Discovering Wonderful Performances

It’s always a pleasure to discover wonderful performances. But it’s really wonderful to discover unfamiliar composers. Tabea Zimmermann (violin) and Kirill Gerstein (piano) come together in an exquisitely recorded, beautifully played set of Sonatas by Brahms, Vieuxtemps, and a wonderful surprise: Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979). Clarke was born in England, but lived mostly in the US. […]

The Art of the Flute

Bach’s Art of the Fugue! I love this music no matter what instruments are involved. Check out Lynx, a quartet of Japanese flute players, traveling to a church in Germany to record Bach’s The Art Of The Fugue (BWV 1080)! What a delightful discovery this is! The album is called Fuga Lynx. I was totally […]

Living The Music

I love Debussy. I think he was a giant among composers. And I suspect that some or all of the Preludes, Books 1 and 2, are probably part of your own library. Some pianists capture the dreamy, impressionistic qualities. Others play them in a neo-classical manner, letting the notes speak for themselves. I love having […]

Transcriptions, reductions, and orchestrations

Transcriptions, reductions, and orchestrations can be quite enjoyable. Stokowski got a lot of mileage out of orchestrating Bach organ pieces. Ravel orchestrated many of his own works for piano, not to mention his famous orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition. This next DSD Discovery is Gustav Mahler’s arrangement for full string orchestra of Franz […]

Cello Discoveries in DSD

To me there is no musical instrument that captures the range of human emotion as well as the cello. Here are three works for the cello featuring the outstanding young Nicolas Altstaedt, backed by Berlin’s other world-class orchestra, the Deutches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by the up and coming Michal Nesterowicz. Included are Cello Concertos by […]

Around the world in five DSD Albums

Music can take you to times and places. Music can show you the heart of a culture. Music can make you feel you’ve been there, and you know the people.

Dangerous DSD Discoveries

Here’s one I’m very excited about: an album featuring music by a composer I’d never heard of, performed by an ensemble I’d never heard of. The Amsterdam Bridge Ensemble absolutely carries me away with the music of Dutch composer Hendrik Andriessen (1892-1981). Jacobien Rozemond – Violin, Doris Hochscheid – Cello, and Frans van Ruth – Piano […]

Great Conductors

Jaap van Zweden, the newly named Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in a dynamic and emotional performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. There have been a number of quite fine new recordings of this massive work in the last few years, and some would say that the […]