Category: Recordings

The best Norma on DVD treats the viewer to a blurry picture of washed-out colors and remote, compressed sound.

The better can be the enemy of the good and this recording proves it.

In her debut recording the young Roumanian soprano Katarina Jovanic demonstrates her talent in performing an intriguing selection of Lieder by Schubert, Brahms, and Strauss.

Myto does many an opera-lover a service by offering this enjoyable recording of Rossini’s French grand opera, here called Moïse.

For a period of close to half a century, French grand opera, as exemplified by the works of Giacomo Meyerbeer and his school, was the preferred form of music for the theatre (i.e. opera) in most of the civilized world.

It is somewhat ironic that until recent years Italy has generally been slow to take a leading role in the historical performance movement: ironic in that historically Italy both dominates and defines the early baroque style and ironic in that that style enshrines the primacy of textó the Italian text.

The first thing I noticed in the liner notes was the bold print claiming Cimarosa was born in 1797 and died in 1848, which correspond exactly with Donizettiís lifespan.

Robert Ashley has the uncanny ability to sprinkle diamonds amidst great swaths of apparently trivial and quotidian detritus–diamonds that trigger the nervous system in an intensely stimulating fashion.

The later G¸nter Wand was a remarkable interpreter of Bruckner’s music, as is demonstrated in this live recording from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

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