GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Symphony No. 4 – London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jurowski
A Mahler 4 as insightful and as individual as we have come to expect from this source. How rarely we hear the opening bars of the symphony delivered precisely as Mahler instructs: Bedächtig. Nicht eilen (Deliberate. Don’t…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Barber Vanessa (BluRay/DVD) – Glyndebourne Festival Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra/Hrůša
Since it was unveiled at last year’s Glyndebourne Festival Keith Warner’s handsome and insightful staging of Barber’s Vanessa has probably done more to silence the work’s naysayers than any in recent memory. It’s a piece that has…
GRAMOPHONE Review: An American Song Album – Melody Moore/Bradley Moore
Melody Moore’s ‘An American Song Album’ feels personal and custom-made for her ample lyrico spinto instrument. And that’s always a good place to start. She can thunder darkly, she can float, she can spin – she has…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Sibelius Symphpony No. 1 – Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal /Nézet-Séguin
Just Sibelius’ First Symphony? That is exceptionally short measure for a CD. The ratio of quality over quantity needed to be especially dramatic – not least because barely a couple of months back Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the…
GRAMOPHONE Review: The Fellini Album – The Film Music of Nino Rota, Filarmonica Della Scala/Chailly
Enter the extraordinary world of Federico Fellini – a world where childhood dreams strive to lose touch with reality, where playboys and clowns rub shoulders and pretty much all life is a three-ring circus. In Fellini’s Italy…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Marsalis Violin Concerto/Fiddle Dance Suite – Nicola Benedetti, Philadelphia Orchestra/Măcelaru
A number of things become clearer as Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto unfolds: first, that there’s a story to be told, an American story; second, that Charles Ives – musical America’s greatest pioneer – has not passed Marsalis…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Sol y Vida – Elīna Garanča, Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra/Chichon
So it’s vacation time for the Latvian mezzo. Sun, sea, and seduction. True love may never run smooth but it always sounds better in Spanish or Italian. Garanca’s selection of flamboyant Mediterranean and Latin American songs is…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Sondheim Company – 2018 London Cast / Follies 2018 NT Cast
We should celebrate the fact that within the space of a year London has played host to stagings of not one but two Sondheim masterpieces that have all but redefined them in theatrical terms. Dominic Cooke’s handsome…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Elfman Violin Concerto ‘Eleven Eleven’ – Cameron, Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Mauceri
In his liner note introduction to these stand-alone concert works Danny Elfman asks the question so often asked, namely why it is that audiences for movie music and classical music concerts are so markedly different when from…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Das Lied von Der Erde – Larsson, Skelton, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker/Fischer
Adam Fischer’s fascinating (if slightly eccentric) liner notes speak of the words of Das Lied von Der Erde being almost incidental to the mood, of the music being significantly more important than the texts that inspired it.…
