MACMILLAN Clemency

Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra | Christine Abraham | David Angus | David Kravitz | Michelle Trainor

Good ideas are everywhere in Clemency, though that doesn’t mean they’ve translated into a good listening experience in this live...

Reviewed by David Patrick Stearns in issue: 12/2014

MOZART Le nozze di Figaro, K492

Ann Murray | Antoine Normand | Barbara Frittoli | Christian Treguier | Ekaterina Siurina | Karine Deshayes | Luca Pisaroni | Ludovic Tézier | Marie Virginia Savastano | Paris National Opera Chorus

Created for Paris in 1973, then for Milan in 1980 (there’s an Arthaus DVD of a 2006 revival under Gérard...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 11/2012

75 Years of the Ysaÿe & Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition

Andrei Nikolsky | Anna Vinnitskaya | Cécile Ousset | Denis Kozhukhin | Frank Braley | Jeffrey Swann | Leon Fleisher | Malcolm Frager | Pierre-Alain Volondat | Valery Afanassiev

Muso’s five-disc album of performances dating from 1952 to 2010 commemorates 75 years of the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition in...

Reviewed by Bryce Morrison in issue: 09/2013

BRUCKNER Symphony No 4

Berlin Staatskapelle | Daniel Barenboim

Should absolute music be heard and not seen? Whether it be the presence of a Martin Freeman lookalike in the...

Reviewed by David Gutman in issue: 04/2013

The sun is free to flow with the sea

Onyx Brass

Onyx Brass’s ‘Festmusik’ album (Chandos, 6/21) was an intriguing recital of German works prompted by a collection of letters bequeathed...

Reviewed by Guy Rickards in issue: 08/2023

HIGDON Duo Duel. Concerto for Orchestra

Houston Symphony Orchestra | Matthew Strauss | Robert Spano | Svet Stoyanov

Concertos are a popular format among contemporary orchestral composers: they not only tick multiple boxes in the commissioning process but...

Reviewed by Thomas May in issue: 10/2023

Prokofiev Ivan the Terrible

Ambrosian Chorus | Anatoly Mokrenko | Boris Morgunov | Irina Arkhipova | Philharmonia Orchestra | Riccardo Muti

No one, least of all Muti, is likely to dispute that this is one of his finest recordings. Recorded in...

Reviewed by Edward Seckerson in issue: 4/1989

Bach, WF Clavier Works

Friedemann Bach would perhaps not have regarded his set of 12 Polonaises as his masterpiece but it was practically the...

Reviewed by Fabrice Fitch in issue: 5/2010

DVOŘÁK Symphony No 9 'From the New World' (Nelsons)

Andris Nelsons | Kristine Opolais | Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

This concert was recorded in May 2017, following the announcement that Andris Nelsons would succeed Riccardo Chailly as music director...

Reviewed by Andrew Farach-Colton in issue: 05/2018

PENDERECKI A Sea of Dreams did Breathe on me

Agnieszka Rehlis | Izabela Matula | Leszek Skrla | Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Choir | Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra | Wojciech Rajski

While this colourful orchestral song-cycle from 2010 has in many ways a close relative in the Symphony No 8, Songs...

Reviewed by Ivan Moody in issue: 04/2015