Best and Worst of the Year 2025
After a rather ho-hum start to the year, there ended up being many, many wonderful new releases – many fully deserving a “Best of the Year” accolade. And even though there were lots of fair-to-middlin’ […]
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Letter from Florida: Manfred Honeck conducts Mahler’s 4th with New World Symphony in Miami
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 – Manfred Honeck, New World Symphony – New World Center, Miami Johann Strauss: Overture to Die Fledermaus, Haydn: Symphony No. 93 in D major; Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Lauren Snouffer, New World […]
Arthur Catterall: Mozart, Brahms & Franck
Preston-born Arthur Catterall was leader of the Hallé Orchestra (under Hamilton Hate) and later the BBC Symphony Orchesra (user Boult). He is of the same generation as Marie Hall (who also appears in this series); […]
Rare Raff: Die Eifersüchtigen (The Jealous Ones)
Only his week, we had the World premiere recording of Humpedinck’s Das Mirakel; today, it is Raff’s late opera, Die Eifersüchigen (The Jealous Ones, WoO 54, 1881/2) that receives its premiere incarnation on disc. In […]
New York Philharmonic – For a screening of Home Alone Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts John Williams’s score
The Philharmonic marked this Yuletide season with a screening of Chris Columbus’s 1990 comedy, Home Alone, accompanied by John Williams’s Oscar-nominated score telling the story of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, who defends himself and his home […]
Daniil Trifonov at Carnegie Hall – Taneyev, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky & Robert Schumann
This thoughtfully planned, totally captivating recital opened with a dreamy rendition of the melancholic Taneyev Prelude, Daniil Trifonov then tearing headlong into the fiendish, frenetic Fugue. As he leaned low over the keyboard, his dramatic […]
Handel’s Messiah – The Glyndebourne Chorus & Sinfonia at the Royal Albert Hall
Glyndebourne is no stranger to Handel, nor to the Royal Albert Hall, with the company’s annual visit to the Proms. But this is the first time, I think, that its autumn season has seen an […]
Is Hindoyan fizzling out already in Liverpool?
What was Onyx thinking, releasing this right on the heels of JoAnn Falletta’s electrifying Naxos recording of this same theme and repertoire? It would be difficult for any recording to measure up with that still […]
English National Opera – Handel’s Partenope – Nardus Williams, Hugh Cutting & Katie Bray; directed by Christopher Alden; conducted by William Cole
Although nominally an opera seria like most of Handel’s other London operas of the 1720s and ’30s, English National Opera’s description of Partenope (1730) as a ‘rom com’ is closer to the mark. It has a levity and comedy that Handel […]
4 + 4 = ∞ : Laws of Solitude
This is a fascinating idea: the same piece, twice, once with piano and once with orchestra. Surely Richard Strauss’ famous orchestrational ability is what makes this piece so special? Those autumn hues as he prepares […]
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