Narrow my search:
From
HI-RES$28.09
CD$24.09
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 8 / Wagner: Meistersinger Prelude
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Classical - Released February 5, 2021 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Hi-Res
Booklet
The penultimate edition of the complete symphonies of Anton Bruckner conducted by Andris Nelsons at the head of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra continues. This publication is dedicated to Symphonies n° 2 and N° 8, and a work by Wagner, a true "God" and role model to the Austrian composer. Following a surprisingly soft and amorphous Prelude from the Meistersinger von Nürnberg (as if the Latvian conductor wanted to erase the nationalistic and historical connotations by showing that the Leipzig of today is not the Nuremberg of the 1940s), Symphony No. 2 (here in its 1877 version) emerges in a mystical aura. Together with its sister pieces, the First and Sixth, it is part of a trio of lesser-known and rarely-performed works by the composer. However, it was his first major achievement, whose exemplary unity would not be seen again until the Fourth, a few years later. The clarity of its construction and its communicative warmth, however, make it an excellent introduction to the particular and fascinating world of Bruckner. The performance of the Eighth is the culmination of six years of hard work, strewn with doubts and discouragement. Bruckner's most extensive symphony is also arguably the zenith of his genius. Andris Nelsons chose the 1890 version edited by Leopold Nowak, which was a considerably shortened form of the original. The question of choosing a version remains a stumbling block for conductors and musicologists today, as Bruckner constantly, and often reluctantly, modified his scores under pressure from his friends and publishers. Hailed a triumph at its premiere, this "Apocalyptic" symphony (according to musicologist Harry Halbreich) touches on the metaphysical, particularly in the twenty-seven minutes of its fabulous Adagio that seems to transport us up into the cosmos, in search of the origins of the world. © François Hudry/Qobuz
From
HI-RES$15.56
CD$12.45
Bruckner: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, WAB 102 (1877 Version, Ed. W. Carragan)
Bruckner Orchester Linz
Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | CapriccioNR
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$19.89
CD$17.19
Bruckner: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, WAB 102 (Edition Carragan)
Christian Thielemann
Classical - Released February 4, 2022 | Sony Classical
Hi-Res
Booklet
From
CD$12.09
Symphonie n° 5
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Classical - Released September 21, 2016 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Booklet
Distinctions
The Qobuz Ideal Discography
From
CD$12.09
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5
Münchner Philharmoniker
Classical - Released January 1, 2005 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
From
CD$10.79
Antonín Dvořák: Symphonie du nouveau monde
Philippe Fournier
Classical - Released October 7, 2000 | iMD-ORCHESTRE-CONFLUENCES
From
HI-RES$18.99
CD$16.49
Bruckner: Symphony No. 2
Berliner Philharmoniker
Symphonies - Released December 10, 2021 | Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings
Hi-Res
The Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi is establishing himself more and more as one of the great Brucknerians of today. After having recorded a remarkable complete set of the nine symphonies by the Austrian master at the head of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the RCA label, here we return, in a separate version, to his concert recording of Symphony No. 2 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, published in the beautiful Bruckner anthology released in 2019 by the Berlin Philharmonic's own label with eight of today's great conductors.“Serene and reserved” according to Harry Halbreich, the great and beautiful unknown Symphony No. 2 in C minor is Bruckner’s first major achievement, and in this score he exposes the duality of humanity between meditation and action that would be the mould of all his future works. Bruckner conducted the creation on the 26th of October 1873 at the head of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, whom he had taken a long time to convince, with mixed success. Throughout his life, the composer had to give in to the demands of ill-intentioned friends and revise his work on several occasions.For this beautiful concert performance, Paavo Järvi used the latest reviewed edition of the second version of 1877, published in 2007 by William Carragan, with its gaping voids and shortcomings making its performance particularly risky. Paavo Järvi's vision is almost bucolic. His tempi are fast, but never excessive, the structure is skilfully constructed, and the rhythms clearly cut out. All immersed in an expression of great simplicity which is the hallmark of his art, even if it means sometimes being too neutral. © François Hudry/Qobuz
From
CD$72.09
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3-5; 7-9
Sergiù Celibidache
Classical - Released September 15, 2004 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
From
HI-RES$90.09
CD$78.09
Bruckner: 11 Symphonies
Christian Thielemann
Symphonies - Released October 13, 2023 | Sony Classical
Hi-Res
Distinctions
Diapason d'or
From
HI-RES$71.29
CD$64.59
The Tchaikovsky Project - Complete Symphonies - Orchestral Works - Complete Piano Concertos
Semyon Bychkov
Classical - Released August 30, 2019 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Hi-Res
Booklet
