Category: Reviews

Sony Records occasionally still sends the odd CD to reviewers hoping they will give it notice.

Callas fans better skip this review, as they wonít like the tone, the words, or whatever slights real or imagined they may perceive.

At the expense of stating a truism, the music of Gustav Mahler, like that of other composers, is best experienced live in the concert hall.

This Fanciulla is such a wonderful issue because, for once, none of the three protagonists ever recorded their role commercially, so that one is spared the many doublings often met in live recordings.

During the last few years Antoni Wit has recorded Mahler’s symphonies one by one, such that he is building a fine cycle for the Naxos label.

The program for this recent recording from the choir of Westminster Cathedral presents sacred choral works by Brahms and Rheinberger, anchored at one end by Brahmsís youthful Missa Canonica and at the other by Rheinbergerís Mass for Double Choir in E-flat, Op. 109. with a handful of motets by Brahms in between.

This cast looks quite promising on paper. However, I cannot honestly say these big names keep their promise, except for the comprimario-singers.

I can readily understand why Bayreuth refuses to perform Richard Wagnerís third opera.

Verdi responded to the death of Rossini in 1868 by planning a collaborative Requiem Mass, drawing on the contributions of thirteen ìdistinguishedî composers.

Francis Poulenc is well known for the religious works that comprise much of his oeuvre after he was traumatized by the accidental and premature death of his friend Pierre-Octave Ferroud in 1936.