Breathtaking pianism from Gilels: Tchaikovsky's Concerto No. 2 is titanic and tender by turns, and his opening phrase of Beethoven Four is near-miraculous. - BBC Music (ICA Classics)

One of JS Bach’s most famous and loved masterpieces with the Portland Baroque Orchestra conducted by Monica Huggett. The double-CD package includes full texts and translations. (Avie)

In the 1960s and in the decades following, the Budapest String Quartet’s mantle at Columbia was passed on to the Juilliard String Quartet. Over the years, with some changes in personnel, the ensemble repeatedly set down its famously lean, energetic and expressive interpretations of the Beethoven quartets in New York recording studios. These have remained catalogue staples. Less well known is the Beethoven cycle they recorded live in Washington at the Library of Congress in 1982. Gramophone singled out this complete traversal for its special depth and flexibility. Presented here on 9 albums, this is its first Sony release.

REVIEW:

The slow introduction to the C Major Quartet No. 9 is handled wonderfully, which sets up well for the rest of the movement and the work as a whole. These are followed by nice recordings of the “Harp” and “Serioso” quartets, thus bringing the middle period to an end.

The late quartets open with a really nice recording of the Nos. 12 and 13, with the first of these being particularly fine. The final disc of the nine houses the 15th and 16th quartets, which again receive fairly good recordings. Overall, the tempos selected here tend to be slower than in their earlier recording, which is usual for live recordings.

Overall sound quality is, at times, a bit of an issue here, even taking into account the live nature of these recordings, and overall isn't up to the sound quality of the quartet's highly regarded 1960s studio cycle of these works for RCA.

– MusicWeb International

2020 release. Solo piano performances. Pianist Beegie Adair (pronounced B-G) has accompanied such legendary performers as Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton, and worked with such entertainers as Neil Diamond, Mama Cass Elliott, and Peggy Lee in her position as in-house pianist for The Johnny Cash Show for ABC-TV. Adair serves as adjunct professor in jazz studies at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music and currently teaches singers repertoire at the Nashville Jazz Workshop.

Wally B. Seck, Senegalese superstar with more than 5M subscribers, has established himself as one of his homeland's major artists over the years; alongside the likes of Youssou NDour. He now presents "I Wanna Be Free", a powerful, unifying album that will undoubtedly become a landmark of international pop music. He's the enfant terrible of contemporary Senegalese music. Wally B. Seck has nearly 400 million views on his Youtube channel, 5 million subscribers on his various social networks, and is making a name for himself as a favorite in the hearts of the Senegalese people.

The son of Senegalese singer Thione Ballago Seck, the young artist is appealing not only to his father's fans, but to the new generation, who knew little of the patriarch. Born on April 27, 1985 in Dakar, Senegal, Wally initially envisaged a career in soccer in France, London and Italy. Although this career never really took off, Wally started out in music with the Raam Daan group in Senegal. After that, everything went very fast for the young man trained by his father, who is also his mentor. He's not afraid of anything and never stops provoking. For Fatim O', a culture journalist with Groupe Futur Médias, Wally Ballago Seck is the "Justin Bieber of Senegal".

He owes his success to his notoriety and showman status, in the image of the American stars with whom he constantly identifies. In February 2011, Wally was one of 5 artists nominated for the Sunu Music Awards, alongside Viviane N'Dour and Didier Awadi. On September 4, 2012, Wally released his second album entitled Louné (Tout). A confirmation album featuring 8 tracks, this enabled him to reach out to new audiences. In the record, he generally tackles themes of love and promotes Senegalese griots, a caste from which he himself hails. Since then, Wally B. Seck has established himself as one of his country's leading artists, alongside the likes of Youssou NDour, and is aiming for international success with his forthcoming album "I Wanna Be Free", due for release in 2023.

Global Wagner – From Bayreuth to the World is not a biography of Richard Wagner, nor is it a musicological analysis of his work. This is a documentary dedicated solely to the world’s fascination with the man, and an exploration of the question as to how such massive hype and world-wide cult following developed around this highly controversial artist. The film is a revealing feature-length study of life with Wagner’s legacy from one Bayreuth Festival to the next, and we travel the world to meet devoted Wagnerians and those most intimately involved in commenting on and producing his work today.

Everbest Music presents a reissue of two classic Virgil Thomson albums: Portraits and Self-Portraits and Mostly About Love. Performed by pianist and New York Times chief classical critic Anthony Tommasini, these out-of-print gems are now available as Portraits, Self-Portraits and Songs in a 2-CD set, digital download, and streaming formats. Previously released on Northeastern Records, these definitive recordings feature 22 of Thomson’s chamber and vocal works, showcasing his signature wit and shrewd musical style.

Over the years John Rutter's Christmas recordings with his outstanding Cambridge Singers have become essential components of holiday tradition for choral music fans around the world. Throughout the 1980s and early '90s Rutter's legions of followers were treated to several now-classic CD albums for Collegium, including Christmas Night, Christmas with the Cambridge Singers, and Christmas Day in the Morning. It's from these recordings that the present program was drawn, with the addition of two newly issued tracks--Dormi, Jesu and Love came down at Christmas. Yes, if you already own those other discs, for completeness' sake and, well, just because it's a new Rutter release, you'll still have to have this one. And that's not a bad thing at all, especially since all of these tracks have been remastered in notably clearer, more vibrant sound than their 10- or 15-year-old predecessors.

