A grand collection of reviews. If you are a professional music reviewer and would like to contribute a review to this blog, please contact us.
Xiaowen Shang’s debut album is a delightful program featuring a number of individual selections from Federico Mompou’s Musica Callada, interspersed with some of Antonio Soler’s eighteenth-century sonatas, and piano transcriptions of the sixteenth-century sacred composer Antonio de Cabézon- 3 centuries of Spanish music that she brings together flawlessly. She plays with crystal clarity, yet never […]
Want some fresh Dvorak? Tomas Netopil and the Czech Philharmonic serve up a delightful array of some of Dvorak’s lesser-known works on this release from a few weeks ago. They may not be as well known as his Slavonic Dances and others, but that doesn’t mean they are in any way inferior. The Legends are […]
You may have overlooked this one- I did! But that’s the reason I do these “Discoveries”. It’s an LP length release from an orchestra you might not have heard of, and you probably have more than one recording of Stravinsky’s Petrushka already. So imagine my surprise at finding this performance absolutely delightful! The late 50s […]
Read Original Pure DSD256 from Eudora, Hunnia, Yarlung, and more! I’m catching up… honestly I am. There are many wonderful albums to talk about, more than I can cover in one article. But, I’ll make a start and then add more in a later article. Today, I want to visit several terrific Pure DSD256 recordings […]
Quality and quantity are two different things. The best, of course, is getting both. But if a choice has to be made, quality must prevail. Short as this DSD EP may be, it scores high on quality. For the first time, I heard the Dutch pianist, van Poucke, in a carefully crafted Schumann recital – The […]
Written by Robert Baird for Stereophile – January 2025 Jazz Record Reviews Donald Vega, pianoClovis Nicolas, bassPete Van Nostrand, drums It’s easy to hear why performers of all stripes are drawn to Christmas music: The tunes are irresistible. The challenge lies in how every known Christmas tune has been played live and recorded umpteen times. […]
I got hooked on Miklos Rozsa’s music as a high school kid, when I saw Ben Hur in a newly-remodeled theater in it’s first “roadshow” run. The Sound system in that theater was excellent, and I was blown away. I played the soundtrack album so often I imagine I was driving my parents crazy! I […]
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra debuts its own label with these two releases. I was thoroughly impressed by each one, and I want to be sure that they get the attention they deserve. First, Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg and the MSO’s chief conductor, Jaime Martin in song suites by Debussy and Strauss. Ariettes Oublidees, the Debussy songs […]
In Admiration of one of France’s Most Famous Organists, David Briggs Pulls all the Stops. Notre Dame de Paris … This latest release of Jake Purches’ is special on more than one count. Base 2 Music, being a respected organ music label, has released something that not only marks the centenary of one of France’s […]
Available now for 25% Off! If you’re not a big fan of Baroque Music, I’ve got the perfect “discovery” for you… Barbaric Beauty! At least, this is how Telemann described the pieces he wrote after discovering the music played along the Polish-Hungarian border. “If you were to write down all that was played there, after […]
Available now for 25% off! If you love great piano works and superb musicianship, check out the various albums by the young Dutch pianist, Hannes Minnaar. This one, his debut album, features Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No.1, and Ravel’s Sonatine and Miroirs. You might be surprised to find these in one program, but Rachmaninoff and Ravel were very […]