Studio recordings are rare things today. Orchestras are of such great quality that publishers prefer live recordings, which are much cheaper than long studio sessions, with their complex production workloads. And so this is a rather "old-fashioned" (it's fashionable) publication here from Decca, directed by Smyon Bychkov, a conductor who has rarely appeared on records for some years. Born in the Soviet Union in 1952, Semyon Bychkov was destined for a fine career in his country when, at the age of 21, he was offered the opportunity to replace the titan Mravinski at the head of the Leningrad (today St Petersburg) Philharmonic Orchestra. But his contract was cancelled because of his political opinions: a move that obliged him to seek refuge in the USA, where his career truly began in earnest. Obtaining US nationality, he became the director of the Paris Orchestra for ten years, before accepting a similar post at the head of the WDR Cologne Radio Orchestra. Named the resident at the prestigious Czech Philharmonia following the premature death of its leader Jiří Bělohlávek, Semyon Bychkov started work on this anthology of Tchaikovsky's symphonic works, including the six symphonies, the rare and little-loved "Manfred" Symphony (in its original, uncut version, including the harmonium stipulated by the conductor), the piano concertos and the Serenade for strings. This was marathon job taken at a record-breaking sprint between 2015 and 2019. In the course of this project, the Russian conductor undertook minute work on the scores and studying the personal history of the composer, in particular around the Pathétique Symphony. For him, it wasn't a requiem to Tchaikovsky, but rather a "revolt against death and not the idea of death itself". As for the famous First Concerto, played here by Kirill Gerstein, he presents the more intimate original version, which is less emphatic than the one we are used to hearing. A fine piece of work with what Bychkov has described as an ideal orchestra, which mixes the highest expression of the Slavic spirit with a Western spirit: a synthesis which sums up Tchaikovsky's music itself. © François Hudry/Qobuz
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99
Take 3
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Alpha Classics
Hi-Res
Booklet
Take 3 is the third release in a deliberate series by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, clarinetist Reto Bieri, and pianist Polina Leschenko (Take 2 appeared almost a decade before the 2024 release of this album). All have had innovative programs, and anticipation for this release helped propel it onto classical best-seller charts in early 2024. Listeners will not be disappointed. The booklet notes contain some rather murky reflections from the players about the repertory included, but the basic idea is that most of the music reflects influences from roots traditions, jazz above all. Only one of the composers, Paul Schoenfield, is American, and his Trio for violin, clarinet, and piano draws not on jazz but on Eastern European Hasidic music. The works by Europeans show various ways of tentatively embracing jazz. Interspersed among the selections are movements from Poulenc's rarely heard L'invitation au château, which works well enough inasmuch as the work was written as incidental music from a play. Poulenc evokes the waltz and other European dance forms, but his Clarinet Sonata, written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, has a stronger jazz flavor. So, too, does Bartók's trio Contrasts, also written for Goodman. This is the most distinctive performance on the album, as the players give it a rhythmically free treatment that is certainly jazzy but that diverges somewhat from the notated music. The three players have a remarkable rapport throughout, whether playing klezmer (in Serban Nichifor's closing Klezmer Dance) or in the divergent idioms of the other composers. The album both breaks new ground and is a lot of fun, and it is very nicely recorded at a Radio RSF studio in Zurich.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$15.56
CD$12.45
Penderecki: Clarinet & String Quartets & String Trio
Meccore String Quartet
Chamber Music - Released May 5, 2023 | CapriccioNR
Hi-Res
Distinctions
Diapason d'or
One fascinating thing about Krzysztof Penderecki's music is that his creative personality remained consistent, whether he was expressing it in a folk-influenced Bartókian idiom early in his career, in the extremes of high modernism in the 1960s or in the neo-tonal, almost neo-Romantic style of his later years. There is a thread of intensity, of exploiting instrumental possibilities, of a quintessentially modern sense of living on the edge that runs through his whole output. This is nowhere more true than in Penderecki's chamber music, and the thread is what the Meccore String Quartet captures well here. Although Penderecki's chamber music is fairly abundantly recorded, and one might find recordings of individual pieces here that are more to one's liking, the album, as a whole, has a satisfying cohesion. Given that the notes stress the idea of knowing Penderecki through his quartets, it is a bit odd that the music isn't taken in chronological order, but of course, it can be listened to in any order. In any event, the Shostakovich-like String Quartet No. 4 is placed last in the group and gets a fine, tense performance here. Another highlight is the lyrical Clarinet Quartet of 1993, with a haunting turn on the clarinet by Jan Jakub Bokun in the Serenade movement. The sound from the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music is quite hot, but this meshes well with the Meccore's general approach; the music here is "in your face" in the best way. This will fill a hole in many shelves or hard drives of European contemporary chamber music.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$14.39
Brahms: Symphonies Nos 1-4, Piano Quartet No. 1 (Orch. Schoenberg)
Luzerner Sinfonieorchester
Classical - Released April 7, 2023 | Warner Classics
Hi-Res
Booklet
