Vestiva – Embellishing 16th & 17th Century Music (First Hand Records)
A fine demonstration of some of the main aspects of performance practice in music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque [JV]
Strauss: Horn & Oboe Concertos (Orchid Classics)
Fine performances for the most part, but the documentation is problematic [LW]
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (Naxos)
Alsop’s Brahms series has gotten off to an excellent start [PCW]
Mozart: Complete Masses Vol 1 (Naxos)
Auspicious beginning to a series of Mozart’s Masses [DF]
Mahler: Symphony No 8 (BIS)
Vänskä’s performance of Symphony of a Thousand; a rave review [EJW]
Henze: The Raft of the Medusa (Capriccio)
An impressive account of this once notorious work [SB]
Lusitano Impero – Portugese Baroque music (Passacaille)
This disc documents the strong Italian influence on the Portuguese late Baroque [JV]
Bacewicz: Symphonies Nos 3 & 4 (Chandos)
This SACD presents music, in fine performances, that is well worth getting to know [JQ]
Jenkins: The Armed Man (Signum Classics)
An arrangement for smaller forces that still makes as much impact [DJB]
Schumann and Grieg: Piano Concertos (Warner Classics)
Fine performances, but do we really need any more? [MBu]
R Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos (Deutsche Grammophon)
(Déjà Review) A reminder of all the strengths of this cruelly-underrated conductor/composer. Certainly, this is a major addition to the Strauss discography [CC]
Angela Gheorghiu: A Te, Puccini (Signum Classics)
Not my cup of tea – in spite of some sensitive, nuanced singing, Gheorghiu’s vibrato is now too much to stomach [GF]
Malcolm Frager (piano) – The Young Malcolm Frager (Parnassus)
Pianism of the highest calibre [SG]
American and English Orchestral Music (Claves)
A fascinating juxtaposition of the familiar and the unfamiliar [PJ]
Suder: Dona Nobis Pacem, Symphonic Music II (Hänssler Classic)
Committed performances of two mid-twentieth-century German works [WK]
Mahler Pioneers (SOMM)
This release will be of great interest to all Mahler devotees [JQ]
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (Decca)
This remains a powerful experience 49 years after its initial release [MP]
Biber: Violin Sonatas (ECM)
(Déjà Review) I’ve been returning to this superb disc again and again over the past few weeks [GS]
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (High Definition Tape Transfers)
If you want to hear Stravinsky conduct his own most famous work in what is by far the best sound to date, this is it [RMo]
D Scarlatti: Sonatas (Navona)
Metz’s playing has admirable directness of approach, but the lovely Clementi square piano is a revelation [MG]
Shostakovich: Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon)
The final instalment in Andris Nelsons’ Shostakovich symphony cycle [JQ]
Andre Schoch (trumpet) Core (Es-Dur)
Readings that don’t match up with the best, and an ungenerous runtime [DJB]
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