Latest News: Classical
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Recording of the Week,
Thomas Adès 1st March 2010
Simon Rattle conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker (who commissioned the piece) in Tevot, premiered in 2007, and the composer himself conducts the violin concerto Concentric Paths, with its dedicatee Anthony Marwood as soloist.
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Recording of the Week,
Strauss: Alpine Symphony 22nd February 2010
Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra celebrate the awe-inspiring force of nature and Strauss’s ability to depict that in his writing.
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Recording of the Week,
Handel: Giulio Cesare and the Brockes Passion 15th February 2010
A stylish account of Handel’s best-known opera from the young Greek conductor George Petrou (with Swedish mezzo Kristina Hammarström in the title-role), and a ‘superbly played and sung’ reading of an early rarity from Peter Neumann.
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Recording of the Week,
Debussy and the Prix de Rome 8th February 2010
Hervé Niquet and the Brussels Philharmonic explore the young Debussy’s numerous attempts to win the prestigious prize, including Le Gladiateur, Le printemps, La Damoiselle élue and L’Enfant prodigue.
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Recording of the Week,
Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet 18th January 2010
A ‘superb reading of Prokofiev's supreme masterpiece’ from Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, two decades after the conductor’s landmark account of the piece with the Kirov Orchestra.
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Recording of the Week,
Bach for Violin and Voice 11th January 2010
Hilary Hahn, Christine Schäfer and Matthias Goerne join forces with the Münchener Kammerorchester for arias from works including the St Matthew Passion, the Mass in B minor and numerous cantatas.
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Recording of the Week,
A Ring cycle for the 21st Century 4th January 2010
La Fura del Baus brings Wagner’s eighteen-hour epic to life with striking choreography and special effects, and a superb cast including American soprano Jennifer Wilson as Brünnhilde and bass Matti Salminen as Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen.
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Recording of the Week,
Thomas Tallis's Secret Garden 14th December 2009
Graham O’Reilly’s Ensemble européen William Byrd explore the Renaissance composer’s music for the English Chapel Royal, spanning the reigns of four different monarchs.
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Recording of the Week,
El Sistema 7th December 2009
A life-affirming and moving documentary by Paul Smaczny charting the evolution of the Venezuelan music education programme which produced the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra.
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Recording of the Week,
Christmas Releases 30th November 2009
Festive albums from Ex Cathedra, The Choir of Westminster Cathedral, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and the Choir of Gonville & Caius College Cambridge.
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Recording of the Week,
Two important Elgar rarities 9th November 2009
Sir Andrew Davis conducts The Crown of India with the BBC Philharmonic, and Roderick Williams and others explore The Fringes of the Fleet, a patriotic song-cycle setting texts by Rudyard Kipling.
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Recording of the Week,
Cecilia Bartoli and the world of Castratos 26th October 2009
The intrepid Italian mezzo explores repertoire composed for Farinelli, Caffarelli and Senesino (including music by Porpora, Caldara, Vinci and Leo) with Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini.
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Recording of the Week,
Winterreise from Padmore and Lewis 19th October 2009
The British pianist and tenor launch a series of Schubert song-cycles with a spellbinding account of the late, great ‘Winter Journey’ which strikes Chris as ‘music-making of the absolute highest order’.
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Recording of the Week,
Tchaikovsky's Moscow Cantata 12th October 2009
Valery Gergiev conducts the Mariinsky orchestra in a punchy, exciting account of the 1883 work written in honour of the coronation of Tsar Alexander III, plus the 1812 Overture, and the ‘Danish Overture’, composed for Alexander’s marriage.
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Awards,
The Quatuor Ebène and the Gramophone Awards 5th October 2009
The young French string quartet scoop the Record of the Year prize for their disc of Ravel, Debussy and Fauré on Erato, with Gerald Finley and Julius Drake, Stile Antico, Fretwork and Steven Osborne among the category-winners.
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Recording of the Week,
Unknown Britten 28th September 2009
NMC Records release a collection of rediscovered works by the British composer, including a clarinet concerto commission by Benny Goodman, and three songs originally intended for Les Illuminations.
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Recording of the Week,
Julia Fischer plays Schubert 14th September 2009
The German violinist and pianist Martin Helmchen convert Chris to the pleasures of Schubert’s violin sonatas in ‘by far the most convincing performances I’ve heard of these works’.
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Recording of the Week,
Rattle conducts Brahms 31st August 2009
The ‘incredible warmth and beauty of sound’ which Rattle coaxes from the Berliner Philharmoniker in the four symphonies echoes the achievement of their Gramophone award-winning recording of Ein deutsches Requiem in 2007.
