Echoes of Genius: From the Dawn of Electrical Recording to Hidden Violin Treasures
Rare and revelatory, these archival releases span a century of recording history – from the...
Search the Reviews Database
JS BACH Six Sonatas and Partias for Solo Violin
There is delicate ornamentation present here (and not Baroque-specific ornamentation) that is so sparingly used that one would be forgiven...
Reviewed by Caroline Gill in issue: 06/2015
CPE BACH Solo Keyboard Music
Miklós Spányi has probably done more than anyone alive to promote CPE Bach’s waywardly inspired keyboard music, sometimes bizarre, even...
Reviewed by Richard Wigmore in issue: 06/2015
VERDI Sicillian Vespers
Setting a grand opera on a grand opera-house stage costumed at the time of its premiere has been done before...
Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 06/2015
SHCHEDRIN The Left-Hander
Nikolay Leskov is probably best known to English readers, certainly to English music lovers, as the author of The Lady...
Reviewed by John Warrack in issue: 06/2015
ROSSINI William Tell
This 2013 ‘Rossini in Wildbad’ production of Guillaume Tell is probably as fine an achievement as any in the festival’s...
Reviewed by Richard Osborne in issue: 06/2015
PURCELL Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas strikes me as a piece that struggles to gain a great deal from modern-day opera-house stagings. The...
Reviewed by Lindsay Kemp in issue: 06/2015
MONTEVERDI Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
There is a thorny issue about how much (or little) of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Venice, 1640) is actually...
Reviewed by David Vickers in issue: 06/2015
DVOŘÁK Alfred
The only explanation for Alfred is that it was a practice opera. Dvořák's first attempt in the medium, it was...
Reviewed by David Patrick Stearns in issue: 06/2015
DONIZETTI La Favorite
Like Les martyrs (see below), La favorite – which had its Paris premiere at the end of the same year...
Reviewed by Mike Ashman in issue: 06/2015
MARAIS; DESTOUCHES; HANDEL Sémélé
It seems an excellent idea to take extracts from different settings of the story of Semele. Marais’s tragédie lyrique Sémélé...
Reviewed by David Vickers in issue: 05/2015
Hi-Fi, Books, Reissues & Archive Reviews
Myra Hess: a national treasure revisited in Jessica Duchen’s biography
A compelling portrait of the iconic wartime pianist and cultural hero, brought vividly to life in a...
Mahler in miniature: Stephen Downes delivers a witty, wry portrait for the Critical Lives series
Downes blends biography, pop culture, and provocative insight in this punchy Critical Lives entry
Michel Béroff at 75: Erato's monumental box-set celebrates a brilliant and versatile pianist
Jed Distler revisits the Frenchman’s EMI and Erato recordings in a new 42-disc set
Fell Audio debuts with British-made hi-fi duo offering style, substance, and value
A new name on the audio scene, courtesy of a British hi-fi retailer launching a ‘house brand’: and...
New box-sets: Beethoven from Barenboim, Arrau and Klemperer, plus Irmgard Seefried Edition
Rob Cowan on a bumper Beethoven crop and the voice of a seraphic soprano
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