The Decca Solo Recordings, 1941-1945 / Kathleen Long
APR
Available as
CD
$21.99
$10.99
May 19, 2023
An unobtrusive figure in the British music scene and despite her self-stated lack of ambition, KATHLEEN LONG (1896–1968) was a musician of the highest order. She taught for 44 years at the Royal College of Music and was a major Decca artist for two decades, having recorded for several other labels before that. Her first recording was made in 1928, and her first Decca recordings (of Mozart’s Piano Concertos K449 and K450) were made in 1935. Her first Decca solo recordings are those on this release. On disc, she made premiere recordings of several Mozart concertos and sonatas and was renowned for her Scarlatti and Fauré. For her service to French music, she was made Honorary Member of the Académie de France.
On Sale
The Decca Solo Recordings, 1941-1945 / Kathleen Long
$21.99
$10.99
CD
APR
May 19, 2023
APR6041
GREAT PIANO CONCERTOS
Naxos
Available as
CD
$13.99
$6.99
Dec 09, 2016
Classical Music
On Sale
GREAT PIANO CONCERTOS
$13.99
$6.99
CD
Naxos
Dec 09, 2016
8505248
Piano Phantoms / Michael Lewin
Sono Luminus
Available as
CD
$18.99
$9.49
May 28, 2013
PIANO PHANTOMS • Michael Lewin (pn) • SONO LUMINUS 92168 (65:56)
NIEMANN Ghosts: Night on the Fleet. LYAPUNOV Round of Phantoms. GRIEG The Goblins’ Wedding Procession at Vossevangen. LAUSIG The Ghost Ship. MEDTNER Wood Goblin. DVO?ÁK Goblins’ Dance. GOOSSENS A Ghost Story. TROYER Ghost Dance of the Zunis. KASKI Night Music of the Mountain Goblin. VALLIER The Ghosts at Restormel. BOLCOM Graceful Ghost Rag. FARJEON Some Goblins and Gnomes and Things. PRICE The Goblin and the Mosquito. BAINTON Goblin Dance. HILLER The Dance of the Phantoms. RIVÉ-KING March of the Goblins. SCHUBERT Spirit Dance (arr. Heller). SCHUMANN Ghost Variations
Theme recordings don’t always work, simply because the gimmick of the theme doesn’t always produce music of outstanding quality, but in this disc pianist Lewin seems to have been inspired by the learning of new pieces and thoroughly enjoyed making the disc. I, for one, also enjoyed listening to it.
A large part of the reason for my enjoyment was the fact that despite this “ghosts and goblins” theme, most of the music is really of a high quality. Little if any of it seems to have been written for effect, but merely to explore unusual melodic or harmonic structure by channeling ghostly titles. A quick glance at the list of composers immediately shows several whose reputations as good composers are undisputable—Niemann, Grieg, Medtner, Dvo?ák, Schubert, and Schumann—yet even the music of such composers as Sergei Lyapunov, Carl Tausig, Eugene Goossens, and Ferdinand Hiller are played here with consummate skill and high artistic commitment. Lewin, who won top honors in the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition and the William Kapell International Competition, is evidently an artist committed to excellence in phrasing and interpretation. Not for him the easy route of empty virtuosity: Lewin brings a fine sense of direction and continuity to everything he plays, and the result is a fascinating recital devoid of music one has heard time and time again.
Indeed, eight of the pieces on this disc (those by Troyer, Kaski, Farjeon, Price, Bainton, Hiller, Rivé-King, and Schubert) are world premiere recordings, and I was particularly delighted to see a piece on this disc by Florence Price, whose Piano Concerto I prize so highly. By giving just as much attention and energy to the music of lesser-known composers, Lewin elevates their music so that it sounds indistinguishable from that of the acknowledged masters. In fact, the “lightest”-sounding work on this program was actually Dvo?ák’s Goblin’s Dance, a nice piece but by no means a great one, and even here Lewin does his level best to raise its quality. (Oddly enough, Goossens’s A Ghost Story was a better piece than Dvo?ák’s!)
Harry Farjeon’s Some Goblins and Gnomes and Things turned out to be an excellent piece, as was Price’s The Goblin and the Mosquito. Hiller’s Dance of the Phantoms is merely an enjoyable little romp, but how Lewin plays it! A real surprise, to me, was the piece by Julie Rivé-King, a native Cincinnatian who studied with Liszt and performed with Carl Reinecke. It is another charming piece, but not as insubstantial as one might imagine in advance of hearing it.
Lewin wraps up his program with Schumann’s Ghost Variations, a work completely unknown to me, written in 1854 when the then-schizophrenic composer had a dream that ghosts and angels dictated this theme to him. His wife Clara was apparently upset by the music’s “other-worldly origins” and refused to allow it to be published; thus it did not appear until 1939. As Lewin points out in the notes, the music is “fragile, gentle and intimate, painfully private,” but really and truly, not “ghostlike” at all. Thus we come to the end of this fascinating and original compilation of offbeat piano pieces. Bravo, Michael Lewin!
FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley
On Sale
Piano Phantoms / Michael Lewin
$18.99
$9.49
CD
Sono Luminus
May 28, 2013
DSL-92168
PEER GYNT SUITES 1&2
Erato
Available as
CD
$20.99
Nov 13, 2000
Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites 1 & 2 / In Autumn / Sakari Oramo Composed by Edvard Grieg / Conductor Sakari Oramo / Orchestra City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. As soon as the strings respond to the flute near the beginning of Peer Gynt's 'Morning' you sense this is a quality production. A bolder Grieg than we're used to hearing, less perfumed than dramatic and with impressive orchestral playing from the Birmingham orchestra.
PEER GYNT SUITES 1&2
$20.99
CD
Erato
Nov 13, 2000
8573829172
Air / Michala Petri, Lars Hannibal
RCA
Available as
CD
$17.99
Apr 30, 2009
Air: Michala Petri / Lars Hannibal
Air / Michala Petri, Lars Hannibal
$17.99
CD
RCA
Apr 30, 2009
RCA68769
Silhuettes
Canzone
Available as
CD
$22.99
$17.99
Jan 01, 1991
Silhuettes
On Sale
Silhuettes
$22.99
$17.99
CD
Canzone
Jan 01, 1991
CAN 33004
Famous Classics, Volume 3
Canzone
Available as
CD
$22.99
Jan 15, 1992
Famous Classics, Volume 3
Famous Classics, Volume 3
$22.99
CD
Canzone
Jan 15, 1992
CAN 33005
Poul Elming Sings H. C. Anders
Kontrapunkt
Available as
CD
$22.99
Oct 02, 2006
The year 2005 marked the bicentennial anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen's birth, whose's writing has been the treasury of the world. Internationally renowned tenor Poul Elming compiled an album of Lieder by great composers inspired Andersen's poetry.
Poul Elming Sings H. C. Anders
$22.99
CD
Kontrapunkt
Oct 02, 2006
KON 32338
Ronald Stevenson - Piano Music, Vol. 8
Toccata
Available as
CD
$20.99
May 15, 2026
Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015) was perhaps the only virtuoso pianist-composer in the manner of Rachmaninov and Liszt to have Celtic origins, and so it is natural to find a Celtic flavour emerging in his music - his transcriptions as well as his original compositions. It also helps explain his affinity for fellow composers like Grieg and Grainger, whose creative efforts looked to the north. But Stevenson's openness of spirit put the whole world of music within his reach, and so piano rags can here rub shoulders with works more directly concerned to express his humanist impulse.
Lullabies for Mila is dedicated to Alessio Bax’s daughter, Mila. The album begins with a moving dedication: “This album is not only a carefully curated playlist of soothing classics to calm a baby and perhaps make him or her fall asleep quicker. It is also a gift from parents to their children, with the hope that they will share music with their loved ones, not just to entertain them but also to enrich their lives.”; This disc compiles works from Bax’s past Signum albums, including performances with Southbank Sinfonia and Lucille Chung. It also contains a new recording of the Grieg’s Nocturne from his Lyric Pieces.; Alessio Bax is a celebrated and award-winning pianist. Gramophone says “His playing quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity,” and the Dallas Morning News calls it “an out of body experience.” He has performed as a soloist with over 100 orchestras.
On Sale
Lullabies for Mila / Bax
$19.99
$9.99
CD
Signum Classics
Feb 12, 2016
SIGCD439
Nocturne / Leonard Bernstein
Sony Masterworks
Available as
CD
$11.98
Jun 11, 1996
Nocturne
Nocturne / Leonard Bernstein
$11.98
CD
Sony Masterworks
Jun 11, 1996
MLK62617
Seasons
Sony Masterworks
Available as
CD
$11.98
Oct 12, 1993
Seasons
Seasons
$11.98
CD
Sony Masterworks
Oct 12, 1993
09026619152
Fruhling: Isasi Lieder
IBS Classical
Available as
CD
$17.99
May 08, 2026
Frühling is also a project that decisively sheds light on the figure of Andrés Isasi (1890-1940), one of the most singular and underrepresented composers of early 20th-century Spain. At the heart of the album, Goikoetxea and Fernández Aguirre offer the world-premiere recording of the complete Lieder-Album op. 16, a cycle composed in Berlin in 1913 and virtually unknown until today. These fourteen songs reveal a cosmopolitan Isasi at a moment of full creative maturity, shaped by his Central European training with Engelbert Humperdinck and attuned to the late-Romantic and Jugendstil currents of his time. The cycle blends intimate lyricism, legendary evocations, decadent impulses, and a refined harmonic language of striking modernity. Works such as Ali Bey, Frühling, Die ungetreue Luise, or Vergiftet sind meine Lieder display a uniquely personal voice that bridges the German Lied tradition with Basque imagery and an advanced European sensibility that was unusual for it's time. Goikoetxea and Fernández Aguirre stand out for their elegance, their textual insight, and their ability to convey the emotional universe-at times naïve, at times shadowed, always intensely poetic-of a composer whose vocal output was long overdue for a first-rate artistic rediscovery. The programme is framed within a broader exploration of Heinrich Heine's profound impact on European music. The album is completed with lieder by Liszt, Grieg, Ives, Rubinstein, Boulanger, Backer-Grøndahl, MacDowell, Sgambatti, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, composers who, like Isasi, were captivated by the emotional depth and symbolic power of the German poet.
