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Bruch: Symphonies Nos. 1-3 & Overtures
Bamberger Symphoniker
Classical - Released July 3, 2020 | CPO
Booklet
Distinctions
Diapason d'or
These three symphonies by Max Bruch were revisited in a beautiful recording by Kurt Masur in Leipzig in the late 1980s, as well as at the beginning of the following decade in a recording by James Colon and the Gürzenich Orchestra from Cologne. As the Germanic music repertoire was so rich in this particular period with the likes of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and later Bruckner and Mahler, many composers of merit such as Max Bruch were often overlooked. Bruch resisted the musical evolution of the time and remained a conservative composer. He rejected the modernity of the works of Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler, with whom he had rubbed shoulders in the course of his eighty-two-year existence. He was a close friend of Brahms and shrewdly predicted his future success, but his own success only really stemmed from the reputation of his Violin Concerto in G minor. Although not quite as great a genius as some of his great contemporaries, Bruch’s three symphonies should nevertheless be commended for many reasons, beginning with their romantic melancholy and skilful and powerful orchestration. Also noteworthy is the gradual complexification of the structure from Symphony No. 2 and the stylistic boldness that peaks in Symphony No. 3 which resumes the traditional four-movement structure and leads to a very joyful finale. Robert Trevino, a young American conductor, worked on this repertoire alongside his complete Beethoven symphonies with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra for Ondine. Here, he directs the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra that is well-known to music lovers all around the world. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Rachmaninoff: The Piano Concertos & Paganini Rhapsody
Yuja Wang
Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Booklet
It’s almost as if Yuja Wang were playing at home in her second collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The music of Rachmaninov has no secrets left for the Chinese piano virtuoso, who strolls happily along these formidably difficult concertos. It’s the “Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18”, the most iconic, that leads. Composed in 1901, at the time when Rachmaninov was just beginning to recover from the depression caused by the failure of his first symphony, this concerto became one of the centrepieces of the Russian composer’s work, when it was notoriously sampled in the legendary pop hit “All by myself”. Yuja Wang moves with alarming ease along a score rife with traps, starting with the tenth intervals that are every pianist’s worst nightmare. Wang offers a sublime variety in her playing, marvellously befitting of the very distinct moods of the three movements: raging and bold attacks in the “moderato”, languid legatos in the “adagio sostenuto”, and finishing with a triumphant and luminous “allegro scherzando”. “Concertos No. 1” and “No.4” are served with the same mastery, and the album closes with a “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” where the orchestra proves to be of tremendous precision. An impeccable record. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Fantasia
Igor Levit
Classical - Released September 29, 2023 | Sony Classical
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4F de Télérama
It’s rare for a work as crucial to piano literature as Liszt’s “Sonata in B Minor” to be submerged beneath the thematic title of an album rather than being presented as its primary sales pitch. Yet the great pianist Igor Levit clearly knows what he’s doing. Titled Fantasia, his new double album on Sony Classical is dedicated to pieces that escape all formal frameworks, covering a period of almost two centuries from 1720 to 1910. His program begins with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which single handedly galvanised a good part of Western classical music, finishing with Franz Liszt, Alan Berg, and Ferruccio Busoni, all three of whom cite Bach in their works, the first two having composed sonatas that rely more on a “Fantasia” than on a precise form. This freedom of composition is the common thread of this fascinating program that comprises in one fell swoop Bach’s exceptional “Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue” and Ferruccio Busoni’s monumental “Fantasia contrappuntistica,” to which Levit responds with renditions of Siloti, Liszt, and Busoni. With his soft and supple sonority, Igor Levit is above all an introspective musician who doesn’t try to make an outrageous demonstration of Liszt’s sonata, haunted by Goethe’s Faust, nor does he do so with that of Alban Berg, whose twelve-tone writing doesn’t burn bridges with music history. With his unique imagination and emotional depth, Igor Levit takes us on a fascinating interior journey through time periods and innovative styles whose timeless and expressive forces never stop compelling us. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Schumann: Piano Quartet - Piano Quintet
Isabelle Faust
Chamber Music - Released November 24, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Violinist Isabelle Faust and fortepianist Alexander Melnikov have been accumulating a catalog of distinctive historical performances of Schumann. Here, they turn to the composer's most famous chamber works, the Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 47, and Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44, bringing on board violist Antoine Tamestit, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, and violinist Anne Katharina Schreiber in the Piano Quintet. Despite the common key and the fact that the two works were written just a few weeks apart, they're quite different, and one strength of these performances is that the players catch the difference. The Piano Quartet is quiet and inward, with Faust's "Sleeping Beauty" Stradivarius purring in the opening Sostenuto assai passage. The slow movement of this work gets a performance of rare lyricism here. The Piano Quintet looks forward to a more public, orchestral kind of chamber music, and the players succeed in transforming the entire sound environment of the music, aided immeasurably by Harmonia's engineers. The music was recorded at the small hall of the German federal youth music academy in Trossingen, and this is a superb space for the music. Of interest far beyond historical performance circles, these are wonderful performances of Schumann's major chamber works.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Mozart: Sonatas for Piano & Violin
