I passed on the Calidore String Quartet’s previous Beethoven set of the late quartets, issued in early 2023. Based solely on the sound samples I listened to online, I thought they sometimes sounded a bit […]
" title="This is another somewhat unusual (and likely hard-to-find) release, appearing on a label I’ve never heard of, la dolce volta. Similar to the Paris Polonais disc I recently reviewed, this one seems to be available […]
" title="This is a somewhat unusual (and likely hard-to-find) title. It comes from the Chopin University Press in Warsaw, Poland. It seems to be available only via digital download in the U.S., but a CD can […]
I loved the Quatuor Hanson‘s two previous recordings for Aparte Records. So when I saw them doing Schumann on Harmonia Mundi, I wondered, why Schumann? Of all the string quartet repertoire which they haven’t even begun […]
This disc mysteriously showed up in my mailbox one day. I didn’t order it; and no one had contacted me about sending a promo copy. Not really interested in it, I laid it aside and […]
I loved Sami Junnonen’s earlier recording on the Resonus label of Mozart’s Flute Quartets with members of Chamber Domaine. So I was eager to hear him tackle some difficult contemporary flute repertoire. What a striking […]
CBS/Columbia/Epic in the 50s and 60s. I won’t even try to unravel that nest of labels and subsidiaries here, or the reasoning behind such complexity of such arrangements in the first place. But SONY owns […]
The Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia is one of my favorite concert orchestras to watch on YouTube. They present full length concerts in excellent sound and high-quality videography – with expert, knowledgeable camera operators who zoom […]
This may sound like a strange observation, but for me, one of the stars of this show, aside from the composer and the conductor, is the orchestra “leader” (or as non-British orchestras call them, the […]
A fantastic debut album from the fantastic Pacific Quintet. Unity themed, it combines composers from 6 different nationalities, 5 of which correspond to the home countries of the players (Bernstein being the “extra”). The booklet is […]