Guitar Music - Nin-Culmell, J.M. / Fraser, M.K. / Constantin
Delos
Available as
CD
$18.99
Jan 01, 2001
Classical Music
Guitar Music - Nin-Culmell, J.M. / Fraser, M.K. / Constantin
$18.99
CD
Delos
Jan 01, 2001
DE 3236
STRING QUARTET NO. 1
MUSO
Available as
CD
$20.99
$15.99
Nov 03, 2017
The first recording of the David Oistrakh Quartet received much praise from the press ("No sooner formed, this young quartet already reaches excellence.") Achieving comparison with the Borodin and the Beethoven Quartets, this young group offers an impassioned performance of Grieg and Mendelssohn: a powerful, contrasted, physical and always subtly emotional performance. The David Oistrakh Quartet features today's most outstanding Russian musicians. In 2012 the family of the legendary 20th century violinist honored the quartet with his name. Over the years, artistic friendship and a passion for the art of the quartet brought the young soloists and the grand masters of quartet together to form this extraordinary ensemble. All four musicians play on exemplary Italian instruments made by Antonio Stradivari, Niccolo Amati, and Francesco Ruggeri.
On Sale
STRING QUARTET NO. 1
$20.99
$15.99
CD
MUSO
Nov 03, 2017
MU-021
Solitaires
CAvi-music
Available as
CD
$19.99
Apr 14, 2017
The title 'Solitaires' evokes the singularity of each work on this album; each of these works needs to be polished like a diamond, as Karla Haltenwanger, the pianist of the Boulanger Trio, remarks. Violinist Birgit Erz adds: "We want to shed new light on the piano trio genre by focusing on small, concentrated forms. In such short pieces, everything needs to be immediately in place: the tuning, the attitude, the timbre, from the very first second!"
Solitaires
$19.99
CD
CAvi-music
Apr 14, 2017
AVI 8553345
Haydn: Sonatas
PENTATONE
Available as
CD
$19.99
Jun 19, 2026
Denis Kozhukhin presents a new album of Haydn: Sonatas, offering a fresh and illuminating journey through the composer's keyboard repertoire. Haydn's keyboard sonatas brim with invention, drama, and wit, matching the brilliance of his symphonies and quartets. Revisiting this repertoire, Kozhukhin reveals their expressive depth and sparkling originality in a recital of striking contrast and character. From the genial Allegro of the early D Major Sonata, Hob XVI:4, to the restless intensity of the C minor Sonata, Hob XVI:20, each work reflects Haydn's inexhaustible inventiveness and subtle mastery of keyboard textures. A prize-winner of prestigious competitions, including the Leeds International Piano Competition (2006) and the Queen Elizabeth Competition (2010), Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the most acclaimed pianists of his generation. He presents another chapter in his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, following albums such as Grieg and Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos (2016, Gramophone Editor's Choice), Brahms: Ballades and Fantasies (2017, 5 stars in Diapason), Ravel & Gershwin and Richard Strauss' Burleske (2018), Grieg: Lyric Pieces & Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte (2019, Gramophone Recording of the Month), Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations (2020), and Somnia (2025, Gramophone Critic's Choice for 2025 Top Recordings).
Rubinstein Adagios - Romantic Reveries / Arthur Rubinstein
Sony Masterworks
Available as
CD
$11.98
Feb 05, 2002
ADAGIOS: ROMANTIC REVERIES FOR
Rubinstein Adagios - Romantic Reveries / Arthur Rubinstein
$11.98
CD
Sony Masterworks
Feb 05, 2002
09026639042
Franck: Symphony in D Minor & Symphonic Variations / Kozhukhin, Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra
PENTATONE
Available as
SACD
$21.99
$16.99
Jun 12, 2020
The Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and its Music Director Gustavo Gimeno present a composer portrait of César Franck. The album features the famous Symphony in D Minor, as well as the lesser known, but equally enchanting Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, with Denis Kozhukhin as soloist. Born in Liege but raised in Paris, Franck synthesized Wagnerism with French musical traditions, resulting in a fine equilibrium between a voluptuous orchestral sound and audacious harmonies on the one hand, and lucidity and graceful charm on the other. While the three-movement symphony follows a from-darkness-to-light trajectory, the delightful Variations oscillate between symphonic poem and miniature piano concerto. The OPL and Gustavo Gimeno continue their acclaimed PENTATONE series of composer portraits that already featured monographs of Shostakovich, Bruckner, Ravel, Mahler, Stravinsky, Debussy and Rossini. Denis Kozhukhin adds another release to his extensive PENTATONE discography that already contains Grieg/Mendelssohn (2019), Strauss’s Burleske (2018), Piano Concertos by Ravel and Gershwin (2018), Tchaikovsky and Grieg (2016), as well as a Brahms solo recital (2017).
On Sale
Franck: Symphony in D Minor & Symphonic Variations / Kozhukhin, Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra
On Sale
On Sale
On Sale
On Sale
On Sale
On Sale
On Sale
On Sale
