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Latest Music Reviews

The Kalichstein/Laredo/Robinson Trio’s Brahms piano trios on a three-CD Vox Box set (3029) that also contains Mendelssohn’s two piano trios and Dvořák’s “Dumky” Trio were recorded...

Words are inadequate to describe the sheer joy I experienced at listening to this disc. I’d long ago abandoned hope of ever hearing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano...

Recent Music Reviews

During his lifetime, with some 80 operas, mostly comic, to his name, Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816) was actually better known and more popular than Mozart, whose own...

If there are two composers not normally associated with the kind of white-heat performances of Martha Argerich, they are Beethoven and Mozart. Though generally thought of...

This highly satisfying Tannhäuser , directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, was covered in its DVD release in Fanfare 32: 6. Readers are referred to that review (the...

Mary Lee Taylor Kinosian is the violinist of the Upton Trio (with Dusan Vukajlovic, cello and Billy Shepherd, piano), based in Columbia, South Carolina. She’s obviously...

The old, and probably no longer tenable, chamber-ensemble paradigm was epitomized by the Beaux Arts Trio. Its members held individual teaching positions, but when it was...

Cecilia Bartoli is one of those rare artists who, like Eleanor Steber, Janet Baker, and a very few others, is a Renaissance woman for her time,...

On June 27, 1743, the British army, along with forces from the kingdoms of Hanover and Hesse, defeated the French at the battle of Dettingen in...

In November of 1773, festivities were being organized at Versailles for the coming wedding of the Comte d’Artois—the future Charles X—to Marie Thérèse de Savoy. Papillon...

The Kalichstein/Laredo/Robinson Trio’s Brahms piano trios on a three-CD Vox Box set (3029) that also contains Mendelssohn’s two piano trios and Dvořák’s “Dumky” Trio were recorded...

Words are inadequate to describe the sheer joy I experienced at listening to this disc. I’d long ago abandoned hope of ever hearing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano...

György Kurtág (b. 1926) is a name those interested in contemporary music have often encountered but whose music they have seldom heard, especially in North America....

In the 19th century, when Franz Liszt toured Europe as the original rock star before rock and roll had been invented, music was live and only...

Though he was rarely financially secure, it would be wrong to say that Thelonious Monk wasn’t recognized in his lifetime. The High Priest of Bebop, as...

Years ago, the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon spoke to me candidly and unexpectedly about drug use among jazz musicians. He explained to me the strain...

This is the 35th and final release in Cala’s survey of the recordings of Leopold Stokowski. Thanks to them and the devoted members of the Leopold...

I usually do not respond well to recital discs such as this, but it didn’t take long for this one to win me over. Why? Because...

A nice coupling. Neither film is truly great, but both are expertly constructed and of great entertainment value. Please note that the Anokhi Ada featured here...

Only Aasha was available for viewing purposes. Dating from 1957, Aasha stars Kishore Kumar, Om Prakash, and Vyjayanthimala and was directed by C. Ramachandra. It is...

This highly satisfying Tannhäuser , directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, was covered in its DVD release in Fanfare 32: 6. Readers are referred to that review (the...

Recently I’ve come across a few references on the Web to the late, great stage director, Walter Felsenstein as a pioneer of Regietheater. Talk about irony:...

Founded in 1976, the Dutch ensemble that calls itself the Schoenberg Quartet celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2006. Its permanent members are Janneke van der Meer...

I’m going to venture a guess that several things on and about this album will be new discoveries for a majority of readers. First is the...

This is an all-Argentinian program presented by an Argentinian pianist. If that suggests a uniformity of style in the music, it is borne out here. The...

If there is one pianist alive today who can be considered a member of the pantheon of golden-age pianists, it is, in my opinion, Ivan Moravec....

Even though I’ve lived a bit in Japan, I’d only met one of these composers, and only knew the work of a couple. But when one...

Everything about these three discs practically screamed “vanity recording.” When I first put one of them on my player and looked through the accompanying material, that...

Back in the day when there were only two Baroque composers, it was still acknowledged that one of them, J. S. Bach, had musical progenitors and...

Harry Christophers has recorded for six labels in the last 28 years. At least one of those labels is defunct, many of those recordings now being...

The late medieval Office of the Holy Blood is Xs.Sal in Andrew Hughes’s terminology. The neumes of the two 13th-century sources in Weingarten have been transcribed...

Like so many other discs drawn from this medieval manuscript, the program includes eight of the more familiar selections. In addition, there are four texts previously...

The headnote hides the crucial fact about this collection, which is that it is meant to showcase lutenist Edin Karamazov in selections from the classical, pop,...

Though born in Massachusetts, Earle Brown was a young composer living in Denver in 1950 when Merce Cunningham and John Cage came to perform and lecture...