Musgrave Helios; Memento Vitae

BBC Symphony Orchestra | Jac van Steen | Nicholas Daniel | Nicholas Kraemer | Scottish Chamber Orchestra

As Colin Matthews notes in the booklet preface, recordings of contemporary music tend to enjoy only a short catalogue life....

Reviewed by kYlzrO1BaC7A in issue: 7/2003

Wagner Tristan und Isolde

Bo Skovhus | Glyndebourne Chorus | Jirí Belohlávek | Katarina Karnéus | London Philharmonic Orchestra | Nina Stemme | René Pape | Richard Mosley-Evans | Robert Gambill | Stephen Gadd

The filming of each act begins annoyingly with a Star Wars storyline pan-in on the words “Tristan und Isolde”, “Act...

Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 8/2008

Mozart: Piano Sonatas

Zoltán Kocsis

The new Hungaroton CDs are taken from the complete set of Mozart sonatas shared between Ranki and Kocsis and issued...

Reviewed in issue 1/1987

Scriabin Poems Nos 69, 71 & 72; Sonatas Nos 4, 5, 8 & 9

Cross sections of Scriabin’s piano music continue to flow like molten lava from the record companies. And Andrei Korobeinikov’s recital...

Reviewed by Bryce Morrison in issue: 11/2008

Dallapiccola Canti di Prigionia etc

Ensemble InterContemporain, Paris | Hans Zender | Julie Moffat | New London Chamber Choir

This disc charts Dallapiccola’s 40-year journey as a vocal composer, from the consonantly framed madrigalisms of the Michelangelo settings (1933)...

Reviewed by Arnold Whittall in issue: 5/1996

Smetana Ma vlast

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra | Zdenek Macal

Zdenek Macal is Czech born, so he understands this score thoroughly, but even so the strong composite personality of the...

Reviewed by Ivan March in issue: 9/1992

Mahler Das Klagende Lied

Bath Festival Chorus | Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra | Hans-Peter Blochwitz | Joan Rodgers | Linda Finnie | Richard Hickox | Robert Hayward | Waynflete Singers

The teenage Mahler's astonishing 'Op. 1' is at last beginning to receive the attention from the record companies its remarkably...

Reviewed by Andrew Achenbach in issue: 5/1994

Puccini Edgar

Puccini’s second opera, first performed at La Scala in 1889, was deemed a failure. The composer returned to it on...

Reviewed by Patrick O'Connor in issue: 12/2009

Toscanini Collection - Beethoven

Arturo Toscanini | Chorus | Eleanor Steber | Herbert Janssen | Jan Peerce | Joseph Laderoute | NBC Symphony Orchestra | Nicola Moscona | Rose Bampton | Sidor Belarsky

This isn't music-making for the timid, used to the sanitized, faultless performances on your everyday CD. In its raw, unvarnished...

Reviewed by Alan Blyth in issue: 10/1992

Time Stands Still

Anthony Rooley | Emma Kirkby

Time stands still, it is we who change. Old age is the time for contemplation and reconciliation, marked in Dowland's...

Reviewed by John Duarte in issue: 8/1986