Renaud Capuçon
Classical - Released June 23, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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There are various complete recordings of Mozart's sonatas for piano and violin, most of them leaving off the juvenilia or relegating them to a separate volume (here they are omitted). This one by violinist Renaud Capuçon and keyboardist Kit Armstrong, playing modern instruments, holds the listener's interest unusually strongly. There are several reasons for this. One is the easy rapport between the two players, responding quickly to slight expressive moves or alterations in the tempo by one player or the other. They capture the rapidly developing role of the violin over the course of the set as it is transformed from an accompanimental instrument to a full partner in the dialogue. A second plus is the inclusion of two variation sets, the 12 Variations on "La bergère Celimène," K. 359, and the Six Variations on "Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant," K. 360. These are not often heard, and quite opposite to what one might expect from their lightweight themes, they are substantial works. The role of the violin here, too, is key; although the piano is still the dominant partner, the violin was ready and available as a sound that would vary the texture, and Mozart exploited it to the hilt. Other attractions include the variety of Capuçon's playing within a fairly circumscribed context and an excellent feel for the dry language of the later sonatas, with their counterpoint and daringly irregular phrase shapes. A major entry in the Mozart discography, which landed on classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2023.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Johannes Brahms : The Symphonies
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Classical - Released October 2, 2003 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Booklet
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Gramophone Record of the Year -
Gramophone: Recording of the Month -
Choc de Classica
For most listeners' purposes, Riccardo Chailly's set of Johannes Brahms' four symphonies will seem standard-issue, with respectable and uncontroversial interpretations from an esteemed conductor, and rich and resonant performances by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Even in the choice of filler pieces, the set includes the three orchestral works that are usually packaged with the symphonies: the Tragic Overture, the Haydn Variations, and the Academic Festival Overture. However, this set offers welcome suprises and extra value for the purchase. Two orchestral arrangements of the Interludes, Opp. 116 and 117 for piano, are included, along with instrumental versions of a handful of Liebeslieder Waltzes and three of the orchestrated Hungarian Dances, which may be incentives to listeners who are looking for a little more. Also included are Brahms' original version of the Andante of the First Symphony and the alternate opening of the Fourth. But no one should invest in a set solely on the basis of these extras, however unusual they may be. Since first recording the cycle with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where he offered a rather heavy-handed modern take on the symphonies, Chailly has gone back to an older, more historically informed style of playing Brahms that was familiar to conductors of the early 20th century. The music is lighter and more transparent, so in some ways, his recordings are sometimes reminiscent of classic performances by Bruno Walter, George Szell, and other revered conductors. For traditionalists, this is a fine set to own, especially if a fresh digital recording is needed.© TiVo
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Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Classical - Released January 1, 2014 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Robert Schumann: Complete Piano Trios, Quartet & Quintet
Trio Wanderer
Chamber Music - Released April 30, 2021 | harmonia mundi
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Diapason d'or -
Diapason d'or / Arte
Constantly shifting from the most impulsive exuberance to the most restrained meditation, from the most intense passion to the most innocent tenderness, this programme forms a representative panorama of Schumann’s chamber music. Going beyond the Piano Trios, which already give us a fully rounded account of Schumann, the Trio Wanderer have invited their favourite partners to join them for their interpretation of two supreme masterpieces, the Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet. © harmonia mundi
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Weinberg: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 7; Flute Concerto No. 1
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Classical - Released September 16, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Booklet
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Diapason d'or -
Choc de Classica
There is a special magic in the music of the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. After Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla's Deutsche Grammophon debut in 2019, the conductor continues her very personal mission to make Weinberg's important work accessible to the widest audience possible in outstanding recordings. This is here the second volume. © Deutsche Grammophon
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Beethoven: 9 Symphonies
Leonard Bernstein
Symphonies - Released January 2, 1980 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Liszt: Piano Sonata & Transcendental Etudes
Francesco Piemontesi
