Music Reviews
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Surprising Performances to Discover
Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto premiered on November 28, 1909, in New York City. The composer himself was the soloist, and Walter Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony Society. That must have been amazing! But even more amazing: just about 6 weeks later, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Rachmaninoff was again the soloist, but it was Gustav […]
Notes on Recent Finds No. 35 – Classical Music Composed Within the Past 25 Years
View Original Article With such a rich history of music in the western world, it is too easy to get lost in centuries past. We can too easily fail to see the amazing music being written today. With this article, I want to offer up some outstanding music of the 21st Century I’ve been privileged […]
Arabella Steinbacher | Beethoven & Lentz: Violin Concertos
Currently 35% OFF! *Offer valid through Monday, May 05 end of day PST*Discount will be applied automatically at checkout. Just adding another Beethoven Violin Concerto? Only two and a half months after I heard Arabella Steinbacher playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at the inaugural night of Poland’s Beethoven Easter Festival, in Warsaw’s Filharmonia Narodowa, with Sinfonia […]
Iceland with Sono Luminus
View Original Article For some time I’ve wanted to share with you some of this outstanding music, performance excellence, and superb audio quality coming from Sono Luminus’ ventures with Icelandic composers and performers. Why Iceland? I didn’t have any clear understanding other than that Sono Luminus CEO Collin Rae has some connections there and they […]
Two Excellent Interpretations of Ravel’s Finest Orchestral Work
What’s your favorite recording of…? What’s the best recording of…? These are difficult questions! I’ve been collecting classical (and other genres) recordings for decades. At the beginning my favorites were the recordings that first made that work special to me. Later on I’d have more than one favorite. Now? There are things to like about many different performances. It […]
A Rare Musical Experience with Pianist David Fung
View Original Source David Fung, Evening Conversations. Yarlung Records 2006 2025 (Pure DSD256) Release date: 4-18-2025 I found myself talking recently on the phone with my friend Bob Attiyeh, the creative founder and visionary of Yarlung Records. I’m always intrigued by these occasional calls with Bob. One never knows whence they may wander. That day, Bob […]
An Exploration of Past and Present
I was lucky. I grew up with a baby grand piano inherited from my father’s mother (see picture). I learned to play Bach, Gershwin, Kabalevsky, and others on it when I was a pre-teen. Very few people have either the space or funds for an instrument like that now. Musicians face a similar problem for […]
LSO Live – Beethoven violin concerto(s)
Originally written for Classical Source Violin Concerti don’t come any greater or more popular than the Beethoven and the catalogue is awash with performances, so any newcomer is going to have to be exceptional to merit serious consideration. The big selling point of this new one is Jörg Widmann’s radical cadenzas, but these are arguably […]
Recent Finds No. 32 – Early Music from Medieval to Early Renaissance
View on Positive Feedback I unabashedly love listening to early music, from medieval to renaissance. And much of this music is for voices. Not all, by a long shot, but there is a lot that is a cappella. Early music will be the theme of today’s Recent Finds because this is what has consumed much […]
Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7, ‘The Tempest’
I was in my mid-teens when I first became aware of the music of Jean Sibelius– Finlandia, the Second Symphony– the usual. I eventually started listening to his other symphonies, and I was hooked. The Fifth Symphony became my favorite. Many years later I came across a used LP featuring Sir Thomas Beecham’s recording of […]
A Perfect Tone Poem
You know the question– If you could only have one (whatever) on a desert island, what would it be. Desert Island Favorites can sometimes produce some interesting results. I was thinking a while back about what my desert island favorite tone poems might be. I came up with two: Rachmaninoff’s Isle Of the Dead, and Richard Strauss’ […]
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Originally written for Classical Source. Read original article HERE. Ravel’s great score seems to bring out the best in performers and from Charles Munch’s 1955 Boston Symphony account, through Dutoit in Montreal to Roth’s period instrument version there is something to satisfy all tastes. This LSO performance, which is their sixth recording of the work, […]