This is the debut recording with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester by conductor Michael Sanderling, who recently ascended to the orchestra's podium as of 2023 when the album appeared. A set of Brahms symphonies, a crowded marketplace slot in the extreme, might seem a bold move in these circumstances, but nobody can accuse Sanderling of merely retreading others' steps. His Brahms is broad, slow, and detailed, seemingly opening the works into an expanded view. One attraction here, and one that could well bring buyers to the set on its own, is the rare Arnold Schoenberg orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, that concludes the album. Although all the melodic material in the work is Brahms', the work is quite characteristic of Schoenberg in its rich, brash orchestration. Schoenberg, in explaining why he made this version of a Brahms chamber work, said, "It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved." That statement might serve as well as a general characterization of Sanderling's symphony treatments here. All of his tempos are well on the slow side. The Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98, clocks in at well over 46 minutes, perhaps six minutes slower than average for the work. The rest are similarly measured, with exposition repeats adding to the overall heft. Sanderling fills the spaces with orchestral detail. Sample the opening movement of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, where the slow introduction is atomized into small gestures that do, in his reading, have their parts to play in the music that follows. However, the big tunes, in this symphony's finale and elsewhere, lose some of their impact; the long line is not quite long enough to sustain them. Sanderling is probably at his best in the Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, with its compact thematic blocks in which he finds unsuspected layers. This new Brahms, also benefiting from the spacious acoustic of the new Orchesterhaus Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, certainly commands attention.© James Manheim /TiVo
Behind Closed Doors, Brescianello Vol. 1
La Serenissima
Classical - Released October 8, 2021 | Signum Records
Booklet
Download not available
A contemporary of Vivaldi, Brescianello is a composer whose music languishes in relative obscurity. Whilst the mists of time have claimed some composers’ music for justifiable reasons, Brescianello’s music presents many compelling arguments for its restoration. Having first included Brescianello in La Serenissima’s 2014 season, they have since staged his opera Tisbe, recorded a violin concerto (included in the "Extra Time" programme), a trio sonata (Settecento) and other works. It is surprising that the Opus 1 was the only set of works that Brescianello chose to publish and La Serenissima have now been given the opportunity to start their exploration of this wonderful publication. © Signum Records
A contemporary of Vivaldi, Brescianello is a composer whose music languishes in relative obscurity. Whilst the mists of time have claimed some composers’ music for justifiable reasons, Brescianello’s music presents many compelling arguments for its restoration. Having first included Brescianello in La Serenissima’s 2014 season, they have since staged his opera Tisbe, recorded a violin concerto (included in the "Extra Time" programme), a trio sonata (Settecento) and other works. It is surprising that the Opus 1 was the only set of works that Brescianello chose to publish and La Serenissima have now been given the opportunity to start their exploration of this wonderful publication. © Signum Records
From
CD$5.09
Honegger: Symphonies Nos 1-5, Pacific 231, Mouvement symphonique No. 3
Serge Baudo, Czech Philharmonic
Classical - Released January 1, 1991 | Supraphon a.s.
From
HI-RES$18.09
CD$15.69
Le Ruban Dénoué - Valses
Frank Braley
Classical - Released December 1, 2023 | Sony Classical
Hi-Res
Distinctions
Diapason d'or
Composer Reynaldo Hahn is known mostly for his songs, and his music in the less common two-piano genre is all but forgotten. This release by pianists Frank Braley and Éric Le Sage may change that. The main attraction here, the waltz set Le Ruban Dénoué, contains marvelously evocative music; a "ruban dénoué" is an untied ribbon, and this work is indeed a gift for the listener who may not have heard it. The work consists of 12 waltzes, capped with a song rendered here by the ethereal Sandrine Piau; the waltzes have titles that seem to carry an unlikely degree of specificity ("Indolent Decrees of Chance," "The Lost Ring"), but listen and hear how the complexity of Hahn's textures brings them alive. Braley and Le Sage do not miss a detail. These pieces appeared in 1915 when Hahn was serving as a clerk at the front in World War I, and they feel like an uncannily detailed look back into a past that was instantly disappearing. The program is filled out with interesting two-piano works by Chabrier and Hahn; especially charming is Hahn's three-movement Pour bercer un convalescent ("Rocking a Convalescent"), limpid despite the use of two pianos. A delightful release that may leave listeners wondering where this music has been all their lives.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
CD$13.49
Lekeu: Complete Piano Works
Jacopo Salvatori
Classical - Released November 27, 2023 | Piano Classics
Booklet
From
HI-RES$24.70
CD$19.76
Schumann: The 4 Symphonies by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Classical - Released January 17, 2023 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$55.79
CD$49.59
Tchaikovsky: The Symphonies & Manfred
London Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released April 8, 2016 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Hi-Res
Booklet
From
HI-RES$28.49
CD$19.99
Jean-Baptiste Lully : Amadis
Christophe Rousset
Opera - Released September 22, 2014 | Aparté
Hi-Res
Booklet
Distinctions
4F de Télérama -
Diamant d'Opéra -
Choc de Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
Suppose you have a more precise idea of what you want. If you are searching for the album "Bad" by Michael Jackson, type michael jackson bad. The album in question will be displayed at the top, as it is the most relevant.
By default, search results are sorted in order of relevance. The drop-down menu to the right of "Sort by" allows you to display the results in the desired order.