Dvorák Symphonies Nos 8 and 9

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Iván Fischer is truly “one on his own”, a fund of fascinating interpretative ideas which, whether or not you always...

Reviewed by Rob Cowan in issue: 9/2010

Rossini Instrumental Music

Budapest Festival Orchestra

The highlights of this collection are the Budapest players’ vividly realised accounts of the rarely recorded wind and string Serenata...

Reviewed by Richard Osborne in issue: 3/2009

Kodály Harý János

Béla Perencz | Erik Freulon | Friedemann Layer | István Rozsos | Lucia Megyesi Schwartz | Montpellier National Orchestra | Montpellier Opera Chorus | Nora Gubisch | Zita Váradi

The great merit of this live version of Kodály’s folk-opera Háry János is that it offers the score absolutely complete....

Reviewed by Edward Greenfield in issue: 4/2006

Shostakovich Cello Concertos. R Strauss Romanze

Ari Rasilainen | Arto Noras | Norwegian Radio Orchestra

One of my most abiding memories of this year’s International Cello Festival at the Royal Northern College of Music in...

Reviewed in issue 11/1998

Morava: String Quartets

Pavel Fischer | Skampa Quartet

The absorption of folk tunes into the high-art music of most composers trying to assert their national identity is always...

Reviewed by Caroline Gill in issue: 11/2012

Mozart Concertone; Rondo K273; Sinfonia Concertante

Julia Fischer | Netherlands Chamber Orchestra | Yakov Kreizberg

Yakov Kreizberg launches the Sinfonia concertante in emphatic style: a no-nonsense tempo, lashing sforzando accents, a powerful forward impetus. Mozart’s...

Reviewed by Richard Wigmore in issue: 11/2007

Close Encounters with Great Singers - Mirella Freni

Agnes Baltsa | Antonino Votto | Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | Bavarian State Orchestra | Berlin Opera Orchestra | Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra | Buenos Aires Colón Theatre Orchestra | Colin Davis | Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau | Gerald Moore

Benjamin Britten once uttered words to the effect, ‘Thank goodness, I’m not one of those musicians who talks’. Nowadays, it...

Reviewed by Richard Osborne in issue: 1/2004

BRAHMS Symphony No 4. Hungarian Dances

Budapest Festival Orchestra

From the first, there has been debate over how Brahms’s tragic Fourth Symphony is best performed. The logically minded Hans...

Reviewed by Richard Osborne in issue: 11/2015

Mahler Symphony No 6

Budapest Festival Orchestra

This is the first disc to be made in Budapest’s new National Concert Hall where the orchestra recently staged a...

Reviewed by David Gutman in issue: 12/2005

Mozart Symphonies, Vol 8

“A young girl gazes into the mirror. She has just returned from meeting her beloved and is finally convinced that...

Reviewed by David Threasher in issue: 2/2011