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Rihm String Quartets Vol 1

‘Isn’t writing string quartets today anachron-istic?’, asks the writer of the booklet-notes accompanying this CD. Well no, it’s not. You...

Reviewed by Fabrice Fitch in issue: 3/2004

Bernstein Mass

“Masterpiece” is one of the most worn-down and inappropriately scattered words in the lexicon of critical hyperbole. It properly implies...

Reviewed by Philip_Clark in issue: 5/2009

Penny Merriments - Street Songs of 17th Century England

Following the reissue of a collection of bawdy ballads (Regis, 6/05), this new instalment from The City Waites is doubly...

Reviewed by Fabrice Fitch in issue: 9/2005

Swayne Convocation

Giles Swayne’s A Convocation of Worms (1995) is a 20-minute cantata for countertenor and organ setting a thoroughly alarming 15th-century...

Reviewed by Arnold Whittall in issue: 1/2007

Dowland Lute Works, Vol 3

As lutenist Nigel North points out in the booklet-notes to this highly diverting release, the three main dances of the...

Reviewed by William Yeoman in issue: 3/2008

Elgar Symphony No 2

Vernon Handley's interpretation of Elgar's Second Symphony is, for my taste, more successful than his approach to the First. In...

Reviewed in issue 10/1988

Sibelius Symphony No 2

Sir Alexander Gibson received the Sibelius Medal in 1978 ''for his outstanding contribution to the appreciation of Sibelius's music throughout...

Reviewed in issue 3/1984

MacMillan Cantos Sagrados

James MacMillan’s music unashamedly wears its heart on its sleeve, testifying to the composer’s various passionate convictions. Most of these...

Reviewed by bwitherden in issue: 9/2004

Mozart Piano Concertos

I have the feeling that the performance of Mozart piano concertos on period instruments has now become an oddly arcane...

Reviewed by Stephen Plaistow in issue: 3/1996

Schubert Lieder

Despite John Steane’s typically generous and discerning tribute to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in January’s Singertalk column, many young and not-so-young singers...

Reviewed by Alan Blyth in issue: 3/2001

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