Latest News: Classical, Hyperion (label)
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Recording of the Week,
Piers Lane Goes To Town: Piano encores and lollipops 2nd September 2013
The Australian pianist’s ‘pot pourri of pianistic palate-cleansers and party pieces’ includes music by figures as diverse as Dudley Moore, Percy Grainger, Billy Mayerl and Arthur Benjamin, as well as several pieces written especially for Lane.
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Recording of the Week,
Schubert works for violin and piano from Ibragimova and Tiberghien 5th August 2013
The duo’s intimate and restrained approach scores highly for pure beauty of tone and natural rapport, but doesn’t preclude plenty of playfulness and bite in the faster movements - fantastically vibrant playing, technically brilliant and always stylish.
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Recording of the Week,
Handel Chandos Anthems from Stephen Layton and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge 8th July 2013
Transparent textures and stylish but unfussy phrasing are the order of the day in these buoyant accounts of the anthems which Handel composed during his year-long musical residency at the home of James Brydges, the Paymaster General during the War of Spanish Succession.
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Recording of the Week,
JS Bach: St John Passion from Polyphony and Layton 18th February 2013
The crowd-scenes crackle with terrifying energy and Ian Bostridge’s volatile Evangelist brings great narrative momentum, whilst Iestyn Davies and Richard Tunnicliffe’s eloquence in ‘Es ist vollbracht’ is worth the price of the set alone.
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Recording of the Week,
Steven Osborne plays Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition 21st January 2013
Osborne’s journey through Mussorgsky’s gallery proves a highly intelligent, thoughtful interpretation that aims to be more than just a showy series of programmatic events.
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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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Recording of the Week,
Hamilton Harty’s Chamber Music 30th April 2012
The Goldner String Quartet and Piers Lane bring out all the charm and flamboyance of the Irish composer’s two string quartets and piano quintet, dating from the early 1900s and composed shortly after Harty relocated to London.
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Recording of the Week,
Britten Violin Concerto 30th January 2012
Anthony Marwood’s rich, singing tone and the impressive precision of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov combine for a tremendously touching account of Britten’s underrated concerto, whilst violist Lawrence Power is equally moving in Lachrymae.
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Recording of the Week,
Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony 28th November 2011
Hyperion release a live recording of the British composer’s gargantuan first symphony, captured at a rare performance at the BBC Proms this summer and featuring an orchestra of over 200 and a choir of 600!
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Recording of the Week,
Haydn from the Takács Quartet 7th November 2011
For their fifth and sixth albums on Hyperion, the award-winning quartet tackle Haydn’s Opp. 71 and 74, recorded at Wyastone Estate Concert Hall in Monmouth, South Wales last November and showcasing their rich, rounded sounded and clarity of texture to great effect.
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Recording of the Week,
Sublime Ravel from Ibragimova and Tiberghien 22nd August 2011
Following their outstanding series of Beethoven sonatas from the Wigmore Hall, the Russian violinist and French pianist offer utterly absorbing accounts of Ravel’s complete works for violin and piano, plus Guillaume Lekeu’s Violin Sonata, composed at around the same time as Ravel’s first essay in the genre.
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Recording of the Week,
Romantic Piano Concertos 29th March 2010
Hyperion’s venerable series reaches its fiftieth volume and enters more familiar territory with Stephen Hough joining the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä for the Tchaikovsky concertos.
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Recording of the Week,
Tomás Luis de Victoria 6th July 2009
The Lay Clerks of Westminster Cathedral and Matthew Martin present the Spanish master’s Missa Gaudeamus, interspersed with passages of chant and organ music by Frescobaldi, in an account which impressed with its focus and purity.
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Recording of the Week,
Rachmaninov Preludes 27th April 2009
In ‘one of his finest recordings to date’, Scottish pianist Steven Osborne showcases the infinite variety of Rachmaninov’s 24 Preludes in performances which combine musical intelligence with fire and tenderness.
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Recording of the Week,
Hamelin proves his real class with Chopin 12th January 2009
The French-Canadian virtuoso ‘demonstrates that he really is a great musician as well as a phenomenal pianist’ in an all-Chopin programme centring on the Second and Third Piano Sonatas.
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Recording of the Week,
Leopold Godowsky and the virtuoso pianist 28th July 2008
Marc-André Hamelin explores original compositions and transcriptions by the Polish-born pianist and composer (1870-1983) in an ‘attractive and strangely compelling’ recital on Hyperion.
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Recording of the Week,
Undeservedly neglected music - John Marsh and Juan de Araujo 28th January 2008
Ex Cathedra explore the rich legacy of a sixteenth-century Spanish composer who spent much of his career in South America, whilst the London Mozart Players focus on the music of an English lawyer who was also one of the most prolific English composers of the eighteenth century.
