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| Most Popular Music Reviews |
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 One of the great joys of initial acquaintance with the standard classical-music repertoire is the thrill of that first personal encounter with one masterpiece after another.... |
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 Everything we can get as documentation of the life and work of Iannis Xenakis is welcome. This compact documentary (Greek, 2008, mostly in French and Greek,... |
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 If you were around Venice in 1718, I envy you. It was a watershed year for opera. The lavish Teatro San Giovanni Grisotomo, the Teatro di... |
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 One of the pleasing things about this disc of Purcell’s small-scale chamber music is the occasional variety of instrumentation. The Ground in Gamut , for instance,... |
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 The unforgivable sin in operetta performance is a lack of beauty, grace, and charm—in which case the present set justly deserves consignment to perdition. Composed of... |
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 Although relatively little known, and with correspondingly few recordings of his music available, Henry Du Mont (1610–84) was a figure of pivotal importance in the music... |
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Carol Robinson is an American musician, originally from South Dakota and California, who has lived in Paris for several decades. (I will now do the usual... |
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 This is the second Beethoven symphony CD conducted by Bertrand de Billy that I’ve received. I reviewed the first (the Eroica and two overtures), about which... |
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 “Mandorla,” this album’s title, is a word derived from the Italian for “almond” that encompasses the tension between opposites—the spiritual and the earthly, the divine and... |
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 One of the sad facts of life is that, in most cases, the musical portions of most ballet videos are in no way comparable to the... |
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 This is not just another Beethoven concerto cycle on period instruments; the difference lies in its modeling of the performing forces on documented early Viennese performances... |
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 The op. 44 Quintet is easily the most potent of all Schumann’s considerable chamber output, and also is easily one of the greatest of all time.... |
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Recalling the first time he heard Le Sacre du printemps when Stravinsky played it for him on the piano, Pierre Monteux admitted, “I must admit I... |
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 You can read about Hideko Udagawa in Fanfare 27:3 (along with a feature article) and 33:5, both times by Robert Maxham who generally finds her playing... |
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 Here is an interesting cross section of contemporary American quartets. All four were written and premiered in the past eight years. They share a harmonic language... |
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 This is rare chamber music in several senses: the obvious one, that it is seldom played or heard on discs, but also that violin and cello... |
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 I was sorely tempted to dismiss this album without hearing it; looking at the contents it was obvious that this is an easy-listening sort of recording,... |
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 The CD showcases this Austrian duo in a varied program with the common denominator of Vienna, both in the music of its most illustrious sons and... |
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“Different” and “unusual” are words I would use to characterize this Lieder collection. To begin with, the accompaniments to all of these songs have been transcribed... |
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 Anne Sofie von Otter’s chameleon qualities have resulted in a large number of recordings of an extremely diverse repertoire, including selections from the Italian, German, and... |
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 This is the fifth Atma Classique CD from Canadian chamber choir Musica Intima. I’ve heard three of its four predecessors. All of them are gorgeous, but... |
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 “Rune” is a word with a number of meanings, including “a Finnish poem, or division of poem, especially one of the separate songs of the |
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 This four-man vocal ensemble, based in the Big Apple, has given its second disc a title with a double meaning. Tudor City is a familiar residential... |
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Wim van Gerven (1929–2008) was the co-founder and conductor of the student choir at the University of Amsterdam from 1959 to 1993. The choir’s role began... |
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 Two different ways to view and review this DVD. View one: Saburo Teshigawara is a superbly trained dancer who has pinpoint control of his body. His... |
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 Nowhere on the box of this DVD are the dates of these performances given; this only appears, in small print, at the top of page 7... |
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