Latest News: Classical
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Recording of the Week,
Alison Balsom: Sound The Trumpet 8th October 2012
In her first solo album to be performed exclusively on the natural trumpet, Balsom joins The English Concert and Trevor Pinnock for a programme of music celebrating real or mythic monarchs by Handel and Purcell, including excerpts from The Fairy Queen, King Arthur and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne.
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Recording of the Week,
Glenn Gould 24th September 2012
To mark the eightieth anniversary of the birth of the extraordinary Canadian pianist, Sony Classical present two sets celebrating his legacy: The Schwarzkopf Tapes from 1966 (previously unreleased), and a handsomely-documented 38-CD box of his legendary Bach recordings.
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Recording of the Week,
Tchaikovsky’s Early Symphonies 17th September 2012
Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra makes hugely persuasive cases for Tchaikovsky’s neglected first three symphonies, Winter Daydreams, the ‘Little Russian’ and the ‘Polish’, in live performances given in London and Zurich last spring.
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Recording of the Week,
Mozart’s Don Giovanni 10th September 2012
Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s project cycle of Mozart’s major operas on Deutsche Grammophon gets off to a scintillating start with a starrily-cast take on ’Il dissoluto punito’, with Ildebrando d’Arcangelo as the eponymous libertine, and Diana Damrau and Joyce DiDonato as Anna and Elvira.
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Recording of the Week,
Stephen Hough's French Album 3rd September 2012
The British pianist’s ‘musical dessert-trolley’ includes popular favourites by Ravel, Debussy and Bach-via-Cortot, curiosities by Chabrier, Alkan and Chaminade, and his own transcriptions of bonbons by Massenet and Delibes.
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Video Interview,
Max Emanuel Cencic on Handel's Alessandro 1st September 2012
The Viennese countertenor talks to Katherine about recording the title-role in Handel's 1726 opera.
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Recording of the Week,
Mendelssohn's Elijah from McCreesh 27th August 2012
A super-sized, historically-aware account of Mendelssohn’s Old Testament oratorio (with Simon Keenlyside offering a nuanced portrayal of the irascible prophet) sets a new benchmark for this oft-recorded work, with an orchestra of almost 100 and a choir of over 300!
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Recording of the Week,
Carmen from Berlin with Kaufmann and Kožená 20th August 2012
The light-voiced Czech mezzo and heavyweight German tenor are an appropriately chalk-and-cheese pairing as the free-spirited gypsy and her obsessive soldier lover, with Kožená’s husband Simon Rattle conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in a performance which emphasises the score’s opéra comique pedigree.
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Recording of the Week,
Mahler Symphony No. 1 from Iván Fischer 13th August 2012
The Hungarian conductor and his Budapest orchestra bring a wonderfully rustic, unrefined flavour to Mahler’s völkisch central movements, in an interpretation which benefits from Fischer’s ear for balance and attention to the smallest details of orchestration.
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Recording of the Week,
Rhapsody in Blue – Grosvenor and Kempf 6th August 2012
Two former BBC Young Musician of the Year prize-winners record Gershwin’s best-known work – Kempf as part of an all-Gershwin programme, Grosvenor alongside Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2.
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Recording of the Week,
Hans Rott’s First Symphony 30th July 2012
Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra make a great case for the sole symphony by a composer who was described by his friend Gustav Mahler as ‘the founder of the new symphony as I understand it.’
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Recording of the Week,
L’Olimpiade: The Opera 23rd July 2012
The Venice Baroque Orchestra and a fine line-up of singers present a pasticcio setting of a libretto by Metastasio, with contributions from composers including Caldara, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Hasse and Paisiello.
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Recording of the Week,
Holst and Delius on Naxos 16th July 2012
JoAnn Falletta conducts the Ulster Orchestra in Holst’s Cotswolds Symphony, and David Hill directs Delius’s Nietzsche-inspired Mass for Life with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
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Recording of the Week,
Richard Strauss round-up 9th July 2012
Elektra from Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, Die Frau ohne Schatten from the 2011 Salzburg Festival, and the Four Last Songs from Anne Schwanewilms.
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Recording of the Week,
New Shostakovich discovery - Orango 2nd July 2012
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the world premiere recording of an embryonic opera which Shostakovivch abandoned partway through the Prologue, fleshed out and orchestrated here by Gerard McBurney.
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Video Interview,
Rachel Podger on La cetra 30th June 2012
Chris visits the baroque violinist to discuss her new recording of Vivaldi's twelve concerti Op. 9, recorded with Holland Baroque and released on Channel Classics earlier this month.
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Recording of the Week,
Vivaldi from Rachel Podger 25th June 2012
Following her Gramophone Award-winning recording of La stravaganza in 2003, the British baroque violinist tackles La cetra with Holland Baroque Society.
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Recording of the Week,
Two terrific Italian Renaissance reconstructions 18th June 2012
A new Venetian Coronation from Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, and a reconstruction of a typical Italian Vespers programme from circa 1612 from Robert Hollingworth and I Fagiolini.
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Recording of the Week,
Shostakovich Symphonies from Petrenko and the RLPO 11th June 2012
The seventh instalment of the Russian conductor’s acclaimed Shostakovich cycle finds his Liverpool orchestra on top form in the Second and Fifteenth Symphonies.
