Hyperion
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
One could hardly ask for more persuasive Bruch advocacy than what the Nash Ensemble offers here.
Throughout these Études, Driver’s playing marries tonal warmth with textural precision.
I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.
Concert halls and opera houses remain closed — but unusual musical experiences await in this era of social isolation.
It’s Beethoven’s 250th birthday year: reviews of four sets of the complete piano concertos from, respectively, Paul Lewis, Stewart Goodyear, Inon Barnatan, and Stephen Hough.
Pianist Thomas Adès proves himself a sympathetic champion of Czech composer Leoš Janáček; it’s not often that a Schumann-Mendelssohn album focuses on the music of Clara and Fanny (rather than Robert and Felix); Jenny Lin’s performances of piano pieces by Philip Glass don’t lack for style or technical command.
It took more than a century, but Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet has finally got the recording it deserves; it would be hard to beat the all-star line-up featured in The Cave of Wondrous Voice; and ready for some flawless Shostakovich?
James MacMillan’s Viola Concert is a magnificent addition to the repertoire; the debut recording of Magnus Lindberg’s song cycle Accused leaves a bit to be desired; a fetching, brilliant gathering of orchestral music by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett.
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin’s pairing of Beethoven with Knecht is intelligent, programmatically and musically, but Thierry Fischer’s Symphony fantastique is a disappointing misfire.
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