Weilerstein Gains Cello’s Top Rung With Shostakovich
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW – A bona fide world-class soloist, with this fine new recording of the two cello concertos, 34-year-old Alisa Weilerstein can fairly claim to be the most outstanding cellist to emerge in America since Yo-Yo Ma.
‘Wuthering Heights’ On CD Points Up The Opera’s Flaws
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW – The Florentine Opera recording of a 1958 opera after Emily Brontë reveals lovely moments but Carlisle Floyd's music is surprisingly mild when it comes to conveying the lovers' self-destructive passion.
Dausgaard Makes Fervent Case For Mahler-Cooke 10th
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW – Thomas Dausgaard, conducting the Seattle Symphony, has turned in a live recording of the Deryck Cooke performing version of Mahler's entire Symphony No. 10 that makes most of the others seem timid.
Gergiev Revisits Cosmic Scriabin, But Sans Ecstasy
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW – Valery Gergiev's cycle of Scriabin symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra does not eclipse excellent earlier efforts by other orchestras. Nor does it surpass previous work by Gergiev himself.
Leaping Genres, Film Score Paints Winding Colorado
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW – Five composers, operating in specialized sound worlds of their own, wrote a tour-de-force for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth in evocation of a river diverted to serve the parched American West.
Guns & Coloratura Fuel Caesar & Cleo In Salzburg Remix
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW – Leiser and Caurier's satirical 2012 production, now on DVD, has Cecilia Bartoli's Cleopatra singing a Handel aria with a bag over her head, plus mind-bending sex, fantasy and horror that's over the top.
Pianist Roe Enjoys A Field Day With Nocturnes on CD
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW – Elizabeth Joy Roe performs all 18 of Irish pianist and composer John Field's nocturnes on her new recording for Decca, giving listeners a taste of the form that would be taken up with greater distinction by Chopin.
Leoncavallo’s ‘Zazà’ Revealed As Tragic Gem In Recording
By Rebecca Schmid
DIGITAL REVIEW - Soprano Ermonela Jaho and tenor Riccardo Massi star as a naive French girl and her married lover in the CD rescue from obscurity of a verismo opera that trailed only Pagliacci in popularity for the composer.
Kavakos And Hope Work Wonders On New Recordings
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW - These discs by two celebrated violinists in the prime of their careers could hardly be more different: Leonidas Kavakos plays virtuoso treats; Daniel Hope salutes his teacher, Yehudi Menuhin.
Gold Amid Pyrite On Modernist Disc By Utah Symphony
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW – After a Mahler tribute to Maurice Abravanel, the orchestra and music director Thierry Fischer move on to contemporary American composers, and score with Andrew Norman's percussion "concerto" Switch.
Abbado In Berlin: The Last Concert, A Lasting Imprint
By Paul Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW - The Berlin Philharmonic’s release of Claudio Abbado's last concert with the orchestra, on CD and Blu-ray, recalls his gifts as a conductor in performance and in admiring anecdotes by musicians who played for him.
Honegger, Ibert Opera Delights In Montreal Release
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW – The Montreal Symphony and music director Kent Nagano return to the Decca label with the first complete recording of L'Aiglon, a forgotten 1937 opera with music by Arthur Honegger and Jacques Ibert.
Turn Of Century Remix: The Latest Groove’s American
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW – Four orchestras are turning the West Coast into an hotbed of programming enterprise with recent recordings of music by American composers including Ives, Zappa, William Bolcom, and Mason Bates.
As NY Beckons, Van Zweden Hits, Misses On 2 CDs
By Paul Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW - An impressive Mahler Third with the Dallas Symphony and an uneven Rheingold with the Hong Kong Philharmonic may preview Jaap van Zweden's coming directorship of the New York Philharmonic.
‘Pierrot Lunaire’ Illuminated On Salzburg DVD
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW - Pianist Mitsuko Uchida and colleagues explore the musical character and meaning of Schoenberg's radical score in the documentary Solar Plexus of Modernism from the 2011 Salzburg Festival.
‘Fantastique-Lélio’ Fantasy Fulfilled By Chicago, Muti
By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL – In some respects, Riccardo Muti's 1985 disc of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with the Philadelphia Orchestra tops the Chicago Symphony version, but this Lélio pairing with actor Gérard Depardieu is compelling.
‘Paradise’ Is Lost On London Symphony As Led By Rattle
By Paul E. Robinson
DIGITAL REVIEW – Robert Schumann's neglected oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, recorded live, bears the uneasy scramble of a performance led by Simon Rattle at home in London's dry, acoustically challenging Barbican.
Buried Treasure: Horowitz Recital Sparkles On DG
By Gary Lemco
DIGITAL REVIEW – A 1986 Chicago recital broadcast tape of pianist Vladimir Horowitz, lingering in the WFMT vaults until 2013, has been released by Deutsche Grammophon as a testament to the virtuoso’s extraordinary Indian summer.
Winter Streams: Classical Bounty Close As A Click
By Nancy Malitz
Joyce DiDonato's Carnegie Hall master classes are being captured by Medici.tv, and other live webcasts include a world premiere cello concerto in Detroit, Wagner's Ring cycle in Vienna, and Dudamel's Venezuelan kids on tour.
