ClassicsToday

28/04/2024

Dave Hurwitz from ClassicsToday reviews Robert Trevino's second Ravel album with the Basque National Orchestra (Euskadiko Orkestra) 💿💿💿

”Everything that Trevino has done with this orchestra has been terrific! - -

There are many fine performances [of the Mother Goose ballet] – this one is one of them. It’s just very, very good. It has the atmosphere, that magical atmosphere in the interludes that you absolutely have to have. The orientalisms (…) and most importantly 'The Fairy Garden' has that flow, that wonderful hypnotic flow. (…) It’s just beautiful. - -

Very nicely recorded. Just a beautiful disc!” 💥

Watch: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mML85R

Album: https://ondine.lnk.to/ODE14162OW!fb

28/04/2024

28/04/2024

Lloyd: Symphonies Nos. 1-6; Charade (Suite); John Socman Overture. Albany Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, George Lloyd (cond.) Lyrita [4 CDs]

28/04/2024

HBDirect

28/04/2024

This recording of music by Tasmanian-born Peter Sculthorpe contains works that are related to the unique social climate and physical characteristics of the Pacific region.

🎶LISTEN: https://naxos.lnk.to/8557382FA

'All of the works in this collection feature colorful and exacting orchestration that helps make Sculthorpe's music interesting and well worth hearing even when it's not tonal and tuneful. James Judd's inspired performances with a highly assured New Zealand Symphony Orchestra realize the quality, originality, and power of these scores.' (ClassicsToday)

28/04/2024

Karl von Ordonez is one of the most interesting if unknown contemporaries of Haydn. His symphonies, of which he composed over seventy, contain much that is beautiful and, in their modest way, highly original.

🎵 DISCOVER: https://naxos.lnk.to/8557482FA

'Kevin Mallon and the Toronto Camerata deliver well-paced, charming performances, with the prominent oboes and horns adding to the music’s textural interest... if you like early Haydn, you may well want to give Ordonez a listen. At least now you can.' (ClassicsToday)

28/04/2024

18/04/2024

If your idea of accessibility is little more than just dumbing things down, don't surprised if we just end up... dumb. And the poorer for it.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/singer-halts-symphony-hall-concert-29017426.amp

Ian Bostridge City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

"...it comes after CBSO chief executive Emma Stenning laid out new audience rules stating that the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was 'very happy' for people to take photos during concerts..."

Tenor Ian Bostridge stopped his Britten & Tchaikovsky concert because he was being distracted by members of the audience

13/02/2024

https://www.classicstoday.com/an-ozawa-story-november-1969/

Much has justifiably been written regarding Seiji Ozawa’s extraordinary abilities and achievements as a conductor, and similarly about his generosity, graciousness, and sense of humor as a human. Here is a little personal remembrance that perfectly illustrates most of these qualities.

22/11/2023

Born in 1921, Sir Malcolm Arnold quickly established himself as a fluent and versatile composer, a gifted tunesmith and a brilliant orchestrator. His music is typically lucid in texture, rich in melody and clear in draughtsmanship yet there are frequent signs of a complex musical personality and dramatic tensions not far beneath the surface.

Recorded in the presence of the composer, Andrew Penny’s survey of the Complete Symphonies and Dances has long been considered to contain benchmark recordings. ClassicsToday commented: “It's just great, but then, so is the music, and it's about time that it receives the recognition that it deserves. Get it while you can.”
DISCOVER: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8506041FA

Malcolm Arnold Society Queensland Symphony Orchestra National Symphony Orchestra

14/09/2023

Dave Hurwitz, executive editor of ClassicsToday.com, offers an eloquent review of Robert Trevino's latest release on Ondine with the music of Ottorino Respighi together with Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai!

Please watch: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ukvBn13qh7o

Album: https://ondine.lnk.to/ODE14252OW

14/09/2023

Jean Sibelius’ dramatic and highly popular Symphony No. 2, which emerges from the northern mists, cultivates a pastoral atmosphere along the way, to reach a grandiose, heroic finale.