The selections focus on Rutter's own compositions, with "a sprinkling" of his arrangements of traditional carols organized (in typical Rutter/Cambridge Singers fashion) into a thematically grouped program--Prologue, The Christmas Story, Christmas Night, Christmas reflections, Christmas Joy, and Epilogue--the latter consisting of a lovely setting of Silent Night, made for a 1988 BBC television production. And speaking of classics, among the 23 pieces heard here is Rutter's masterpiece, What sweeter music, a staple of Christmas programs everywhere (and a continuing presence in a popular series of Volvo commercials), sounding even more glorious than ever. [11/23/2002]

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Naxos, the world's leading classical music group, supports the Alzheimer's Association with the release of the Purple Classics series. Each release in this new series of 10 recordings features approximately 2 hours of classical music on 2 CDs. For every CD sold through June 23, 2017, Naxos will donate $.50 to the Alzheimer's Association, with a minimum donation of $25,000,to advance their efforts in Alzheimer's care, support and research.

Naxos, the world's leading classical music group, supports the Alzheimer's Association with the release of the Purple Classics series. Each release in this new series of 10 recordings features approximately 2 hours of classical music on 2 CDs. For every CD sold through June 23, 2017, Naxos will donate $.50 to the Alzheimer's Association, with a minimum donation of $25,000,to advance their efforts in Alzheimer's care, support and research.

HYMNS FROM THE OLD COUNTRY CHU

Reissue of 1997 album. The title is program. Born in 1965 in Chicago Bernard Allison was introduced into the roots of black music and playing electric guitar by his father, the living blues legend luther allison. At the age of 20 he played with the Queen of Blues Koko Taylor for two years and took part in countless sessions with musicians like Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Healey. He joined the tour band of Luther Allison in 1989 after a furious collaboration of "Father & Son" at the '89 Chicago Blues Festival. A recording of this formation is to be heard on the Luther Allison album Let's Try It again. Bernard released his first solo album in 1990 with the significant title The Next Generation. Bernard was not only influenced by the old masters or musicians like Jimmy Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan but also grew up with the music of George Clinton and Johnny Guitar Watson. Born With The Blues was recorded in Chicago and mixed in Memphis - together with the band of blues legend Buddy Guy (with Ray Killer Allison/drums). Bernard's co-producer is the Rounder Bullseye producer Ron Levy who also plays the keyboards.

The American Brian Asawa, who died tragically young in 2016, became one of the world’s foremost countertenors before he was 30, acclaimed for the exceptional size, richness, agility and beauty of his voice. In 1991 he was the first countertenor ever to win the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and soon he was singing with opera companies all over the world. He was also a gifted recitalist and made a notable series of recordings for RCA/BMG. All reissued here, they range from Elizabethan Lute Songs to a disc of songs by Ned Rorem and include excerpts from the complete recording of Handel’s opera Serse conducted by Nicholas McGegan, in which BBC Magazine singled out for praise Brian Asawa’s “luscious legato” in the role of Arsamene.

Following up its recent box of his 78 and early LP recordings for RCA, Sony Classical is now issuing a 5-album set of Chopin recordings made by the Ukrainian-American pianist Alexander Brailowsky in stereo for American Columbia in the early 1960s. The new reissue contains the complete Preludes, Waltzes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, Andante spianato, B minor Sonata, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Berceuse as well as numerous other works.

REVIEW:

If Brailowsky's Polonaises don’t match Arthur Rubinstein’s finesse and red-blooded ardor, they’re at least idiomatic and shapely, as are the sensitively turned-out Chopin/Liszt song transcriptions and the Berceuse.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Sony Classical is pleased to announce a new batch of reissues from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor/BMG back catalogues. This latest instalment of the popular series showcases Mozart and Chopin along with conductor Robert Craft’s pioneering Webern recordings and the global journeys of that irrepressible musical explorer Yo-Yo Ma.

Sir Colin Davis was indisputably one of the greatest Mozart conductors of the last century, both in the opera house and in the recording studio. In Munich in the early 1990s, near the end of his tenure as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he recorded several of the popular serenades and wind concertos (“Davis is completely at home in this music and brings to it grandeur and delicacy in good measure and judicious balance” – Gramophone). And in 1998, as the Dresden Staatskapelle’s first-ever conductor laureate, he recorded twelve opera overtures (“Beautifully turned string playing, wonderful contributions from the wind section, and transparent textures: it all represents splendid ‘big band’ Mozart in the modern tradition” – Classics Today). These superb RCA recordings are now reissued in a 4-album box set.

REVIEW:

Colin Davis’s RCA Mozart CDs from the 1990s, mostly with the Bavarian RSO, tend towards more relaxed tempos than on his earlier analog recordings, a live coupling of the Posthorn Serenade and the Bassoon Concerto recorded at the Mozartfest in Würzburg in June 1992 claiming among its many virtues textural opulence (Eberhard Marschall’s bassoon is among the richest in tone that I’ve ever heard) and, as Christopher Headington noted in these pages (9/94), an unhurried finale ‘despite the Presto marking that tempts less experienced conductors’. You might additionally note Davis’s Toscanini-like vocalizing at the start of the Andantino, a romantic reading that works wonderfully well. Also included are similarly affecting accounts of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Wind Serenades Nos 10-12, the Clarinet Concerto (with a mellifluoussounding Karl-Heinz Steffens), and the one CD featuring the Dresden Staatskapelle, an hour’s worth of overtures. I’d never clocked on previous occasions the strong similarity between the very brief Bastien und Bastienne Overture and the opening of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. As Mozart orchestral compilations go, this is among the best, one that you should return to with constantly renewed pleasure. The recordings are full-bodied.

--Gramophone