Your basket is empty

Categories:
Narrow my search:

Results 1 to 20 out of a total of 6810
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Néère (Hahn, Duparc, Chausson)

Véronique Gens

Mélodies (French) - Released October 16, 2015 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
The soprano Véronique Gens might be thought a natural for the French art song repertoire. But Néère, taking its title from the opening song by Reynaldo Hahn (the reference is to the Greek nymph known in English as Neaera, "white as a fine marble statue, with her rosy cheeks"), is one of just a few albums in the genre she has released. Get hold of it without delay: it's gorgeous. The French mélodie is not a high-register genre, and for a singer like Gens these songs reside in the lower part of her range, where she now brings just a bit of sultriness and smoke with devastating effect. The program includes three composers of the late 19th century who are closely related but contrasting in their individual styles: in the words of annotator Nicolas Southon "the melancholic Henri Duparc, the elegiac Ernest Chausson, the charmer Reynaldo Hahn." You could really dip in anywhere, but sample track 15, Hahn's A Chloris, for a taste of what Gens can do. The playing of accompanist Susan Manoff seems welded to Gens' vocal line, which even with all the voluptuous, erotic beauty has a kind of steely concentration that grows stronger and more impressive as the album proceeds. An absolute gem.© TiVo
From
CD$10.09

Chausson: Poème de l'amour et de la mer; Chanson perpétuelle; Mélodies - Apex

Jessye Norman

Classical - Released January 1, 1988 | Warner Classics International

From
HI-RES$21.09
CD$18.09

Grieg: Lyric Pieces

Janina Fialkowska

Classical - Released May 1, 2015 | ATMA Classique

Hi-Res Booklet
Janina Fialkowska's 2015 release on ATMA Classique is a selection of Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces, drawn from the full set of 66 miniatures, which were published between 1867 and 1901. Her choice of the most popular character pieces reflects a common practice among pianists to fit a representative sample on a single disc, necessarily leaving out less familiar numbers along the way. As a result, her CD of 25 tracks is comparable to other highlights albums that typically feature such favorites as the Berceuse, Butterfly, March of the Trolls, Sylph, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Evening in the Mountains, and Remembrances. While Fialkowska's long career has yielded many fine recordings of Chopin, Schubert, and Liszt, this sensitive exploration of Grieg is a welcome addition to an impressive catalog that has been focused almost exclusively on the early Romantic period.© TiVo
From
HI-RES$21.09
CD$18.09

Scriabin - Nuances

Valentina Lisitsa

Classical - Released October 30, 2015 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

Hi-Res Booklet
From
CD$17.19

Mélodies de Delage, Jaubert & Chausson

Dame Felicity Lott/L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Armin Jordan/Jean-Claude Bouveresse

Classical - Released July 7, 2008 | Warner Classics

Distinctions The Qobuz Ideal Discography
From
HI-RES$14.49
CD$10.49

Entrez dans la danse... (Hahn, Ravel, Poulenc, Schmitt...)

Anne Queffélec

Solo Piano - Released January 13, 2017 | Mirare

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
From
CD$5.99

37ème Festival International de Piano de La Roque d'Anthéron

Iddo Bar-Shaï

Classical - Released July 14, 2017 | Mirare

Booklet
From
HI-RES$17.59
CD$15.09

Memory

Hélène Grimaud

Solo Piano - Released September 21, 2018 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Booklet
Music has been described as a way of saving that which has been lost: a simple but strong idea, and one which has influenced Hélène Grimaud's artistic expression.Her new album Memory deals with music's power to bring back to life the images of the past in the present, its ability to vividly and piercingly evoke a specific time and a place. It explores the essence of memory through a series of refined miniatures for piano. The choice of repertoire covers a vast, diverse range, from the reveries of Chopin and Debussy to the timeless, folky melodies of Valentin Silvestrov.  © Universal
From
HI-RES$17.49
CD$13.99

