Latest News: Classical
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Recording of the Week,
Lucia from the Mariinsky 1st August 2011
Natalie Dessay brings fragility and neurosis to the title-role, contrasting powerfully with Gergiev’s red-blooded Donizetti à la Verdi, Piotr Beczała’s ardent, ringing Edgardo and Vladislav Sulimsky’s black-voiced Enrico.
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Recording of the Week,
Benjamin Grosvenor 18th July 2011
Fresh from his BBC Proms triumph last week, the eighteen-year-old British pianist makes a hugely impressive debut on Decca with a programme which includes Ravel’s formidable Gaspard de la Nuit and music by Chopin and Liszt.
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Recording of the Week,
Rossini’s William Tell 11th July 2011
Gerald Finley is the sharp-shooting Swiss hero on Antonio Pappano’s absorbing account of Rossini’s opera, with John Osborn sounding effortless in the taxing high role of Arnaud, and Malin Byström an expressive Mathilde.
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Recording of the Week,
Bach Motets from Herreweghe 4th July 2011
The Belgian Bach scholar and conductor and Collegium Vocale Gent return to works which they first recorded back in 1981, bringing crystal-clear textures, impeccable intonation and excellent ensemble to the six motets.
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Recording of the Week,
Sublime Vivaldi from Nathalie Stutzmann 27th June 2011
The French contralto sings and conducts her chamber ensemble Orfeo 55 (formed two years ago) with passion and panache in a celebration of the ‘Red Priest’’s roles for female characters – many of them originally portrayed by castrati.
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Recording of the Week,
Beethoven’s Fidelio from Abbado and Kaufmann 20th June 2011
The German tenor is mesmerising from his very first note, whilst Nina Stemme is scarcely less compelling as his heroic wife Leonore in this exhilarating live concert recording from last year’s Lucerne Festival.
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Recording of the Week,
Byrd’s Complete Consort Music 13th June 2011
The Gramophone Award-winning viol consort Phantasm brings sweetness and sensuality to the English composer’s fantasias, In Nomines and pavans and galliards on Linn Records.
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Recording of the Week,
Vaughan Williams’s The Garden of Proserpine 6th June 2011
Paul Daniel and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra make a splendid case for Vaughan Williams’s early setting of poetry by Algernon Charles Swinburne for solo soprano, chorus and orchestra, coupled with In the Fen Country.
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Recording of the Week,
Beethoven's Diabelli Variations from Paul Lewis 30th May 2011
Following his masterly traversals of the complete piano concertos and sonatas, the British pianist imbues the Diabelli Variations with humour, exuberance and poetic beauty in a recording which stands comparison with his mentor Alfred Brendel.
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Recording of the Week,
New DVDs from Glyndebourne 23rd May 2011
South African baritone Jacques Imbrailo is endearing and compelling in the title-role of Billy Budd (directed by Michael Grandage), whilst Gerald Finley is an elegantly rakish Don Giovanni in Jonathan Kent’s 1950s staging.
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Recording of the Week,
Handel's Ariodante 9th May 2011
Joyce DiDonato sings the title-role on Alan Curtis’s recording of Handel’s Scottish opera, with Marie-Nicole Lemieux as the dastardly Polinesso and Karina Gauvin as the woman they both love.
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Recording of the Week,
Daniel Barenboim plays Chopin and conducts Tchaikovsky 2nd May 2011
The pianist joins Andris Nelsons and the Staatskapelle Berlin for the two Chopin piano concertos, and conducts an electrifying Pathétique with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he co-founded with the late Edward Said.
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Recording of the Week,
Fliter and Ibragimova excel in Beethoven 25th April 2011
Ingrid Fliter records the Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 17 and 23 on Warner Classics, and Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien continue their excellent series of the violin sonatas on Wigmore Hall Live.
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Recording of the Week,
Julia Lezhneva sings Rossini 18th April 2011
Katherine enjoys a hugely promising debut solo album from the Russian soprano (who was just nineteen when the recording was made), including arias from La cenerentola, La donna del lago and Guillaume Tell with Marc Minkowski and Sinfonia Varsovia.
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Recording of the Week,
Lully’s Bellérophon 11th April 2011
Christophe Rousset presides over a splendidly elegant account of Lully’s 1679 opera, with Cyril Auvity in the title-role, and Les Talens Lyriques on vigorous form.
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Recording of the Week,
Rachmaninov's Second Symphony 28th March 2011
Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia bring unrivaled passion and commitment to the 1907 symphony in this live recording made in Rome in 2009.
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Recording of the Week,
Suk's Asrael Symphony 21st March 2011
In one of his last performances with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the late Sir Charles Mackerras conducts a magnificent account of the underrated 1906 symphony, composed in memory of Suk’s mentor and father-in-law Dvořák.
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Recording of the Week,
Pergolesi's Stabat Mater 14th March 2011
Anna Netrebko and Marianna Pizzolato join Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’ Accademia di Santa Cecilia for an unusually full-blooded account of Pergolesi’s best-known work, plus a chamber cantata apiece.
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Recording of the Week,
Striggio: Mass in 40 Parts 7th March 2011
Robert Hollingworth and I Fagiolini give the world premiere recording of the Italian Renaissance composer’s mighty Missa Ecco si Beato Giorno, rediscovered and identified in Paris five years ago, and composed shortly before Tallis’s Spem in alium.
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Recording of the Week,
Tomás Luis de Victoria 28th February 2011
Harry Christophers and The Sixteen marks the 400th anniversary of the Spanish composer’s death with a ‘beautifully sung and superbly recorded’ new album centring on the Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater.
