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Classical Music Album Reviews: Stewart Goodyear and “Hallelujah Junction”

June 21, 2025
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Pianist Stewart Goodyear livens up a tried-and-true program with works new and unfamiliar; the husband-and-wife team of Lukas Geniušas and Anna Geniushene survey piano music written on these shores, starting in 1932.

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Classical Music Album Review: Behzod Abduraimov Plays Prokofiev & Shor

May 24, 2025
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There’s much to recommend in Behzod Abduraimov’s rendition of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which is both highly characterful and a lot of fun to listen to.

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Classical Album Review: Semyon Bychkov and Paavo Järvi Conduct Mahler

March 19, 2025
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Semyon Bychkov supplies an extraordinarily well-played account of Mahler’s Third; Paavo Järvi’s version of Mahler’s Fifth avoids the more idiosyncratic excesses of Leonard Bernstein’s superb 1987 Vienna recording.

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Classical Music Album Review: Mendelssohn’s Complete Symphonies

May 13, 2024
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The Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich recording of Mendelssohn’s Symphonies doesn’t cast the composer as a radical, but the effort highlights the strengths of his music and finds ways to put distinctive interpretive stamps on several of these scores.

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Classical Album Reviews: “A Lionel Tertis Celebration” and “Laws of Solitude”

February 21, 2024
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Violist Timothy Ridout’s new double-album “A Lionel Tertis Celebration” is heartily recommended; soprano Asmik Grigorian’s “Laws of Solitude” not so much.

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Classical Album Reviews: Emerson String Quartet’s “Infinite Voyage” and Robert Trevino conducts Respighi

November 12, 2023
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The Emerson String Quartet concludes its recorded legacy pretty much the way it began it — in musical glory. Robert Trevino and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI’s Respighi has plenty of spirit and heart.

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Opera Album Review: A Splendiferous First Recording of an Opera by the Near-Legendary Composer Marin Marais

September 14, 2023
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Marin Marais, memorably enacted by Gérard Depardieu (and his son Guillaume) in the film “Tous les matins du monde,” proves a master of Baroque opera in this splendid recording.

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December Short Fuses — Materia Critica

December 3, 2022
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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.

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Classical Album Review: “John Adams” — Mastering the Style of an Iconic American Composer

October 3, 2022
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This recording presents one of the most lucid and well-programmed portraits of John Adams to emerge, well, in a long while.

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Classical CD Review: Cellist Nicolas Altstaedt plays Salonen and Ravel

April 9, 2022
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Cellist Nicolas Altstaed’s recording features a fascinating pairing of pieces by Salonen and Ravel, a stirring reminder of the mysterious powers of common origins and creative invention. Don’t miss it.

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