Profesión

Sean Shibe

Classical - Released November 17, 2023 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet
There are certainly contemporary guitarists who can match Sean Shibe for technical facility, but very few can match him for an ability to entrance an audience with a single stroke or strum. He has recorded Spanish music in the past in strikingly unusual ways, but this is his first album of South American works. It is splendid. There is a "bonus track" included on the physical album and, in some online versions, a recording of Villa-Lobos' Prelude No. 3 in A minor (Homage to Bach); recordings with this are recommended, for it makes an arresting beginning. Shibe proceeds to the three-movement La Catedral of the underrated Agustín Barrios (here, Agustín Barrios Mangoré), whose mysterious, mystical style fits Shibe beautifully. The album title, Profesión, comes from a poem, Profesión de Fé ("Profession of Faith"), by Barrios, reproduced in the booklet. The 12 Studies of Villa-Lobos are dispatched with a suitably commanding style, and when they seemingly reach an absolute peak of intensity with the final one, Shibe deftly steps into new territory with Alberto Ginastera's Guitar Sonata, Op. 47. That, too, is a somewhat underrated work; it is Ginastera's only composition for guitar, despite the popularity of the instrument in Argentina, and it deftly fuses the folk and modernist strands of his musical character. It makes an elegant finale to an album that fascinates from beginning to end. An added attraction is the double set of notes by Shibe and Hugh Morris, delving into the history of the repertory. The church sound, one feels, is not quite right, and yet producer Matthew Swan does succeed in capturing Shibe's larger-than-life quality. This release made classical best-seller charts in the holiday season of 2023; it will be around long after that season is over.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$13.29

Im Freien

Zlata Chochieva

Classical - Released May 19, 2023 | naïve

Hi-Res Booklet
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Reflet

Sandrine Piau

Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
In a world of "singles," pursued even by classical music labels nowadays, here is a whole album that makes up a single, sublime musical utterance. Reflet is a follow-up, similarly concerned with light effects, to soprano Sandrine Piau's German-language Clair-Obscur of a few years back. The German songs might have been a bigger stretch for Piau than the French material here, but Reflet has possibly an even more sublime coherence. One feels that every note is almost foreordained as the program opens with classic orchestral songs from Berlioz, Henri Duparc, and the less common Charles Koechlin, proceeding into darker, more mysterious realms with Ravel's Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, and ending with the youthful ebullience of Britten's Quatre chansons françaises. An illustration of how carefully calibrated everything is here comes with two Debussy pieces, Clair de lune and "Pour remercier la pluie" (from the Six Épigraphes Antiques), arranged for orchestra from other media. These serve as entr'actes between the sections of Piau's program, and they should by all rights have been annoying: aren't there enough genuine orchestral pieces that could have filled the bill? But just listen. These fit into the patterns that run through the whole album, and they make perfect sense, just like everything else. Piau's voice is delicate, soaring, and richly beautiful; one of the miracles of the current scene is its durability and versatility. Her support from conductor Jean-François Verdier, leading the Victor Hugo Orchestra, is confidently smooth, never intruding on the spell Piau weaves. A magnificent orchestral song recital that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$58.89
CD$52.59

Dance!

Daniel Hope

Classical - Released February 2, 2024 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res
Violinist Daniel Hope's publicity for this 2024 release promotes it as "[t]racing the history of Western dance from medieval times to the 20th century." It is true that the double album includes music of many eras, from traditional pieces to the 20th century, but this formulation fails to capture the mood achieved here by the always crowd-pleasing Hope. All his selections are short, and for the most part, they jump across the centuries rather than being chronological. Hope both plays and conducts the Zürcher Kammerorchester, and the overall effect is kaleidoscopic, like one of those concerts where pieces follow one another as if in a medley, with lighting effects to match. A double album of short pieces may seem a lot, but this is Hope's point; he seeks to expose the variety of dance rhythms that course through Western classical music, in which dance is not usually thought to play a very significant role. The album is a great deal of fun, with Hope alternately picking up his violin and laying it aside and veering from Baroque dances to Florence Beatrice Price's jazzy "Ticklin' Toes" (it is good to hear her music showing up on non-U.S. releases). In the end, the energy in this big group of 42 pieces never flags.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$22.99
CD$17.99

Granados: Goyescas - El pelele

Javier Perianes

Classical - Released December 1, 2023 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
The Goyescas of Enrique Granados are a suite of six pieces plus a seventh of similar inspiration, El pelele, that is often performed with the set (as here by pianist Javier Perianes). These are technically difficult pieces, surely among the heights of the Spanish piano repertory. The Goyescas were inspired by the art of Francisco Goya, but only two works -- the tenebrous "El amor y la muerte" and El pelele -- can be traced to specific Goya works. Both the performance by Javier Perianes and the excellent notes by Claire Fraysse illuminate why this is not the problem it might seem. Goya's paintings captured a whole milieu, forming a picture of what might be called hip Madrid society around 1800; both Goya and Granados, in Fraysse's works, were fin-de-siècle artists. Granados' pieces also have a stream-of-consciousness quality, seeming to tell a story even when the story is not there. It is this quality that is captured in Perianes' playing, which is not only technically confident but also moves forward as if animated by buried thoughts. Sample the second Goyesca, "Coloquio en la reja," which has the flavor of a conversation at the window, even if one does not know what is being talked about. If it wasn't based on an actual Goya painting, it could have been, as it were. Perianes is brilliant when he needs to be, but it is the small subtleties that put this performance across. There are plenty of performances of the Goyescas, many of them Spanish, going back to that of Alicia de Larrocha, but this one has what it takes to stand out.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$15.09
CD$13.09

