Classical Source Reviews

Alongside considerable colour and exuberance, Jude Christian’s production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut for English Touring Opera poignantly, even sardonically, contrasts  the life of luxury which the eponymous character could have had with Geronte in Paris with the […]

George, the title character of Zemlinsky’s third opera (composed between 1903 and 1907, but not premiered until long after his death in 1980) is usually taken, in his eponymous dreaming and obsession with fairy tales, […]

The Italian Girl in London (1778) is one of the earlier operas by the prolific older contemporary of Mozart, Cimarosa. Although termed an intermezzo, as a comedy essentially it follows the same conventions of an opera buffa, and […]

Many remember the name, in English, of Mozart and Da Ponte’s third operatic collaboration as ‘Women are like that’, with more than a whiff of apparent misogyny in it (the ending of the Italian tutte definitely denotes […]

This, the second part of Simon Rattle’s traversal of Janacek’s operas, follows on from his highly successful The Cunning Little Vixen. Mackerras’ classic Decca account was used for comparison.  In terms of the conducting, Rattle […]

This Mahler 3 has always been highly thought of. Horenstein’s Mahler was unostentatious, so you don’t get heart-on-sleeve emotion. Nevertheless, he understood the composer’s fevered imagination, neurosis and quixotic nature.   In the first movement at […]

Anyone who has heard Bertrand Chamayou pounding his way through Saint-Saens might be somewhat alarmed at the thought of him essaying Satie, but within the confines of the modern, emotionally detached style of playing he […]

In 1969 the 23 year old Romanian, Radu Lupu won the Leeds International Piano Competition and went on to become one of the twentieth century’s greatest pianists, whose recorded legacy was, alas, rather meagre (although […]

This album features works by four female composers whose works are little known because of misogyny and while the Sonatas have occasionally been recorded, this is the first time they have appeared together. The title […]

Being a niche market there have always been specialist organ labels, such as Cathedral Recordings, who taped these performances at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968 featuring the 27 year old Nicolas Kynaston, whose 1970s […]