GRAMOPHONE Review: Heggie – It’s A Wonderful Life
It’s interesting – and revealing – that Pentatone has a designated “American Operas” series. It’s an acknowledgement, if you like, that there is something very particular, very recognisably “American”, about the USA’s contribution to the genre, something…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – November 2017
Finishing the unfinished. With this month’s cover feature on the mysteries and machinations surrounding Mozart’s musical last will and testament the debate on whether or not, how or if, or to what extent we should be second…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Symphony No. 4 – Munich Philharmonic/Valery Gergiev
This is a trickiest of discs to write about – unremarkable performances often are. For the first few pages that’s how it felt: a sound tempo, fluent, elegant enough playing, but also a sense of a reading…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – October 2017
The dust may finally have settled on the 2017 Proms season but one strand of programming continues to resonate with me. In commemorating the 1917 Russian Revolution Vasily Petrenko and Vladimir Jurowski stepped up with stonking performances…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – Awards Issue 2017
In this age of rampant genre-hopping it’s actually hard to know what to call Joyce DiDonato’s cracking Gramophone Award winning confection In War and Peace. In performance it was neither a recital (the category in which it…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony – Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Semyon Bychkov
There is much here to build upon the promise of Bychkov’s Pathetique – the exceptional performance which launched this ongoing ‘Tchaikovsky Project’. There is, of course, the abiding warmth and humanity of the Czech Philharmonic where expressivity…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Brahms Symphonies 1-4 Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons
In a personal liner note for this set Andris Nelsons celebrates the recorded legacy of Brahms in Boston referencing complete cycles from Leinsdorf and Haitink and recordings of individual symphonies under Koussevitzky, Munch and Ozawa. Only a…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Elgar The Dream of Gerontius – Soloists, Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim
There is probably no such thing as the perfect Gerontius. Every recording is flawed in some way. Even the classic (and glorious) Barbirolli has Kim Borg’s misshapen vowels to contend with. But the inspirational nature of the…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Prokofiev Symphonies 1 & 7/Lieutenant Kijé Suite – Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Sokhiev
Tugan Sokhiev has impressed me in the past – his Tchaikovsky Fourth with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in particular – but some of his choices here are puzzling and one, baffling. He is certainly…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Legrand Concertos for Piano & Cello – Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Frank
I have long adored the songs and admired the talent of Michel Legrand, inflected as it is with a jazzer’s free-ranging melodies and oblique harmonies – but the devilish inventiveness of these concert pieces took even me…