Unlocked, Brescianello Vol. 2

La Serenissima

Classical - Released October 27, 2023 | Signum Records

Hi-Res
The title "Unlocked" for this album by the historical performance group La Serenissima and director/violinist Adrian Chandler refers to the making of the album as the musicians emerged from pandemic-time lockdowns. However, it also might indicate the status of composer Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello, whose music has been little explored even though he was among the first composers to write symphonies (here, "sinphonie") in Germany. Brescianello was certainly a transitional figure. It is likely that he encountered the music of Vivaldi in Venice before moving to Germany to work as a valet for the Electress of Bavaria (who paved his way to lucrative court positions). The works here, mostly taken from the composer's Op. 1 publication of Concerti & Sinphonie, resemble Vivaldi's in general sound, but the consistent harmonic rhythm of the Baroque is starting to break up, and in the violin concertos, especially there is a new kind of expressiveness. Chandler is quite effective in these, catching the small details that an audience of the time would have found new. In the final Ouverture for strings and continuo in A major, Brescianello seems a bit constrained by the French Baroque dance forms, but this sets off the innovations that were present in the concertos and symphonies. The second of a pair of albums devoted to Brescianello by La Serenissima, this may be of most interest to those fascinated by the pre-Classical era, but it is listenable in a Vivaldian vein for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Paysage

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released March 15, 2024 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
The soprano voice of Véronique Gens aged nicely into French Romantic music from the Baroque works in which she specialized for the first part of her career, and by 2024 when this album appeared on classical best-seller lists, she seemed unable to do wrong. Not only is she still in splendid voice, but the album has the feel of a program she pulled together and fully controlled. Not that the role of conductor Hervé Niquet (another Baroque specialist) and the Munich Radio Orchestra is minimized; the orchestra gets several instrumental interludes alone, and they are done with lush grace. Sample the "Solitude" section from Massenet's Sapho, but it is Gens who confidently steps from one piece to another, giving the whole the flavor of a little drama of which the subject remains unknown. There are some familiar composers, such as Fauré, Gounod, and Reynaldo Hahn, one of whose songs lends the album its title. However, Gens also delves into the much less familiar Théodore Dubois, who is in the books as a church composer and as director of the Conservatoire de Paris, but hardly at all for songs. Sample the charming pair of Petits rêves d'enfant ("Little Dreams of a Child"). The Alpha label (working with the neglected-repertory specialists Palazzetto Bru Zane) contributes nicely balanced, transparent sound from a Bayerischer Rundfunk studio, and here, as so often lately, the best advice is to enjoy this golden age of Gens' voice.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$33.49
CD$23.49

Brahms : The Complete Solo Piano Works

Geoffroy Couteau

Solo Piano - Released March 18, 2016 | La Dolce Volta

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - 4F de Télérama - Pianiste Maestro - Choc de Classica - Choc Classica de l'année - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
From
HI-RES$11.49
CD$9.19

Antonio Vivaldi : Les quatre saisons

Fabio Biondi

Chamber Music - Released November 15, 1991 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or - 10 de Répertoire - Gramophone Editor's Choice
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Debussy: C'est l'extase - La mer

Vannina Santoni

Classical - Released June 9, 2023 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
Casual buyers and browsers should note that the vocal works on this album, accompanied by orchestra, are not the original works of Debussy. They were made in 2012 by composer Robin Holloway at the request of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They were performed at that time by Renée Fleming but have not been recorded until now. The settings are unorthodox and never boring, and they will probably strike different listeners in different ways. Holloway reorders the songs, believing that they were not intended as a sequenced set (probably debatable), inserts some of the composer's Verlaine settings in the new ordering, adds transitions between most of them, and tacks on a high-powered epilogue of his own. The end result, perhaps, is Debussy for the 21st century, amped up and intense, with hidden psychological themes and ideas wrung out and brought to the fore by the orchestration. There will be little disagreement, however, about two of the main attractions: soprano Vannina Santoni is a talented newcomer from whom one wants to hear more, and Mikko Franck, heard at the end in La Mer, is an excellent Debussy conductor; his rendition of this well-trodden work is full of detail and entirely absorbing. Santoni has a big voice that stands up to these orchestrations, and Alpha's sound from the Radio France auditorium keeps everything in balance. Nothing if not an intriguing Debussy release. © James Manheim /TiVo