I’ve certainly covered a lot of wonderful recordings in doing 28 of these blogs, but occasionally there are some that get left behind. So I’ve spent the last few days looking. And I found some great ones! … Caution! Extreme beauty ahead… Arabella Steinbacher, backed by Lawrence Foster and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, […]
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 […]
Some out of the way yet close to us in the classical music composing history discoveries today… Contemporary Classical 20th and 21st Century Masterpieces in DSD. Here’s a really lovely Cello-Piano duo recital! Terry Drinkall and Dian Baker combine to perform two beautiful sonatas and some other wonderful duets. “20th Century Masterpieces for Piano and […]
I’m beginning to really mistrust comparisons. People compare Mahler to Bruckner and Strauss. Except for speaking German and composing for big orchestras making big sounds— Their musical languages are quite different. This is why I’ve had trouble warming up to Nielsen in the past. Too many people have compared Nielsen to Sibelius. I love Sibelius […]
There’s a myth that only French conductors and orchestras should perform French music, or only conductors and orchestras from the UK should be doing British music, and so on. I don’t believe it. Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony are extraordinarily fine with their “This England” set: Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958) had been working on […]