Known for his popular salon pieces, John Foulds was much less recognized for his large orchestral works, and few of these were played or published when he was alive. His lush and mystically charged works spring from the influence of the late Romantics, such as Strauss and Elgar, yet they also have a strong Impressionistic quality, which puts ...
One might think that setting the Gloria and Magnificat texts would call forth stylistically quintessential works from a composer, but oddly enough the John Rutter settings recorded here are, by the composer's own admission, not typical. Rutter, in an interview in the enclosed booklet, candidly describes his usual sound as "honeyed," but these are ...
Adams' Harmonielehre -- or "Harmony Teachings" -- derives its title from Arnold Schoenberg's 1911 book of the same title. Far in technique from Schoenberg's 12-tone style, yet separating from the minimalist school of composition, "Harmonielehre" in its three movements shows Adams returning to some of his finer works of the past and bursting forth ...
Don't be put off by the combination of a British orchestra and a Finnish conductor -- part of the appeal of Leonard Bernstein's music lay in the way he stood a bit aside from the jazz, Broadway, and popular dance rhythms he used. He thought he was struggling with the ascendancy of serialism, but actually he was attempting something much more ...
Strongly virtuosic, warmly expressive, and brilliantly colorful, Nikolai Lugansky's performances of Rachmaninov's Four Piano Concertos plus his Paganini Rhapsody and Chopin and Corelli Variations are fine as far as they go. But they go no further than virtuosic, expressive, and colorful. As brilliant as his playing is -- and Lugansky sails through ...
This two-disc set of the complete works for piano and orchestra is a splendid introduction to a significant aspect of the composer's oeuvre. Including the five piano concertos, the set enables the listener to trace the composer's development in this genre, from the quintessentially Romantic Concerto No. 1 through the many intriguing idiosyncrasies ...
It's not that violinist Leila Josefowicz hadn't released recordings prior to this one that pushed the boundaries of her art -- there was her hard-edged 2001 release of Prokofiev's violin concertos and her sharp-cornered 2003 release of John Adams' violin concerto -- but neither of those recordings could compare with this 2006 release of ...
Even if one always has doubts about Simon Rattle conducting Mahler -- doubts about his sincerity and his seriousness -- even if one has always questioned his radically wrong tempos in the Second and Fourth and his amazingly uncomprehending interpretations of the Sixth and Seventh -- one has to admit that Rattle has over time gradually been getting ...
Originally recorded in 1986 and 1987 and issued as two separate albums, this 2003 compilation pairs two of Igor Stravinsky's most popular ballets, and offers some less familiar but fascinating works as filler. Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra deliver exciting performances of The Firebird and Petrushka in their ...
Here German pianist Lars Vogt teams with Simon Rattle and his City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a pairing of Beethoven's first two piano concertos -- one that stands out from the crowd of available recordings in its stylistic decisions. It's a wonderful and unusual recording, but it may also be a matter of taste in some ways. The most ...
For the hardcore Shostakovich lover who can't get enough of the composer at his most vicious and vulgar, this 1994 recording by Mark Elder and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra will be just the thing. Shostakovich loved Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear and he composed incidental music for stage productions of both. But the Shakespeare ...
With this CD, Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Chorus continue their traversal of the orchestral and dramatic works of Karol Szymanowski. They have become expert interpreters and passionate advocates for his work and deserve credit for bringing it to a broadening audience. The three works featured here, the ballet Harnasie, ...
This CD, which includes three of Szymanowski's works for orchestra with vocal soloists and chorus, is a welcome reissue of EMI's 1994 recording of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle. Rattle has been an ardent champion of Szymanowski's music since the early '80s and began including it in the repertoire of the City of ...
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