Chandos
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Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5 (Requiem)
Bror Magnus Tødenes (tenor)
Choir of Collegiûm Mûsicûm, Bergen Philharmonic Choir, Edvard Grieg Kor, Royal Northern College of Music Choir, Eikanger-Bjørsvik Musikklag, Musicians from the Bergen Philharmonic Youth Orchestra & Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
[Gardner] has the measure of this work – of its pacing, its contrasts and, not least, of its idiosyncrasies. Among my favourite moments here is the momentous hush before the final ‘mors stupebit’…Achieving... —
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Special offer. Miklós Rózsa: Orchestral Works Volume 3
Jennifer Pike (violin)
BBC Philharmonic, Rumon Gamba
Pike immediately evokes memories of Heifetz with her silver purity of sound and quicksilver agility, inflected by a narrow, medium-fast vibrato. What sets her apart, however, is the gentle cushioning... —
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Johan Svendsen: Orchestral Works Volume 3
Marianne Thorsen (violin)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Neeme Järvi
Järvi and his Bergen players sound most happy together, playing with a fluency suggestive of more joint live performances than they could pssobly have had. The engineering supports them at... —
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Holst: Orchestral Works Volume 3
Susan Gritton (soprano), with BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis
the chief asset...is soprano Susan Gritton's unaffected engagement with Holst's bright-eyed and full-hearted response to Whitman. Andrew Davis conducts a warm and idiomatic account. —
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French Music For the Stage
Auber - Boieldieu - Delibes - Massenet - Thomas
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi
[The performance] displays the splendid conjunction of subtlety and élan we have come to expect from these performers…Delibes’s incidental music to Le Roi s’amuse, with its passing modal inflections... —
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Special offer. Robert Russell Bennett & Vernon Duke: Violin Concertos
Chloë Hanslip (violin)
Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton
Hats off to Andrew Litton and Chloë Hanslip for exhuming these prime examples of their concert repertoire and bringing them so vigorously to life here…Smashing album. —
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Special offer. Mozart: Così fan tutte, K588
Janice Watson (Fiordiligi), Diana Montague (Dorabella), Lesley Garrett (Despina), Toby Spence (Ferrando), Christopher Maltman (Guglielmo), Sir Thomas Allen (Don Alfonso); Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment & Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, Sir Charles Mackerras
This is an account of Così which seems to put momentum first. The opening chord, more ferocious than one would expect, gives way to a rattling overture, and tension and pace never let up. —
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Doric String Quartet play using classical bows, and their performances are a delight, well projected, beautifully phrased, and full of light and shade. —
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Holst: The Cloud Messenger, A Choral Fantasia, 7 Partsongs & other choral works
Della Jones (mezzo-soprano), Susanna Spicer (alto), Mark Milhofer (tenor), Patricia Rozario (soprano)
London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Finzi Singers, Joyful Company of Singers, City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox, Paul Spicer
The Cloud Messenger is a 43-minute work of considerableimaginative power. Before its previoussingle-issue release it had been virtually forgottensince its disastrous premiere under Holst'sbaton... —
