Category: Recordings

A little over a year ago Bach scholar Michael Maul found himself in the exceedingly unusual position of having discovered a hitherto unknown Bach composition, a birthday ode for Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar, entitled “Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn’ ihn.

Franz Schubert’s song cycle Die schöne Müllerin has received, in recent years, frequent attention with several fine recordings having been issued during this period.

Among the plentiful selections of orchestral music from the operas of Richard Wagner, it is rare to find recordings that truly stand out, and this recent release of performances conducted by the late Klaus Tennstedt merits distinction.

I’ve carefully listened several times to this new solo album (his third) by Rolando VillazÛn and it grows on you, though there are a few weaknesses.

This must be the first Turandot that has in the sleeve notes three photographs of the soprano who sings Liu compared to two of the lady in the title role.

Domingo-fans probably have all complete performances from which these scenes were culled, as they were widely broadcast in Europe during the eighties.

I can’t imagine a more utopian enterprise for a composer than writing an opera at the end of the twentieth century.

For a time this Don Carlo was a return to times people thought long gone. As always, Dutch papers covered beforehand this new Decker production in depth, as the theme of liberty is an important one.

Jone is the only Italian opera from the 1850s by a composer other than Giuseppe Verdi to make it into the standard repertory for a period of well over 50 years, lasting until the onset of World War I before eventually disappearing.

In the modern performance of seventeenth-century French music, the ensemble Les Arts Florissants holds a special place, both for its longevity and the striking stylistic fluency it brings to performances — performances that have come to define our very sense of French Baroque style.