Category: Recordings

Konrad Jarnot is a young baritone who brings a wonderful vitality to the music he has recorded. He also has another Oehms release, a selection of Lieder by Gustav Mahler, which is engaging for the strong sense of line he brings to that repertoire, which is precisely what he brings to this collection of French vocal music.

The biographies of the two composers whose works are represented on this disc, Sergei Prokofiev and Ottorino Respighi, share many common threads. In addition to moving in similar circles early in their lives (for example, both studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and both were later connected with Diaghilev), they similarly composed in totalitarian regimes at the end of their careers.

Since its inception in 1980, the biennial Boston Early Music Festival has grown to international stature of the first rank, and while its programming is diverse in scale and repertory, its focus in recent years has been on full-scale productions of baroque opera, including Monteverdiís LíOrfeo, Rossiís Orfeo, Cavalliís Ercole Amante, Lullyís ThÈsÈe, and this past summer, Matthesonís Boris Goudenouw.

For the most part, the posthumous reputation of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-43) resides on the composerís instrumental works and of all his vocal music, his two oratorios, Elias and Paulus are familiar to the general public.

Since 1995 the mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender no longer performs as a singer, but has devoted her recent career to directing.

With this CD, Naxos continues its well deserved reputation for producing recordings at affordable prices, and more often than not, but not limited to, music that is rarely performed, or with a limited audience.

The Very Best of Thomas Hampson is an excellent selection on CD of Hampsonís recordings from various points in his career. The American baritone is one of the international stars of classical music for both his roles on the opera stage and his work as a recitalist.

This is one of the most enchanting and lovely ballet performances that I have ever seen, and believe me I have seen quite a few! First performed in Paris on May 12, 1832, La Sylphide marks the advent of Romanticism in ballet.

On Christmas 1999, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists with conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner set out on one of the most unusual musical tours ever undertaken.

J. S. Bachís large output of church cantatas and their prominence in his duties as Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig have made them central to our modern understanding of Bach.