Bach Easter and Ascension Oratorios

Bach Collegium Japan | Chiyuki Urano | Jan Kobow | Masaaki Suzuki | Patrick van Goethem | Yukari Nonoshita

Surprisingly, this pair of ‘oratorios’ has been coupled irregularly on record. Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen (the so-called Ascension Oratorio)...

Reviewed by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood in issue: 6/2006

Germaine Cernay (1900-43)

Cernay was one of those French singers, much more common in the past than today, whom it is hard to...

Reviewed by Alan Blyth in issue: 9/1991

Satie Orchestral & Vocal Works

Bernard Desgraupes | Erwartung Ensemble | Jean-Paul Fouchécourt

More honoured in the histories of music than in the hearing, Satie's Socrate is truer to his description of it...

Reviewed by Christopher Headington in issue: 12/1994

Maria Chiara - (The) Decca Recitals

Kurt Herbert Adler | Maria Chiara | National Philharmonic Orchestra | Nello Santi | Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden | Vienna Volksoper Orchestra

The Chiara triptych – the three recital programmes recorded by this admired lyric soprano in the 1970s – is assembled...

Reviewed by John Steane in issue: 3/2005

Avison Concertos in Seven Parts

Café Zimmermann

Ralph Kirkpatrick regarded Charles Avison as ‘an excellent composer who is unjustly forgotten’. To the gramophile it certainly seems that...

Reviewed by John Duarte in issue: 5/2003

Grieg and Svendsen Orchestral Works

Iceland Symphony Orchestra | Petri Sakari

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra made their American debut on record many years ago, but UK collectors have only been able...

Reviewed in issue 8/1992

Sørensen Sterbende Gärten;Echoing Garden

Aasa Bäverstam | Danish National Radio Choir | Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra | Leif Segerstam | Martyn Hill | Rebecca Hirsch

This disc is something special. Bent Sorensen (b. 1958) is almost frighteningly talented. A pupil of both Norholm and Norgard...

Reviewed in issue 6/1996

Shostakovich: Preludes & Fugues

Marios Papadopoulos | Tatyana Nikolaieva

For as long as I can remember there have been two pieces of received wisdom about Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and...

Reviewed by Stephen Johnson in issue: 3/1991

Szymanowski Violin Concertos Nos 1 & 2

Antoni Wit | Ilya Kaler | Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Naxos offers an exceptionally clear recording of these three concertante works by Szymanowski, not just the two Violin Concertos but...

Reviewed by Edward Greenfield in issue: 7/2007

Raff Orchestral Works

Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice | Urs Schneider

Another pair of discs in the ongoing Raff series from the composer's Swiss compatriot, Urs Schneider. Both No. 4 (1871)...

Reviewed by Richard Wigmore in issue: 2/1995