Month: January 2006

I wonder if a record company, any record company, would have taken the trouble of recording these songs if the composer had been Zoltan Kocsis or Deszˆ Ranki instead of Imre (his real first name) K·lm·n?

Known for his virtuosity as a pianist, Ignacy Paderewski (1860-1941) is also known as a composer. While most of his works involve piano, he left a single opera, Manru, a three-act work that he composed between 1892 and 1901.

Two of Finlandís greatest artistic luminariesócomposer Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) and poet Lassi Nummi (b. 1928)ócame together to produce a fine new work, The Barabbas Dialogues (2004), which has been recently recorded and released on CD on the CPO label.

In an era where new studio recordings by major orchestras have dwindled to a pathetic dribble, leaving many fine institutions to start their own in-house labels, the Berlin Philharmonic still has an active contract with a major company (its conductorís label of many years, EMI) and releases come on a regular basis. A recent one features some of Benjamin Brittenís great work for instruments and tenor.