Search results: Search results
388 results
Products
-
![]()
-
![]()
-
Delius in Norway / Davis, Bergen Philharmonic
$21.99SACDChandos
Jan 28, 2014CHSA 5131 -
![]()
-
![]()
-
Delius: Piano Concerto, Paris / Shelley, Davis, Royal Scottish NO
$21.99CDChandos
Oct 30, 2012CHAN 10742 -
Philippe Entremont: Complete Piano Solo Recordings on Columbia Masterworks
$79.99CDSony Masterworks
Jun 21, 201919075899442 -
GOOD NIGHT
$17.28CDERATO
Nov 06, 2020EAO524243.2 -
![]()
-
![]()
-
On SaleHolst: The Planets - Elgar: Enigma Variations / Litton, Bergen Philharmonic
SACD$21.99$15.99BIS
Jul 05, 2019BIS-2068 -
![]()
-
![]()
-
McDonald, Suesse, Vaughan Williams: Concertos for Two Pianos / Long Duo
$18.99CDSono Luminus
Mar 29, 2011DSL-92129 -
![]()
-
![]()
-
On SaleCOMPLETE WARNER RECORDINGS 16CD
CD$44.23$44.22WARNER CLASSICS
May 13, 2022WCL643624.2 -
![]()
-
![]()
-
Britten: Peter Grimes / Skelton, Wall, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
$43.99SACDChandos
Sep 04, 2020CHSA 5250(2)
Delius in Norway / Davis, Bergen Philharmonic
Norway is a gorgeous country, and it’s no surprise that Delius found much of his inspiration there. The pieces on this intelligently planned program run from 1889-1917, and are programmed in roughly chronological order. They range from the charming orchestration of good friend Edvard Grieg’s Norwegian Bridal Procession to Delius’ first major works for orchestra (Paa Vidderne) and for the theatre (the incidental music to Folkeraadet), taking in a couple of orchestral songs along the way.
Paa Vidderne (On the Mountains) is a tone poem obviously of the Wagner/Liszt school, with plenty of hefty brass scoring and way too many cymbal crashes. It does not sound particularly Delian, but curiously the earlier Sleigh Ride’s calm central section clearly foreshadows the composer to come. Few listeners are probably aware that On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is based on a Norwegian theme, but there it is, while Eventyr, which concludes the program, is a masterpiece of mood and turbulent atmosphere, sort of Delius’ answer to Sibelius’ En Saga.
This is one of those programs in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The selections are nicely varied. Ann-Helen Moen sings the two songs quite beautifully, and Andrew Davis, who recorded some very nice Delius for Teldec back in the day, knows his way around the music. It’s also good to hear non-British orchestras taking on this repertoire. Certainly the Bergen Philharmonic sounds just fine, although curiously, in Eventyr, the second of the two shouts (literally: the plays have to shout) is quite untidy. Not important, though, especially with fine sonics and a very generous nearly eighty minutes of playing time. A very enjoyable and interesting disc.
- ClassicsToday
Delius: Piano Concerto, Paris / Shelley, Davis, Royal Scottish NO
Paris, sub-titled ‘The Song of a Great City’, is strongly inspired by the composer’s many years of living and working in Paris. With large-scale orchestral forces, Delius paints opulent pictures of a city that he obviously loved. The slow opening portrays the still darkness falling over Paris; then the music changes pace and takes us through the teeming and intoxicating nightlife of the city, with impressions of exuberant dance music coming from the many cafés and music-halls. The opening material returns, culminating in the sounds of the awakening streets.
Until recently Delius’s Piano Concerto has been know exclusively in its final, one-movement form, which was first performed in London in 1907. The version recorded here, however, represents the composer’s earlier thoughts, from 1897. Performed by Howard Shelley, the work is brimming with full-bodied romanticism while showing the influences of Grieg and Liszt throughout.
The airy mood of Idylle de printemps points to later depictions of nature in Delius’s music, as in Brigg Fair, which Delius categorised as ‘An English Rhapsody’. Cecil Gray, the Scottish music critic and composer, described the opening of Brigg Fair as ‘evoking the atmosphere of an early summer morning in the English countryside’. The work is based on a folk-tune which came to light in a competition instigated by Percy Grainger in 1905 to find ‘the best unpublished old Lincolnshire folk song or plough song’. Grainger was immediately taken with the folk-tune, and having arranged it himself for solo tenor and chorus, he approached Delius to write orchestral variations on it – urging him on as the only composer worthy of the task. Delius was soon persuaded, and Brigg Fair became one of his best-loved works.