“This is a thoroughly good performance… The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is excellent.” (American Record Guide) “Particularly in the second movement and finale, Pietari Inkinen knows exactly when to push forward and when to relax. … [This is] an interpretation both poised and passionate.” (ClassicsToday)

STREAM / BUY: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8572704FA

14/09/2023

Today we celebrate the 105th birthday of Leonard Bernstein!

Bernstein was without question one of the greatest musicians America ever produced. This special box set, released in celebration of Bernstein’s centenary in 2018, brings together all of the acclaimed Naxos recordings of his music conducted by his protégée Marin Alsop as well as new and world premiere recordings. “Performances as fine as Bernstein’s own, and sometimes even better.” (ClassicsToday, 10/10)

Get your own copy here: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8508018FA

14/09/2023

Swiss-French composer Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) is now best remembered for a sequence of vivid and increasingly dramatic orchestral works, including the Third Symphony ‘Liturgique’ (1945–46), which gives voice to the composer’s horror at the new levels of barbarity and inhumanity perpetrated by mankind during the war.

“The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra tears into the Third Symphony with gusto … the slow movement comes off beautifully, and the climax of the finale is really hair-raising, with Takuo Yuasa changing the percussion dynamics to fortissimo after the big climax to create extra impact. It may raise an eyebrow or two, but it works.” (ClassicsToday)

🎵 LISTEN: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8555974FA

14/09/2023

Jules Massenet is famous for his series of 27 operas that include ‘Manon’ and ‘Werther’, but he also wrote a significant portfolio of orchestral music which include ballets, orchestral suites and incidental music. The works presented here show his versatility and lyricism.

“Scintillating Massenet from Jean-Luc Tingaud and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra…very well played and conducted with real conviction. The sonics, too, do the music proud.” (ClassicsToday)

🎵LISTEN: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8574178FA

14/09/2023

25/06/2023

Joly Braga Santos (1924–1988) was Portugal’s greatest orchestral composer, and his only Piano Concerto is a virtuoso spectacle with a large part for percussion and a gloriously anarchic approach to timbre and tonality.

This world premiere recording earned a perfect 10/10 score from ClassicsToday: “This performance, with pianist Goran Filipec the intrepid soloist, is probably as fine as we’re going to get for quite a while, and with Álvaro Cassuto on the podium we know that the music is in capable hands. This is a terrific disc full of wide-ranging music.”

Discover the music here: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8573903FA

25/06/2023

Vítězslav Novák’s complete oeuvre reveals a trove of inspiration. ‘V Tatrách’ (In the Tatra Mountains) was composed in 1902, inspired by his journeys in the magnificent Tatra mountain range between the border of Czechoslovakia and Poland. Novák’s poetic narrative about the bucolic score serves as an excellent itinerary for the sonic effects.

“Here is yet another fine release from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under its dynamic and enterprising conductor, JoAnn Falletta. … Falletta is clearly superior: swifter, more exciting, and every bit as well played and recorded.” (ClassicsToday)

🎵 LISTEN: https://Naxos.lnk.to/8573683FA

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05/06/2023

https://www.classicstoday.com/mozart-at-hallgrimskirkja/

Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavik, Iceland; May 21, 2023—The Reykjavik church known as Hallgrímskirkja, like most of Iceland unlike anything you’ve seen before, itself prepares you for experiencing something special, something grand, and on this particular Sunday in May, the occasion was an all-Mozar...

30/05/2023

https://www.classicstoday.com/fausts-beethoven-captivates-harpa-audience/

Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik, Iceland; May 19, 2023—While the wind whipped in from the North Atlantic, making its own unforgettable impression on people, sea, and landscape, inside Reykjavik’s stunning, award-winning Harpa concert hall, violinist Isabelle Faust, conductor Eva Ollikainen, and th...

28/02/2023

Walker: Great Rock Is Dead (Funeral March); Odysseus on Ogygia; The Stone King; The Stone Maker. Novaya Rossiya Symphony Orchestra, Aleander Walker (cond.) T...

28/02/2023

Can we ever have enough Ravel? Certainly not when the performances are this good. For the second disc in his traversal of Ravel’s orchestral works, Robert Trevino and the Basque National Orchestra offer an enticing mix of familiar and unfamiliar items. You get an aptly crystalline performance of t...

28/02/2023