Solo Piano - Released September 1, 2023 | PentaTone
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Booklet
To hear pianist Francesco Piemontesi tell it, he waited until middle age to attempt the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, even though these works are often programmed by hotshot young pianists intent on displaying their technical mastery. What Piemontesi gets is that Liszt's most difficult works have technical depths that are still achieved by only a few. A piece like "Scarbo," from Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, was at the edge of the technically possible when it was written, but now any competent conservatory graduate can play it. The Transcendental Etudes and the Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor are different. A good performance is quite possible, but great ones that evoke the spell in which Liszt held his audiences are rarer. The latter is what the music gets here from Piemontesi. He is strong throughout, but it is in the dense virtuosic passages, with sheets of sound issuing from his piano, unfortunately unidentified in the booklet, that leave the listener amazed. Sample "Mazeppa" from the Etudes or the fugal treatment of the main sonata material for an idea; those sheets of sound never lose their individual notes. Piemontesi is hardly less effective in the slower passages, which have a kind of majesty. He records on home ground at the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, and it is an appropriate venue for his remarkable achievement.© James Manheim /TiVo
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The Tchaikovsky Project - Complete Symphonies - Orchestral Works - Complete Piano Concertos
Semyon Bychkov
Classical - Released August 30, 2019 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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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
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Grieg - Smetana
Quatuor Modigliani
Quartets - Released January 12, 2024 | Mirare
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Booklet
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Diapason d'or -
Choc de Classica
The string quartets of Grieg and Smetana, as annotator Melissa Khong notes, make a natural pairing. Both composers, paragons of the nationalist movements within their respective countries, mostly avoided classical forms, but both turned to the string quartet when they faced personal crises, and the tension between strong emotion and formal restrictions had compelling results. Smetana perhaps made a bit more of the situation than Grieg did, but Grieg's quartet is a bit neglected, and this pairing is not as common as it should be. On this 2024 release, the Modigliani Quartet gives these works a suitably intense, inward quality, with a strikingly rich treatment of the Smetana slow movement. The group excels in the Grieg quartet as well; their performance is highly dramatic, but the work can stand up to this. The quartet is a bit hampered by the Mirare label team's overwrought sound; the ambiance of the Schubertiade hall in Austria is fine, but the group is miked too close. Nevertheless, these are performances that penetrate to the heart of two unique works.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Radu Lupu - Complete Decca Solo Recordings
Radu Lupu
Classical - Released January 1, 2010 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Booklet
Distinctions
Diapason d'or -
The Qobuz Ideal Discography
It takes only 10 discs to contain the complete solo Decca recordings of Radu Lupu, one of the great pianists of the late 20th century. It's also amazing that these few recordings stretch over a quarter of a century, from 1971 to 1995, making Lupu one of the most infrequently recorded of the great pianists; even Argerich and Michelangeli have outdistanced him. Yet even that is not the most amazing thing about this collection; it is the performances themselves, some of which are among the greatest ever made. Has any pianist ever topped Lupu's heroic account of Brahms' F minor Sonata, or his poetic readings of the composer's late piano works? Has any ever equaled, much less surpassed, his deeply inward performances of Schubert's Moments musicaux or his two sets of Impromptus? Has any account of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata ever glowed brighter, or any reading of the "Waldstein" Sonata ever been more ecstatically serene? And has any pianist ever caught the uncanny mixture of the playful, the romantic, and the diabolical in Schumann's Kreisleriana? Anyone interested in great piano playing should avail themselves of these superlative performances at their earliest possible opportunity.© TiVo
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Brahms: The Symphonies
Johannes Brahms
Classical - Released April 21, 2017 | BSO Classics
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Gramophone Editor's Choice
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Schumann : Symphonien 1 - 4
Sir Simon Rattle
Classical - Released May 23, 2014 | Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Hi-Res
Booklet
And so, after much expectation, the entire set of Schumann’s Symphonies by Simon Rattle has finally been released with Berliner Philharmoniker’s brand new own label. The 2013 live recordings are extraordinarily thorough: Rattle has truly outdone himself. His direction is incredibly clear, and he benefits from a smaller orchestra with a reduced amount of strings. This is a more ‘reasonable’ set up, as it restores balance between the different instruments. This is especially the case in the sections containing a lot of wood instruments, as all too often conductors let the strings drown out all other sounds without worrying about the ‘chamber music’ essence of the symphonies. It is also noteworthy that the fourth symphony is offered in its original 1841 version, which chronologically makes it his second production. The rearranged version of 1851 is thicker, and contains considerable differences in the music itself. This was not Brahms’ preferred version, and so he published the 1841 original version in 1891, just after Clara Schumann had placed the 1851 rearrangement on the market.
