Search Results for: "instrumental"
Mon 09 Sep, 2019:
Continue reading
→
Tue 04 Jun, 2019:
Berlioz: Harold in Italy; Les Nuits d’Été
“All in all, Harold is a disappointing work in so far as the stern philosophy of its opening is not maintained” (J H Elliot in The Master...
Continue reading
→
Thu 11 Apr, 2019:
Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri
Immediately striking here in Buxtehude’s slow-moving Passion meditation is the quiet, articulate intensity and aching sense of intimacy on display....
Continue reading
→
Mon 25 Feb, 2019:
Schubert: Symphonies, Volume 1 – No 3 in D major; No 5 in B flat major; No 8 in B minor (Unfinished)
In a programme note for the Crystal Palace season 1880-81, Sir George Grove described the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony as having “imagination in its...
Continue reading
→
Mon 30 Jul, 2018:
Michel Lambert: Leçons de Ténèbres
Setting texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah and dating from the early 1620s, Michel Lambert’s Leçons de Ténèbres are a remarkable exercise in...
Continue reading
→
Mon 16 Jul, 2018:
Pärt: The Four Symphonies
Gathered together on disc for the first time (and in chronological order), Arvo Pärt’s four symphonies provide a fascinating aside to the ascetic...
Continue reading
→
Thu 17 May, 2018:
Bach: Mass in B minor, BWV 232
William Christie’s memorable tour of the Bach B minor Mass in 2016 was one of the highlights of the musical year. Now committed to disc, it presents...
Continue reading
→
Tue 03 Apr, 2018:
Sibelius: Tapiola, Op 112; En Saga, Op 9; Eight Songs (orch Aulis Sallinen)
Sibelius called En Saga a tone poem but never revealed its story, only saying “It has got a down-home feeling. How could one think of anything but...
Continue reading
→
Fri 29 Dec, 2017:
Haydn: Cello Concertos in C major and D major; Mozart: Geme la tortorella (from La finta giardiniera); CPE Bach: Cello Concerto in A major, Wq 172; Boccherini: Adagio (from Cello Concerto in G major, G480)
Eager expectations of Steven Isserlis’s second stab at Haydn’s Cello Concertos after a 21-year gap aren’t entirely fulfilled. Technical...
Continue reading
→
Wed 20 Dec, 2017:
A Cavalier Christmas – Songs and instrumentals by William Byrd, Richard Dering, Orlando Gibbons, Alessandro Grandi, George Jeffreys, John Jenkins, Henry Lawes, William Lawes and Martin Peerson
This intelligent and rewarding assemblage of seasonal songs finds the Ebor Singers returning to the turbulent years of the English Civil War following...
Continue reading
→
Mon 27 Nov, 2017:
Mayr: Stabat mater in F minor; Eja mater in F major; Ave maris stella in G major
Franz Hauk describes, in the liner notes, how he reconstructed this ‘Stabat Mater’ from two partial versions as no complete version remained. Five...
Continue reading
→
Wed 25 Oct, 2017:
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No 3 in C minor, Op 78 (Organ); Carnival of the Animals
Here's an arrestingly characterised reading of Saint-Saëns's indestructible zoological entertainment, for which Antonio Pappano and instrumental...
Continue reading
→
Wed 30 Aug, 2017:
Brahms: Piano Concertos – No 1 in D minor, Op 15; No 2 in B flat major, Op 83
A vein of melancholy stalks most of the first movement of No 1. Mark Elder’s pacing is certainly Maestoso, his balancing of instrumental lines very...
Continue reading
→
Wed 17 May, 2017:
Haydn: The Seasons
What, a 50-bar fugue on just six words “for thy bounty, thanks be given”? Placed at the end of section 6, it is but one example of canny mastery...
Continue reading
→