A few decades ago, Franck’s Symphony in D minor was standard repertoire, and every major conductor recorded it. Now, the work’s high romantic sentimentality seems to have fallen out of fashion, and new releases are far less common. Interpretations run the gamut from reasonably strict and “classical”, to totally demented (think: Stokowski). Monteux’s falls decidedly into the “classical” category, but never to the detriment of expressivity.

Consider how he handles the luscious second subject of the first movement, with a singing tone and real urgency, the ensuing accelerando done with passion, excitement, and yes, taste. The Chicago Symphony plays gloriously (this was the Reiner era, let’s not forget), responding to Monteux’s every perfectly judged nuance. It has become fashionable lately to disparage this performance, in addition to dogging the work, but as Tovey once wrote, “All’s not false that’s taught in the public schools.” This recording was the best in its day, both interpretively and sonically, and so it remains 50 years on.

The coupling of Pétrouchka might seem odd–there’s only so much Monteux material available in stereo to RCA, but it’s equally wonderful. Indeed, if I had to choose a single CD to represent the conductor’s art at its best, this would probably be the one. Again, he has a great orchestra at his disposal, one fully at home in the idiom, and he leads a performance at once lovingly detailed but also brilliant and glittering. In the Danse Russe Monteux captures the music’s mechanical, cartoonish qualities to perfection, while the folk dances in the concluding tableau have all the rhythmic bounce and gaiety that one could ask. The sonics are superb even by modern standards. What a joy this disc is!

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

You might call it youth serving youth. One of the finest singers to emerge in the 1990s, Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova made this disc when she was thirty-two, by which age Gioacchino Rossini had written all of the operas represented within and twenty-five others. Kasarova, who counts Maria Callas among her idols, is an aficionado of the bel canto style and says she finds Rossini's low-voiced roles, many of which were influenced by castrato singing, interesting for their variety of vocal demands, as the many specialized categories of voice we have today weren't so set then.
On this program of arias and duets with tenor Juan Diego Flórez she sings the parts of heroes en travesti (male parts played by women) from 'Semiramide' and the little-known 'Bianca e Fallierro,' serious heroines from 'Armida' and 'La donna del lago' and comic roles from 'L'Italiana in Algieri' and 'La Cenerentola' as well as the tenor title role from 'Otello,' transposed as one might hear it done at a gala benefit. Of course Kasarova's voice is beautiful, smooth and rich, but most impressive is her absorption of the characters and their various moods. Perhaps she really has taken the Callas model to heart.

This CD contains both ADD and DDD recordings.
Glenn Gould was probably the most individual pianist of this century. Often criticized throughout his career for his interpretations, his influence cannot be denied. He was a musician of the highest order, and capable of profound playing. Originally released in 1980 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Gould's association with CBS, this set features both standard Gould fare (including a previously unreleased "Italian Concerto" from 1981) and twentieth century works by Strauss and Scriabin alongside Canadian Radio Broadcasting programs made over the course of Gould's career.
Gould played the music of many composers, but had a keen interest in the music of Strauss. His pairing with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the Strauss 'Ophelia Lieder' is certainly the highlight of the first disc. Liszt's transcription of the first movement of the Beethoven "Pastoral" symphony is an interesting novelty. The CBC programs--"A Glenn Gould Fantasy" and "Critics' Call-Out Corner"--on the second disc are truly funny and personal, giving us a glimpse into Gould the man. There is a multitude of information on these discs, but it is well worth the time invested. The comprehensive liner notes serve as an excellent guide to this set, a welcome addition to any collection.

Selections recorded at Air Studios, London, England in July 1997, and at EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, England on August 31 and November 23, 1997.
Operatic baritones often wind up playing villains and incidental characters--the tenor's companion, the guy who gets bumped out of the love triangle at the end, the ones who stand by and sing through the ensembles that make the plot work out for other people--but at times there's relief. Bo Skovhus has selected nine good-guy baritone characters. They may not be the leading men, but they're not the bad guys either.
Skovhus' way with this music is entirely winning. As in his lieder recitals for Sony, he is in gloriously rich voice, bringing a warm tone and an apt interpretation to each piece. The romantic rapture of Korngold's "Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen" sounds as easy to him as the put-on jollity of the drinking song from 'Hamlet.' The selections in this recital run the gamut of situations in four languages, and Skovhus shows himself to be completely at home in all. James Conlon and the English National Opera Orchestra provide ample support for this talented young singer.

