Herbert von Karajan started conducting Mahler in 1955 when he performed Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Those performances were given in the United States – Chicago and New York – and…
Category: Recordings
A formidable new Mahler Fourth from Jakub Hrůša and Anna Lucia Richter
Jakub Hrůša has some impeccable credentials as a Mahler conductor. I described a gripping Resurrection in February 2020 with the Philharmonia Orchestra as one from the Golden Age; one that…
Pygmalion: Bach Motets
Issued last September but only recently brushing my radar, Pygmalion’s alpha-plus Bach disc is a revelation. Raphaël Pichon, founder of the specialist Baroque ensemble in 2006, has had a rewarding…
Cimarosa’s The Impresario in Distress Gets Its First Modern Recording
The Italian phrase in angustie means something like “in distress,” “in a tight bind,” or “under pressure from all sides.” Angustie derives from the Latin “angustus”—narrow—and is related to the…
Auber’s Siren Enchants Anew, in a Long-Needed First Recording
Auber’s comic operas – once a mainstay of theaters throughout Europe, the Americas, and perhaps beyond – are slowly making their way back into the lives of music lovers through…
Pelham Humfrey – Sacred Choral Music
Until just recently the church music of Pelham Humfrey (1647/8-74) was represented on disc with just two dedicated recordings: one from 1992 with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (Nicholas…
Opera Rara bring Donizetti’s Il Paria in from the cold
‘Entirely without merit,’ wrote one contemporary reviewer of Donizetti’s Il Paria, which received only six performances in January 1829 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and then disappeared into…
Soli Deo Gloria: Philippe Pierlot directs the Ricercar Consort and Collegium Vocale in Bach’s cantatas
Under the direction of Belgian viola da gamba player Philippe Pierlot, the Ricercar Consort continue their exploration of J.S. Bach’s sacred cantatas – an intermittent project over the last twenty…
James King, Eileen Farrell and William Steinberg premiere Act II of Tristan und Isolde with the Boston Symphony in 1972
Between 1959 and 1973, a year after William Steinberg ended his tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, works by Richard Wagner had featured only rarely on his…