Classical Reviews
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Gustavo Dudamel
15th Aug 2011
The young Venezuelan conductor proves himself to be ‘a great musician with sound musical instincts ‘ in live recordings of Bruckner, Sibelius and Nielsen with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.
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Brahms/Schoenberg from Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker
8th Aug 2011
Rattle conducts Schoenberg’s orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor, plus the Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Accompanying Music to a Cinematographic Scene.
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Lucia from the Mariinsky
1st Aug 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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Benjamin Grosvenor
18th Jul 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.
Featured product
Benjamin Grosvenor: Chopin, Liszt & Ravel
Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
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Rossini’s William Tell
11th Jul 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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Bach Motets from Herreweghe
4th Jul 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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Sublime Vivaldi from Nathalie Stutzmann
27th Jun 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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Beethoven’s Fidelio from Abbado and Kaufmann
20th Jun 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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Byrd’s Complete Consort Music
13th Jun 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.
Featured product
Byrd: Complete Consort Music
Phantasm, Laurence Dreyfus
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Vaughan Williams’s The Garden of Proserpine
6th Jun 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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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.
Featured product
Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Op. 120
Paul Lewis (piano)
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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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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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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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Fliter and Ibragimova excel in Beethoven
25th Apr 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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Julia Lezhneva sings Rossini
18th Apr 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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Lully’s Bellérophon
11th Apr 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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Rachmaninov's Second Symphony
28th Mar 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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Suk's Asrael Symphony
21st Mar 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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Pergolesi's Stabat Mater
14th Mar 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.
