recording of the Week,
Frédéric Chopin 26th April 2010
Stephen Hough and Nelson Freire pay homage to the bicentenary of the Polish composer’s birth, and Warner Classics and Deutsche Grammophon issue extensive anniversary editions.
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Recording of the Week,
Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique 12th April 2010
Jos van Immerseel and the Flemish period-instrument orchestra Anima Eterna bring transparency and raw excitement to Berlioz’s ‘episodes in the life of an artist’ on Zigzag.
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Recording of the Week,
Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia and Joyce DiDonato 5th April 2010
The American mezzo sings an astonishing Rosina from a wheelchair after breaking her ankle on the opening night of Covent Garden’s production, with Juan Diego Flórez as her suitor Count Almaviva and Pietro Spagnoli as the eponymous Spanish barber.
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Recording of the Week,
Romantic Piano Concertos 29th March 2010
Hyperion’s venerable series reaches its fiftieth volume and enters more familiar territory with Stephen Hough joining the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä for the Tchaikovsky concertos.
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Recording of the Week,
Robin Ticciati and Brahms' Choral Works 22nd March 2010
The 27-year-old conductor brings a wonderful Brahmsian glow to the Alto Rhapsody (with Alice Coote as soloist), Nänie, Gesang der Parzen and the Schicksalslied with the Bamberger Symphoniker and Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
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Recording of the Week,
Mozart Symphonies from Mackerras - Volume 2 15th March 2010
The much-anticipated second volume of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Mozart series with their conductor laureate features joyous and life-enhancing accounts of Nos. 29, 31, 32, 35 and 46.
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Recording of the Week,
Thomas Adès 1st March 2010
Simon Rattle conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker (who commissioned the piece) in Tevot, premiered in 2007, and the composer himself conducts the violin concerto Concentric Paths, with its dedicatee Anthony Marwood as soloist.
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Recording of the Week,
Strauss: Alpine Symphony 22nd February 2010
Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra celebrate the awe-inspiring force of nature and Strauss’s ability to depict that in his writing.
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Recording of the Week,
Handel: Giulio Cesare and the Brockes Passion 15th February 2010
A stylish account of Handel’s best-known opera from the young Greek conductor George Petrou (with Swedish mezzo Kristina Hammarström in the title-role), and a ‘superbly played and sung’ reading of an early rarity from Peter Neumann.