- Chandos Records
Philippe Entremont: Complete Piano Solo Recordings on Columbia Masterworks
It was in 1958 that a fabulously talented 23-year-old French pianist made his name in the musical world with the release of his debut concerto recording for Columbia Masterworks. That coupling of the Grieg A minor and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, was the first of many best-selling albums that Philippe Entremont would record for Columbia over the next two decades.
In 2014, Sony Classical issued a set containing all of his concerto recordings. Now, to mark Entremont’s 85th birthday in 2019, Sony is pleased to announce the release of his complete solo recordings at budget price.
Philippe Entremont was born in Reims to two professional musicians who were also his first teachers. He then studied with the legendary pianist Marguerite Long and entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he won numerous prizes. When he was only 16, he won the prestigious Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition. European tours soon followed as well as his Carnegie Hall debut in 1953: playing concertos by Liszt E flat Concerto and André Jolivet, he “brought down the house” with his “technical and musical mastery” (New York Times). The new release, which contains many recordings never before issued, ranges from Entremont’s 1956 Chopin recital originally released on CBS’s Epic label to a recital of keyboard favorites he recorded in Vienna in 1985. There is Entremont’s Debussy, played “with bold splashes of color...and tremendous warmth” (High Fidelity) and his Liszt. The many other recitals in this capacious, newly remastered reissue showcase composers ranging from Rameau, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Kuhlau, Clementi, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Mendelssohn to Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. There is Spanish music by Granados, Albeniz and Falla. And, naturally, there is an abundance of French music – works by Fauré, Ravel, Satie, Poulenc and Saint-Saëns. Two very special albums recorded in 1979 deserve separate mention: a coupling of Dohnányi “Nursery Song” Variations, the Strauss Burleske and the Litolff Scherzo, with Okko Kamu conducting the National Philharmonic, and the delectable recital from Paris in which Philippe Entremont accompanies the great soprano Régine Crespin in mélodies by Ravel and Satie.
GOOD NIGHT
Holst: The Planets - Elgar: Enigma Variations / Litton, Bergen Philharmonic
It is striking that two of the true classics in English orchestral music were composed within the short space of some fifteen years around the turn of the previous century. Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations have charmed as well as fascinated listeners since the first performance in 1899. In 14 remarkably diverse variations Elgar demonstrates his compositional mastery while creating miniature portraits of his closest friends, as well as of his wife and himself. By turns gentle, idyllic, tempestuous and boisterous, the pieces – which often run seamlessly into each other – nevertheless make up a coherent whole, like a group portrait taken during a country weekend. As for the enigma of the title, Elgar – who loved puzzles – maintained that another melody ‘went with’ the theme, and musicologists have searched for the answer ever since, without success.
In 1916 Gustav Holst completed another set of musical character sketches – his suite The Planets, in seven movements. These have little to do with astronomy and even less with the Roman deities whose names they carry. Holst was rather inspired by astrology and the suite actually concerns human character as influenced by the planets. The concept – like that of Elgar's variations – provides for a variety of moods and expressions, and in his score Holst took full advantage of these possibilities. To achieve this he made use of a large orchestra including much percussion, two harps, celesta, organ, two sets of timpani. He also included parts for certain unusual instruments such as bass flute, bass oboe and tenor tuba, and – in the final movement – a female chorus. Performing the programme in the warm acoustics of Bergen's Grieg Hall, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton give it their all in this sonic spectacular.
REVIEW:
Established collectors will probably have multiple performances of these works in their collection. They may not have them coupled together, however, and that is a bonus, especially for those lucky youngsters coming new to these works and for whom this disc is the perfect choice. Superbly recorded and with an excellent insert note by Philip Borg-Wheeler, it carries a most convincing performance of The Planets and a revelatory one of the ‘Enigma’ Variations.
– MusicWeb International
McDonald, Suesse, Vaughan Williams: Concertos for Two Pianos / Long Duo
SUESSE Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra. McDONALD Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra • Long Duo; Patrick Souillot, cond; Eskichir Greater Municipality SO • SONO LUMINUS DSL 92129 (68: 37)
The talented and comely (judging from the booklet cover photo) Taiwanese sisters Beatrice and Christina Long demonstrated considerable enterprise in selecting a couple of rarely performed two-piano concertos (Suesse and McDonald) for this debut recording for the new label Sono Luminus. And, given the limited repertoire for this combination, their additional choice of the roilingly rough-hewn Vaughan Williams makes a kind of sense, although we are still awaiting a first recording of the Piston effort in this genre.
