Both written before the composer was 21 and both self-consciously described as Trio élégiaques, Rachmaninov's two Piano Trios are massively passionate, monumentally despairing, and excruciatingly difficult both emotionally and technically. The single-movement G minor Trio demands unstinting concentration plus unswerving commitment to make it hold ...
Largely overshadowed by the immense popularity of the First Piano Concerto, Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto is no less deserving of attention and enjoyment. Although a completely different beast than the First Concerto, Op. 44 is still filled with the trademark compositional characteristics of most of Tchaikovsky's works, including long, ...
Not since the Jemelik/Klima version of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto that appeared on a Parliament LP around 1960 have I heard a recording of this work as compelling as this new one from Naxos. I've endured through the Katz/Boult, Entremont/Ozawa, De Larrocha/Frühbeck De Burgos, Orbelian/Järvi, and maybe some others, always with an expectation ...
No one in their right mind would listen to this disc all way through. Shostakovich's Ballet Suites, with their bright colors, bouncy rhythms, and their insanely infectious tunes, have all effervescence, all the evanescence, and all the substance of a soap bubble. A single suite is innocuously entertaining and more than one suite would surely drive ...
The impetus for Akira Ifukube's intensely rhythmic and assertive music -- indeed, the source of inspiration for his career as a composer -- was his first hearing of Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps. Yet listeners may feel somewhat misled by this frequently cited biographical fact, and find instead that Ifukube's orchestral music sounds more like ...
For a work that appears to be one of the most finely crafted violin concertos of the twentieth century and an easy favorite with audiences, the Miklós Rózsa Violin Concerto has been recorded surprisingly few times. The 1956 recording by Jascha Heifetz, to whom that work was dedicated, dominates the field even though violinists Robert McDuffie and ...
Three out of the four pieces on this all-Shostakovich disc feature the artistry of Dmitry Yablonsky either as a cellist, a conductor, an arranger, or all three -- and one of them has nothing whatsoever to do with Yablonsky. If you think that sounds like an unlikely program, you're right. If you think that sounds like an unbalanced program, you're ...
The Naxos Japanese Classics release Humiwo Hayasaka: Piano Concerto is one of the most consequential and significant volumes in the Japanese Classics series. This is not to say that the previous volumes devoted to the music of Ifukube, Mayuzumi, or Takemitsu are inferior in quality. From a purely performance-oriented angle, the interpretations by ...
For many listeners, violinist Ilya Kaler is likely to be one of the best violinists they've never heard of. Although he has made several successful recordings on the Naxos label, the majority of his career has been spent in other endeavors. Most notably, he has been a gold medal winner in the Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Paganini competitions. Kaler ...
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