MENDELSSOHN Piano Trios

Sitkovetsky Piano Trio | Trio Dali

What a pleasure to have not one but two recordings of the Mendelssohn piano trios plunk on to my doormat....

Reviewed by Harriet Smith in issue: 09/2015

Schat Skeletons

Netherlands Ballet Orchestra | Thierry Fischer

Peter Schat (b 1935) is not the only composer of his generation to have renounced the Boulezian avant-garde he dutifully...

Reviewed by Arnold Whittall in issue: 4/2000

Mahler Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Roger Vignoles | Stephan Genz

It was the enthusiastic reviews of the late Alan Blyth in Gramophone’s pages that led me to Stephan Genz’s superb...

Reviewed by Andrew Farach-Colton in issue: 7/2008

Bartok Rhapsodies 1&2/Violin Concerto 2

Barnabás Kelemen | Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra | Zoltán Kocsis

If you haven’t yet responded to my enthusiasm for Arabella Steinbacher’s Pentatone recording of Bartók’s Second Concerto with the Suisse...

Reviewed by Rob Cowan in issue: 10/2011

Sallinen: Orchestral Works

Arto Noras | Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra | Okko Kamu

It is now almost a quarter of a century since Sallinen first came to international attention with Mauermusik, written in...

Reviewed by Robert Layton in issue: 6/1986

Poulenc Operas & Cantatas

(Anonymous) Orchestra | (The) Sixteen | Aage Haugland | Adelaide Saraceni | Adrianne Pieczonka | Afro Poli | Alan Styler | Alan Woodrow | Alexander Anisimov | Alexander Oliver

Just as Jean Anouilh labelled his plays pieces roses, pieces noires and so on, Poulenc’s stage works might seem to...

Reviewed in issue 1/1999

Schubert Impromptus & Moments Musicaux

Alfred Brendel

Writing with superb authority, Alfred Brendel once answered his own rhetorical question. ‘What is piano playing of genius? Playing which...

Reviewed in issue 6/2001

Wolf Italienisches Liederbuch

''A warm heart, I can assure you, beats in the little bodies of my younger children of the south who,...

Reviewed by Alan Blyth in issue: 11/1992

BRITTEN War Requiem (including rehearsal sequence. Britten)

Bach Choir | Benjamin Britten | Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau | Galina Vishnevskaya | Highgate School Choir | London Symphony Chorus | London Symphony Orchestra | Melos Ensemble | Peter Pears | Simon Preston

Britten’s War Requiem touched a trapped nerve in the collective psyche of post-war Britain, commemorating the war dead with both...

Reviewed by Peter Quantrill in issue: 02/2024

Schubert Winterreise

András Schiff | Peter Schreier

This issue completes, and does so rewardingly, Schreier's recordings of the three great Schubert cycles. A pity Decca have kept...

Reviewed by Alan Blyth in issue: 5/1994