-
2 weeks ago | 
classicstoday.com | Robert Levine |David Hurwitz |Jed Distler
As a Strauss conductor, David Zinman’s interests lie more with making sense of the composer’s complex linear strands than reveling in his dazzling sonorities and dynamic extremes. In other words, Zinman’s a line guy, while Straussians like Kempe and Karajan are chord guys (Strauss is a chord guy disguised as a line guy). There’s much to savor over the course of these seven discs.
-
Jan 5, 2025 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
Brilliant Classics has reissued Hamish Milne’s extensive series of solo Medtner discs for the CRD label recorded between 1977 and 2000. The repertoire encompasses a wide range of short works, the spirited Op. 58 Two Pieces for Two Pianos with Boris Berezovsky, and all but two of the sonatas (Geoffrey Tozer’s Chandos traversals of the Sonata Reminiscenza Op. 38 No. 1 and the Sonata-Idylle Op. 56 fill out the cycle).
-
Jan 5, 2025 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
Exclusive music reviews and news, created specifically for classical music listeners, from the serious collector to the inquisitive newcomer. This is not a fancy, high-gloss “e-zine,” but rather a simple, straightforward newsletter-style section of our website designed for ease of reading and packing the maximum amount of useful information into each issue.
-
Dec 15, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
Exclusive music reviews and news, created specifically for classical music listeners, from the serious collector to the inquisitive newcomer. This is not a fancy, high-gloss “e-zine,” but rather a simple, straightforward newsletter-style section of our website designed for ease of reading and packing the maximum amount of useful information into each issue.
-
Jul 28, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
The title of this CD, “Majestic Liszt”, is unquestionably appropriate, not just for the lyrical breadth characterizing the selections but also for Sandrine Erdely-Sayo’s aristocratic and authoritative interpretations, where she consistently channels her considerable technique toward musical ends. Like Claudio Arrau and Jorge Bolet, Erdely-Sayo builds her burnished and full-bodied sonority from the bottom up, and unfolds Liszt’s long lines with patience and proportion.
-
Jul 26, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
If there’s ever been a sterner and bleaker studio rendition of Brahms’ First concerto than Michael Korstick’s collaboration with Constantin Trinks and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, I haven’t heard it. Think of the slow and snarly first movements in the Grimaud/Sanderling or Buchbinder/Harnoncourt recordings pumped up on steroids, and you’ll know what to expect.
-
Jul 22, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
Over the past few years Alexandre Tharaud invited 22 of his pianist friends and colleagues to record a piano duet with him, either in brief stand-alone works or short movements from larger compositions. Scheduling these recording sessions must have been a logistical challenge, yet the result is a delightfully varied, well-contrasted, and smartly curated program that deserves to be a best seller.
-
Jul 2, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
As with her previous Da Vinci Classics releases, Maria Gabriella Mariani’s Mythos and Memories showcases the forceful, freewheeling musicality that informs both her grandiose post-Romantic compositions and her interpretations of other composers. The 57 varieties of spices claimed by Heinz ketchup’s advertisers have nothing on the myriad caesuras, tenutos, accelerandos, diminuendos, and ear-catching accents that Mariani liberally sprinkles throughout Brahms’ Op. 39 Waltzes.
-
Jun 30, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
The sixth volume in Doremi’s ongoing releases of live archival material with Radu Lupu features a previously unpublished recital that took place in Tokyo on October 16, 1987, encompassing works by Mozart and Chopin that the late pianist did not record commercially. The outer movements of Mozart’s A minor sonata reveal a wider variety of articulations and nuances in comparison with the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival performance issued in this series’ second volume.
-
Jun 16, 2024 | 
classicstoday.com | Jed Distler
This release replaces APR’s deleted edition of the tragically short-lived Mischa Levitzki’s complete HMV recordings. All of the material is now remastered and correctly pitched. To be sure, the pianist’s HMV output was included in Naxos’ three volume complete Levitzki series alongside his Columbia and RCA discs and surviving broadcasts. Yet APR’s transfers convey more fullness, dynamic presence, and timbral definition.
