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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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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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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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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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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
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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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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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Marvelously accomplished albums from American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan.
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John Nelson’s La Damnation de Faust is a triumph; you will rarely encounter Villa-Lobos played with greater understanding or in better sound than here; Paavo Järvi and his orchestra’s survey of Messiaen orchestral works early and late is resplendent.
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The Seattle Symphony does right by Langgaard but not Strauss; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Beethoven is micromanaged to death; Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester offers an ideal off-the-beaten-path Offenbach disc.
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