latest editorial reviews
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op77; Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D
One of the most technically accomplished young musicians, Hilary Hahn is also ambitious. Performing Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto at age 21 is a serious-minded choice, since this piece has acquired a reputation for being appropriate for mature artists. Hahn removes that dubious impediment by playing it on her own terms, with new ears, and by taking no heed of pretensions imposed on this masterpiece. All the fire and yearning are here, the chief characteristics of Brahmsian romanticism. However, Hahn has the intelligence and sensibility to keep her interpretation within classical bounds.Source: AMGSibelius: Songs Op88; Arioso Op3
Karita Mattila's large, focused, warmly expressive soprano is especially well suited to the music of the Romantic and post-Romantic eras, so it seems natural that she would have an affinity for the vocal music of her countryman Jean Sibelius, whose songs are among his most passionate compositions. Sibelius was a prolific song composer, but his production of vocal solos petered out in the 1920s, around the same time he wrote his last symphony, not long before he virtually ceased producing new works.Source: AMGMussorgsky: Boris Godunov
Any listener with the simple desire to hear a recording of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov is inevitably confronted with a maze of musicological dilemmas that can be baffling to navigate. The composer himself created two versions that vary widely in both tone and musical and dramatic content. Rimsky-Korsakov undertook a complete re-orchestration of Mussorgsky's second version, freely altering both harmonic and melodic elements that were not to his liking, making cuts and additions to the score and reversing the order of the two final scenes.Source: AMGBach: Cantata No49; Cantata No115
Originally recorded for the Astrée label in the early 1990s, this recording is something of a classic of the historical-performance movement, and its reissue is cause for celebration. It combines awesome soloists just hitting their peak years, a distinctive overall approach from conductor Christophe Coin and the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, and an illustration of what's possible when Bach's music is played on the instruments he had in mind when he wrote it.Source: AMGPalestrina: Missa Viri Galilaei; Missa O Rex gloriae
For a composer who from his own time and for most of the next four centuries was recognized as one of the crowning figures of Renaissance music, Giovanni Luigi da Palestrina remains neglected in terms of his vast overall output. A famous work, the so-called Missa Papae Marcelli or Pope Marcellus Mass, associated with a now-discredited story, defined his style as something shorn of all rough edges, consisting of pure and perfect but rarely expressive polyphony. Some of his music fits this general description, but much does not.Source: AMGBruckner: Symphony No. 4 'Romantic'
Newcomers to the symphonies of Anton Bruckner should be excused for being a little confused by all the different versions and editions that exist, for even aficionados occasionally encounter a hitherto unknown version of a symphony that challenges their expertise and opinions. This hybrid SACD of Bruckner's Symphony No.Source: AMGBernstein: Candide
There was a standing joke that two New York authors met at a party and determined that they were the only writers in the city not to have had a hand in writing or revising the book of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, first introduced in 1956. It's indisputable that in the world of the Broadway musical, no other show comes anywhere close to the number of revisions the book and the music have undergone in the attempts to create a coherent evening in the theatre.Source: AMGThe Road [Original Score]
Readers of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road may have guessed that it was tailor-made for cinematic treatment. Its bleak landscapes and distinctive rhythm, with long stretches of near silence punctuated by outbursts of grim violence, were a director's dream. By the same token, the film was a challenge for soundtrack composers Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, both Australian and both associated with Cave's punk band, the Bad Seeds. But the responded with a unique score that they performed, with a small ensemble, as well as performed.Source: AMGAlessandra Celletti plays Baldassarre Galuppi
Alessandra Celletti is best known as a composer of highly original electronic music that utilizes piano and evinces a strong grounding in traditional classical music. She has also contributed some of her skills as keyboardist to interpreting composers such as Scott Joplin and Erik Satie. On Transparency's Alessandra Celletti Plays Baldassarre Galuppi, Celletti devotes a disc to the unfairly neglected keyboard sonatas of Baldassare Galuppi, a major figure in 18th century Italian music usually associated with opera.Source: AMGBrahms: Piano Quartet No. 2; Clarinet Trio
Fans of the Nash Ensemble's disc of Brahms' First and Third Piano Quartets will certainly like the group's recording of the German Romantic's Second Piano Quartet and Clarinet Trio, with clarinetist Richard Hosford. The same characteristics hold here as in the earlier release: a tight but comfortable ensemble, a rich yet focused sound, a powerful but flexible sense of rhythm, lyrical phrasing, and dramatic developments. In the more relaxed Second Piano Quartet, the Nash players turn in a sun-dappled pastoral performance with plenty of breathing room but no loss of forward motion.Source: AMG