Classical Source Reviews

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 […]

For those who think of Frederick Delius as the composer of gentle idylls such as In a Summer Garden and Late Swallows, A Mass of Life, which sets in German parts of Nietzsche’s Also Sprach […]

While there has been a revival of interest in the music of Erich Korngold, for many his chamber music remains an unknown quantity. The young Dutch Alma Quartet, who have already recorded the Second and […]