MASSENET Don Quichotte

Andrei Serov | Anna Kiknadze | Carlos D'Onofrio | Didier Jouanny | Dmitry Koleushko | Eleonora Vindau | Ferruccio Furlanetto | Mariinsky Academy of Young Singers Ensemble | Mariinsky Orchestra | Valery Gergiev

Don Quichotte was the fourth opera commissioned from Massenet by Raoul Gunsbourg, director of the Monte Carlo Opéra. The title-role...

Reviewed by Richard Lawrence in issue: 05/2012

MOZART Requiem

Accademia Chigiana Siena | Champs-Élysées Orchestra, Paris | Christina Landshamer | Collegium Vocale Gent | Ingeborg Danz | Matthew Brook | Philippe Herreweghe | Robert Getchell

Here is a curious beast. The event was the anniversary (in 2010) of the death of Chopin (in 1849). Chopin’s...

Reviewed by David Threasher in issue: 12/2012

EICHBERG Symphonies Nos 1 & 2

Christoph Poppen | Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Søren Nils Eichberg is composer-in-residence with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the first to hold the post. That he is...

Reviewed by David Fanning in issue: 10/2013

KORNGOLD Die Tote Stadt

Antti Nieminen | Camilla Nylund | Finnish National Opera Chorus | Finnish National Opera Orchestra | Juha Riihimäki | Kaisa Ranta | Kirsti Valve | Klaus Florian Vogt | Markus Eiche | Melis Jaatinen

The sheer orchestral seductiveness – or (according to taste) wearying-ness – of Korngold’s opera must be hard to match on...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 01/2014

BLACKBURN Ghostly Psalms. Duluth Harbor Serenade

Andy Lo | Carrie Henneman Shaw | Citizens of Duluth, Minnesota | Clare College Choir, Cambridge | Donald Engstrom | Ellen Fullman | Gary Verkade | Lars Sjöstedt | Maria Jette | Sisters of Notre Dame Convent, Mankato

Everyone likes a composer with an unusual back story, and Philip Blackburn’s is more unusual than most. Born in Cambridge...

Reviewed by Philip Clark in issue: 08/2012

MCLEOD Moments in TIme

Red Note Ensemble

A perennial ‘dark horse’ among contemporary composers, Aberdeen-born John McLeod goes into his ninth decade with his profile arguably at...

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse in issue: 08/2015

KARAINDROU Medea

Alexandros Arkadopoulos | Andreas Katsigiannis | Andreas Papas | Giorgos Kaloudis | Harris Lambrakis | Marie-Cecile Boulard | Nikos Guinos | Socratis Sinopoulos

Eleni Karaindrou (b1941) is best known for her cinema scores, especially to Theo Angelopoulos’s films (5/99, 12/04, 6/09). The 17...

Reviewed by Guy Rickards in issue: 05/2014

Après la Nuit…

Chris Williams | Christoph König | Karen Geoghegan | Philippe Schartz | Sarah-Jayne Porsmoguer | Soloists Européens, Luxembourg

Philippe Schartz is renowned for his radiant tone, bright and decisive yet never uncompromising. Such are the requirements for the...

Reviewed by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood in issue: 1/2012

ADÈS Arcadiana. Piano Quintet. The Four Quarters

Dimitri Vassilakis | Doelen Quartet

Adès’s first string quartet, Arcadiana (1994), was premiered a year before Powder Her Face. That this is its sixth recording...

Reviewed by Liam Cagney in issue: 03/2018

Bach Without Words: Instrumental movements and arrangements from Cantatas

On the face of it, this is turkey-carving or eggnog-making Bach: an album of instrumental contrafacta, if that isn’t a...

Reviewed by Peter Quantrill in issue: 02/2017