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Dvořák: String Quartet, Op. 106; Coleridge-Taylor: Fantasiestücke
Takács Quartet
Classical - Released July 28, 2023 | Hyperion
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Booklet
The Takács Quartet has been remarkably consistent, and the addition of a couple of new members doesn't seem to have affected the group's track record at all. Consider this release, which made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023. It is splendid. One attraction is the set of Fantasiestücke by Samuel-Coleridge Taylor. He has been showing up more frequently on concert programs and recordings, but these are novel, with just two recordings on small independent labels in the catalog ahead of this one. Coleridge-Taylor was still a student at the Royal College of Music when he wrote these short pieces for string quartet, but they clearly showed what was coming. Not only was he able to produce a decent facsimile of Dvořák's style (sample the Dance finale), but in the second-movement Serenade, he picked up the unusual 5/4 time of the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, and put his own spin on it. The main attraction is Dvořák's String Quartet in G major, Op. 106, is even better, with many subtle details in the phrasing married to deep expression. Sample the Adagio ma non troppo slow movement, which has rarely seemed so profound; the opening melody rises to the level of Beethoven's late quartets here. There is a short early quartet movement to ring down the curtain and superb, idiomatic sound from the Wyastone Estate Concert Hall. This is certain to be counted as one of the top chamber music recordings of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schumann: The Symphonies
Daniel Barenboim
Classical - Released November 4, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Daniel Barenboim's 80th birthday in 2022 was attended by various reissues of his work, great and small, but listeners have shown a commendable ability to see through the marketing by putting this new set of Schumann symphonies, recorded live in 2021, on classical best-seller lists. This is the third time Barenboim has recorded the Schumann symphonies, and while this reading with his well-honed Staatskapelle Berlin is not cut from fundamentally different cloth than the earlier ones, it is delicate to a perhaps unprecedented degree. Barenboim, maybe more than any other conductor, realizes that lightness is the key to these works, as much as in Schumann's songs, and that the crucial small details emerge if they are given room to do so. Each symphony is thought out as an independent unit. Consider the Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38, where Barenboim offers an end-heavy reading and makes a powerful case for it. The lightness of the first two movements is marvelous. In the Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97 ("Rhenish"), Barenboim makes clear the immense influence this work had on the second half of the 19th century with its fusion of sonata form and programmatic imagery; his reading flows (so to speak) just beautifully. Deutsche Grammophon's live sound is another draw in a Schumann set for the ages. Bravo, Maestro!© James Manheim /TiVo
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Louise Farrenc: Symphonies Nos. 1-3, Overtures Nos. 1 & 2
Accentus - Laurence Equilbey
Classical - Released April 21, 2023 | Warner Classics
Hi-Res
Booklet
Arguably the greatest success in the ongoing rediscovery of neglected music by women has been Louise Farrenc, who, at the last turn of the century, was all but unknown. She managed to become a professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Paris, even though women students were not admitted, and much of her piano music is bold and entirely distinctive. Her chamber music, including a Nonet that was celebrated even in its own time, is also very strong. Farrenc's orchestral music, all of which is gathered on the present release except for that involving piano, dates from later in her career and is not quite on the same level, but any audience of the 1840s, when all three symphonies were composed, would have considered them state-of-the-art. The two minor-key works are Beethovenian in spirit and in concision; there is nothing of the diffuse structures of a Hummel or a Czerny here. Surely Farrenc knew the orchestral music of Mendelssohn, clearly audible in the sprightly Symphony No. 2 in D major, in D major, Op. 35. Another model is Mozart; compare the Overture No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 24, with the mature opera overtures of Mozart, especially that of Don Giovanni. Farrenc's orchestration is lively throughout. The historical-instrument performances of the Insula Orchestra and conductor Laurence Equilbey are not as smooth as other work by this ensemble but probably do a good job of conveying what this music sounded like at its first performances. Essential for collections of music by women, this release is highly listenable for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 & Academic Festival Overture
Otto Klemperer
Classical - Released June 2, 2023 | Warner Classics
Hi-Res
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