Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic do justice to a lot of Tchaikovsky’s orchestral music, while John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony play Robert Schumann’s famously-dense orchestrations with clarity. But Michael Stern’s account of The Planets completely lacks mystery.
LSO Live
Classical CD Reviews: Colin Davis’s “Berlioz Odyssey,” “Bernard Haitink: Portrait,” and “The Age of Revolutions”
Anniversaries are both the bane and the lifeblood of the classical music industry as, for better or worse, three new box sets remind.
Classical CD Reviews: Gerald Finzi’s Orchestral Music, Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town,” and Arvo Pärt’s “Works for Violin”
Violinist Viktoria Mullova supplies one of the year’s most programmatically-cohesive and thoughtfully-executed albums.
CD Reviews: Smetana String Quartets, 2018 New Year’s Concert, Haydn: An Imaginary Orchestral Journey, and Lindberg conducts Bernstein
Pražák Quartet’s Smetana is keeper, Sir Simon Rattle’s Haydn is a loser, and Lindberg’s “On the Waterfront” is a knockout.