Dana Suesse (1909–87) was a Kansas City prodigy who in her 20s became a prominent member of the “metropolitan” school of composers gathered about, and promoted by, showman-musician Paul Whiteman. After Whiteman’s landmark Aeolian Hall concert that launched Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue , Whiteman became a mentor to a flock of homegrown composers who had one foot firmly in popular music but aspired to concert hall status, thus instituting our first generation of Third Stream music. More or less at the same time (the early ’30s) that Suesse was publishing such hit songs as You Oughta Be in Pictures and My Silent Love (the latter adapted from an earlier piano piece, Nocturne ), she was soloist in the Whiteman premiere of her Concerto in Three Rhythms, which has just been issued on Naxos.
Suesse’s Two-Piano Concerto was labored over during most the 1930s and finally premiered in 1943 by Eugene Goossens with the celebrated two-piano team of Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robinson as soloists. This four-movement piece is a serious and well-proportioned work that, as opposed to the earlier concerto, has only a few dim echoes of Suesse’s pop background. The themes are songfully distinctive and appealing, the formal structure clear and traditional, and the harmonic language an auspicious blend of Grieg and salon music without any soupçon of pretense or banality. This is one of those once-obscure scores that was well worth reviving.
Harl McDonald (1899–1955) was a California-born composer who in later years became closely identified with the Philadelphia Orchestra (eventually serving as its manager) during both the Stokowski and Ormandy eras. A good deal of his music was once available on shellac but, except for his utterly disarming suite for harp and chamber orchestra, From Childhood, it has mostly fallen, undeservedly, into oblivion. Most of his work derived from programmatic concepts (even the four symphonies have movements with titles), but this 1936 two-piano concerto was one of his exceptional efforts in absolute form. As such, it is a very engaging work in conventional tripartite form using a type of Yankee-accented sub-Rachmaninoff idiom, with the middle movement an unexpected theme and variations and the finale employing some of McDonald’s favorite “south of the border” elements. Though the original Stokowski-led recording was reissued on Cala as one of “Stokowski Rarities,” a modern recording was overdue and this one more than meets the mark.
Originally conceived in the 1920s as a solo piano concerto, Vaughan Williams’s Two-Piano Concerto was revised by the composer two decades later, in the process doubling its quotient of energy and tumult. This is quite a challenging score for both the soloists and the orchestra and on balance the Longs hold their own against previous recordings by Whittemore and Lowe (RCA vinyl with Golschmann conducting), Markham and Broadway (Menuhin conducting on Virgin Classics), and the unusually emphatic and fast-clipped Vronsky and Babin, with Boult maintaining a furious pace, on EMI. Though as thoroughly professional as this provincial Turkish orchestra sounds, it can hardly be expected to meet the standards set by the Royal and London Philharmonics. Bearing that in mind, this is a still an acceptably faithful account of the music.
For the Suesse and McDonald works, together with a knowledgeable annotation by the unique cabaret pianist and singer Peter Mintun (who back in the 1970s brought Dana Suesse out of retirement to attend a Carnegie Hall concert of her music featuring conductor Frederick Fennell and pianist Cy Coleman!), this is an essential release not likely to be duplicated in the near or far future. Grab it!
FANFARE: Paul A. Snook
COMPLETE WARNER RECORDINGS 16CD
Britten: Peter Grimes / Skelton, Wall, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Winner of the coveted Gramophone Record of the Year award!
‘The burly Aussie tenor is now even more identified with this ill-fated protagonist than Peter Pears, the first Grimes. And everywhere Skelton has sung the part, whether at English National Opera, the Proms, the Edinburgh festival or now on this international tour of a concert staging mounted by the Bergen Philharmonic, the conductor has been Edward Gardner. Theirs is one of the great musical partnerships, and they continue to find compelling new depths in this tragic masterpiece.’ – Richard Morrison – The Times. This studio recording was made following the acclaimed production at Grieghallen, in Bergen, in 2019 (repeated in Oslo and London and reviewed above). Luxuriant playing from the Bergen Philharmonic and a stellar cast under the assured direction of Edward Gardner make this a recording to treasure.
REVIEW:
The net joy of this new recording is that Skelton, now a Grimes of considerable experience and range, has found in his vocalisation of the role a well-judged mixture of obsessive professional (sometimes rough) fisherman and troubled, confused and persecuted outsider. All this is precisely framed by Gardner’s conducting and his choice of cast. An exciting, committed, necessary and brilliantly recorded version for our times.
– Gramophone (Recording of The Month, October 2020
