Category: Recordings

Often overshadowed by its composer’s Requiem, the Te Deum, Op. 22 (1849) by Hector Berlioz deserves attention for its own merits, and this recent release by H‰nssler in its series of live recordings of the Staatskapelle Dresden is a solid reading of this work.

The courtly instrumental music of the Halle composer, Samuel Scheidt, is preserved in the printed collection “Ludi musici” (1620), giving congenial suggestion of both the richness of the court practice and the virtuosic abilities of the ensemble players there, including the cornettist, Zacharias H‰rtel.

The quarter century of work by the French medieval ensemble, Ensemble Organum, and their director, Marcel PÈrËs has positioned them as leading interpreters of early liturgical repertories; among interpreters, their renditions assert a high degree of distinctiveness and character.

On stages all over the world, most any night of the year, poor Parisian Mimi hacks her way into oblivion, while her sometime lover cries out her name in hysterical despair.

In 2005 the Australian musicologist Janice Stockigt made the case that several works attributed to Baldassare Galuppi in the Saxon State and University Library (Dresden) were really the works of Antonio Vivaldi.

This installment in the ongoing series of Monteverdi madrigal recordings from Marco Longhini and Naxos presents distinctive performances of works that lie close to the heart of the early baroque style.

There is much to admire in Masaaki Suzukiís Bach performances with the Bach Collegium Japan, and this recording of excerpts from the St. Matthew Passion will remind the listener of the diverse ways in which this is so.

As an audio-recording, Supraphon’s set of Bedrich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride conducted by Zden?k Koöler deserves the highest recommendation.

A series of historic recordings comes from Profil/Edition: G¸nter H‰nssler, and from those a subset of Staatskapelle Dresden performances brings opera fans a remarkable document.

Here’s another in a series of televised recitals from Lugano, Switzerland to have appeared on DVD.