classical cds

Bach’s Weihnachtsoatorium is a cycle of six cantatas performed one six days (or, in one concert as here). This is a two disc plus on Bluray please from DG (the Bluray shows the concert at […]

The French composer Emilie Mayer (1812-83) has already appeared once on Classical Explorer via her Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1843), via a concert from the ever-impressive Insula Orchestra. Now there is a chance […]

NB: I’m reposting this, as one of next week’s posts will be a full Trittico from Vienna …. Puccini Suor Angelica (sung in English, traans. Amanda Holden). Cast; Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera […]

It is nice to hear the choir of my old college, King’s College, London, in so vibrant form; the composer here, Edward Nesbit, is currently lecturer in composition there. Christmas music is traditionally reflective: the […]

Ottorino Respighi’s ‘mystery in three episodes’, Maria Egiziaca (Saint Mary of Egypt) started out as a concert triptych. Some have suggested its dramatic/symphonic slant puts it midway between oratorio and opera, but stagings are fairly […]

This is truly special. Rogier Michael, born in Mons, Belgium in around 1553 and died 1623, was a late example of the polyphonic Franco-Flemish school. His setting of the Weihnachtshisorie (Christmas story) dates from 1602 […]

For many, Arnold Schönberg is, pardon the niche family-basd pun, a no-no. His rigour, his new system of dodecaphonic (twelve-tone rows) offers challenges for sure; but before that, his late-Romantic lushness is captivating. This release […]

Looking towards the sixtieth anniversary (2025) of Elizabeth Poston’s Penguin Book of Carols (1965), initially undertaken with Ralph Vaughan Williams, this new recording presents music associated with these two composers (including Poston’s arrangement of Peter […]

Nice to see a disc celebrating Eudice Shapiro. A pupil of the great Efrem Zimbalist, long-lived Shapiro (1914-2007) shines on this release. She was known as an orchestral and quartet leader, and here we hear […]

Daniel Barenboim is a living miracle. e seemed to remain boyish in his looks for decades and decades after was humanly fair; he is equally at home the piano stool as on the podium. He […]