Selections recorded July 2, 1997 and June 30, 1998.
For this 100th-birthday collection of the music of George Gershwin, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas combined Gershwin's own "Catfish Row" suite from 'Porgy and Bess'--rather than the better-known suite from the opera by Robert Russell Bennett--with four songs. It was this assemblage which Thomas performed at the 1998 gala opening concert of Carnegie Hall. With him on that evening, and in recording this program, were singers Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell, stars of the original production of the musical 'Ragtime' on Broadway.
The remainder of the collection provides an ample, well-performed selection of Gershwin's non-'Rhapsody in Blue' orchestral music. (For that 'Rhapsody' from Thomas, you'll need the album NEW WORLD JAZZ with the New World Symphony, also on RCA Victor.) Thomas and Garrick Ohlsson provide sparkling pianism for the 'Second Rhapsody' and 'Concerto in F' respectively, and the San Francisco Symphony is in fine form throughout.

It was Bernstein who introduced the Ives Second, amazingly, in 1951; the young conductor then premiered Ives's Symphony No. 1 in 1953 and No. 4 in 1965. All were worth the wait. And if the modest Ives revival has yielded other very fine recordings of the symphonies - from Michael Tilson Thomas and the Concertgebouw at their most surprising, from the sterling Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, from the inimitable Bernstein himself late in his own career - the New York Philharmonic captured with Bernstein in these recordings dating from 1958 to 1966 is in a class of its own. What a ball Lenny and his players have with the music! Everyone is at his or her spontaneous best, and while the rough edges show in ways they would not in the late Seventies or Eighties the whole affair still carries the exhilaration of discovery. There is method in all the rambunctiousness, too: Bernstein's sublime control in the Adagio cantabile central movement of the Symphony No. 2 is all the more extraordinary in the naturalness of the results. Only the Holidays symphony, recorded on different occasions before its disparate movements were called a unified work, betrays the absence of the conductor's breathtakingly organic approach. Yet the opening holiday, 'Washington's Birthday', emerges with so much joy that only a prig would complain of the lack of relation to the final 'Thanksgiving Day'. These are key recordings in understanding both Ives and Bernstein. They are also immensely enjoyable.

-- Octavio Roca, BBC Music Magazine

REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (11-12/97, p.226) - "...Of the nine individual visions, the most rousing, rich, and flavorful are by Copland, Bernstein, Nelson, and McDonald. These are full of the zest, the tang and feel of the regions depicted....[Keith Lockhart's] work is deft, vigorous, and joyous. It is basically a lovely and loving portrait he has assembled, well crafted, well played, and well recorded."

This disc received the 1997 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Album."
It was recorded in November 1995, and April & July 1996.
Written in 1989 at the height of the AIDS crisis, John Corigliano's Symphony no. 1 is very much a product of its times, an anguished response to the mounting epidemic which communicates the numbing terror felt by so many. That the terror has struck close to home for the composer is evidenced by the symphony's rhetorical devices, such as the offstage piano in the first movement or the cello's song in the third, both representing the music of departed friends. The air of anxiety is underscored by a barrage of coloristic effects, tone clusters, screeching strings and percussive outbursts against which tonal, almost sentimental melodies stand in stark relief.
This widely performed and much honored work has known no greater champion than Leonard Slatkin, who leads the National Symphony Orchestra in this forceful performance, captured with great clarity by RCA Victor. The value of the disc is further enhanced by the inclusion of Corigliano's cantata 'Of Rage and Remembrance,' which gives voice to the words of poet William Hoffman that inspired the symphony's first movement while borrowing musical material from the third movement's Chaconne.