Latest News: Classical
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Recording of the Week,
Kate Royal: A Lesson in Love 14th February 2011
The British soprano and Malcolm Martineau present an eclectic programme of German, French, American and Italian songs tracing a young girl’s first love-affair, including music by Debussy, Liszt, Wolf, Schumann and Bolcom.
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Recording of the Week,
Simon Rattle's new Mahler 2 7th February 2011
24 years after his landmark recording of the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony with Dame Janet Baker and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Rattle returns to the piece with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Kate Royal and Magdalena Kožená.
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Recording of the Week,
Percy Grainger 31st January 2011
The fiftieth anniversary of the Australian pianist, composer and all-round eccentric brings reissues of his own recordings on APR and a tribute from Benjamin Britten and friends, plus the Jungle Book from John Mark Ainsley, Polyphony and Stephen Layton.
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Recording of the Week,
Arne: Artaxerxes 24th January 2011
Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company resurrect the British composer’s ornate depiction of skulduggery in Ancient Persia, premiered in London in 1762, with Christopher Ainslie in the title-role and Elizabeth Watts as his firebrand sister.
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Recording of the Week,
Handel and Strauss from Dessay and Damrau 17th January 2011
Dessay trails her imminent performances of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare in Paris by recording all of the Egyptian queen’s arias with Le Concert d’Astrée and Emmanuelle Haïm, whilst Damrau is sensual in Strauss Lieder with Christian Thielemann.
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Recording of the Week,
Nielsen Symphonies from Colin Davis and the LSO 10th January 2011
At the grand old age of 83, the British conductor ventures into new territory by embarking on a complete cycle of symphonies by the Danish, whose music he has only rarely conducted in the course of his long and illustrious career.
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Recording of the Week,
Robert Schumann 13th December 2010
Piotr Anderszewski pays homage to the composer’s 200th birthday with three relatively rare piano works, whilst Mark Padmore and Kristian Bezuidenhout (performing on an 1837 Érard) bring clarity and crispness to Dichterliebe.
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Recording of the Week,
Vivaldi Operas - Ottone in Villa and Ercole 6th December 2010
Ercole sul Termodonte (starring Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau and Rolando Villazón) from Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante, and Ottone in Villa (with Sonia Prina in the title-role) from Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini.
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Recording of the Week,
Christmas Releases 29th November 2010
Tudor Music for Advent and Christmas from Stile Antico, Russian Orthodox Vespers from the Don Cossacks Choir, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio from Riccardo Chailly, and a new collection of carols by John Rutter.
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Recording of the Week,
Schubert: Piano Duets 8th November 2010
Both eminent Schubertians in their own right, Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne join forces for the great Fantasie in F minor D940 and a handful of small-scale works for piano four hands in this captivating contender for my Disc of the Year.
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Recording of the Week,
Verdi's Otello from the LSO and Colin Davis 1st November 2010
Simon O’Neill is the jealousy-wracked general, Gerald Finley his nemesis, and Anne Schwanewilms his ill-fated wife in this edge-of-the-seat live recording, made at the Barbican last year and full of ‘savage and terrifying playing’ from the LSO.
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Recording of the Week,
The Three Baroque Tenors 25th October 2010
Ian Bostridge explores music which was tailor-made for John Beard, Francesco Borosini and Annibale Po Fabri, including arias by Handel, Arne, Boyce, Caldara and Alessandro Scarlatti and accompanied by The English Concert.
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Recording of the Week,
Bach's Violin Concertos from Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque 11th October 2010
Following her widely acclaimed recordings of the solo sonatas and sonatas for violin and harpsichord, the British violinist and her hand-picked ensemble bring clarity and imagination to the concertos.
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Recording of the Week,
Jonas Kaufmann: Verismo Arias 27th September 2010
The star tenor branches out from his usual French and German repertoire with an idiomatically Italianate recital of arias by Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Cilea and Boito, accompanied by Antonio Pappano and his Roman orchestra.
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Recording of the Week,
Wagner's Parsifal from the Mariinsky and Gergiev 20th September 2010
Taken from live performances in St Petersburg last June, Gergiev’s vividly theatrical reading of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel stars Gary Lehman as the titular ‘holy fool’, Violeta Urmana as Kundry, and René Pape as Gurnemanz.
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Recording of the Week,
Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte from René Jacobs 13th September 2010
Following his excellent series of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas, Jacobs presents a vibrant new recording of the late mystical singspiel, with a uniformly excellent cast headed by the young German lyric tenor Daniel Behle as Tamino.
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Recording of the Week,
Puccini's forgotten masterpiece - La Rondine 6th September 2010
Angela Gheorghiu sings the role of the eponymous swallow with Roberto Alagna as her naïve lover on a new DVD of Puccini’s unfairly neglected opera, filmed at the Metropolitan Opera last year with Marco Armiliato conducting.
