CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

CD Review | Górecki’s World of the Piano, Dunn, Górecka

0

By Meg Freer on 5 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Górecki’s World of the Piano Jarred Dunn, Anna Górecka, piano ATMA Classique, 2025 This new recording by Canadian pianist Jarred Dunn and Polish pianist Anna Górecka features the complete works for solo piano and two pianos by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010). Listeners more familiar with Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) will discover a more dissonant and austere soundscape. A variety pack of works composed from 1955 through 2008, the album features sets of miniatures and pieces written for specific people or occasions. These showcase Górecki’s love of the piano and the variety of sounds it is capable…

DVD Review | Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

0

By John Gilks on 4 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould Colm Feore (Glenn Gould); François Girard (director and screenplay), Niv Fichman (producer), Don McKellar (screenplay) The Criterion Collection, New 4K digital restoration, 2025 François Girard’s 1993 movie, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, is perhaps more talked-about than watched these days. It’s an iconic Canadian film about a Canadian musical icon that’s influenced filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino to the creators of The Simpsons. (There’s an episode of the latter called 22 Short Films About Springfield.) The film may be about to get a second lease on life with a sumptuous new video…

CD Review | Zéphyros Winds, Desert Pass

0

By Kaitlyn Chan on 3 September 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Desert Pass Zéphyros Winds: Fatma Daglar, oboe and English horn; Jennifer Grim, flute and piccolo; Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet and bass clarinet; Saxton Rose, bassoon; Zohar Schondorf, horn UNCSA Media, 2025 Released June 2025, Desert Pass features three contemporary classical works composed by Reena Esmail, Tyson Gholston Davis and David Sanford. With world-premiere recordings of Davis’s Desert Pass and Sanford’s Tatu, Zéphyros Winds showcases the diversity of the woodwind repertoire—how it can both soothe and provoke. The first piece, Esmail’s The Light is the Same, leads the listener from one section to the next with satisfying and pretty-sounding tones. This composition…

Alkan

Lebrecht Weekly | Alkan’s Early works: Mozartian with Added Chutzpah

0

By Norman Lebrecht on 13 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

There are four world premiere recordings on this utterly original disc, so if you have even a smidgeon of curiosity about the legend known as Alkan you will probably be buying this album before reading the next sentence. I’ll pause for a second to allow you to complete the purchase. Ready? Charles-Valentin Morhange, called Alkan for short, was the most prodigious French pianist that ever lived. Liszt was in awe of his powers and Chopin nominated him as the only musician capable of completing his unfinished etude. A sensitive Alsatian Jew, Alkan became a hermit after the Paris Conservatoire rejected…

DVD Review | Bavarian State Opera, War and Peace, Jurowski; Tcherniakov

0

By John Gilks on 12 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Opera, Vocal

Prokofiev: War and Peace Olga Kulchynska (Natasha), Andrei Zhilikhovsky (Andrei), Arsen Soghomonyan (Pierre), Violeta Urmana (Marya Dmitriyevna Akhrosimova), Dmitry Ulyonov (Kutuzov), Arsen Soghomonyan (Bezukhov); Andrei Zhilikovsky (Bolkonsky); Victoria Karkacheva (Hélène); Olga Guryakova (Peronskaya), Bekhzod Davronov (Anatole), Christina Bock (Marya Bolkonskaya); Bayerische Staatsoper Orchestra and Chorus; Vladimir Jurowski, conductor; Dmitri Tcherniakov, director Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings, 2025 Bayerische Staatsoper had planned its March 2023 production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace (and had likely contracted the small army of singers required) well before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. That event naturally provoked a rethink given that the opera is, in part, a…

CD Review | Puccini: Tosca; Burrato, Tetelman, Tézier

0

By Francis Muzzu on 5 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Puccini: Tosca Eleanora Burrato and Alice Fiorelli, sopranos; Jonathan Tetelman and Matteo Macchioni, tenors; Ludovic Tézier, baritone; Giorgi Manoshvili, Davide Giangregorio, Nicolò Ceriani and Constantino Funicci, basses; Orchestra, Coro e Voci Bianchi dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia – Roma; Daniel Harding, conductor Deutsche Grammophon, 2025 Does the world need another recording of Puccini’s Tosca? Probably not, as multitudinous versions are available. So, does anything set this new release apart from the crowd? In one major way, yes. The performance was caught live last October at the orchestra’s home turf, the Santa Cecilia Hall. Time and place are noteworthy for several…

CD Review | Primum Opus, Voces Domini; Alta Caelis

0

By Justin Bernard on 5 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Primum Opus Voces Domini; Jean-Claude Picard, conductor and composer Alta Caelis, 2024 On the Alta Caelis label, the Musica Sacra in Ecclesia series presents its first recording of sacred music as sung for decades at Quebec’s Notre-Dame Cathedral basilica. The album, entitled Primum Opus, includes Gregorian repertoire and polyphonic motets for four male voices on the theme of the Ascension of Christ and the Immaculate Conception, performed by the Voces Domini ensemble. The choirmaster, Jean-Claude Picard, includes some of his own pieces to the program, alongside others by Quebec composers such as Denis Bédard, and a number of special pieces…

CD Review | Rameau: Platée; Château de Versailles Spectacles

0

By Kaitlyn Chan on 4 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Rameau: Platée Mathias Vidal, Zachary Wilder, tenors; Marie Lys, Cécile Achille, sopranos; Alexandre Duhamel, David Witczak,baritones; Juliette Mey, mezzo-soprano; Cyril Costanzo, bass; La Chapelle Harmonique; Valentin Tournet, conductor Château de Versailles Spectacles, 2025 This recent recording of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s comic opera Platée is a delight. One hardly even misses the visuals for its several, requisite French Baroque dance sequences. Instead, this double album offers the listener an opportunity to luxuriate in some expert vocals and orchestral playing. Platée follows the story of a frog-like nymph who thinks Jupiter, the king of the gods, is in love with her. Stagings of…

CD Review | Unbroken: Music from Ukraine, Viktoria Grynenko

0

By John Gilks on 4 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Unbroken: Music from Ukraine Viktoria Grynenko, violin Leaf Music, 2025 Unbroken is a CD containing an hour of music by living Ukrainian composers, played by violinist Viktoria Grynenko and various collaborators. There are five extremely varied pieces on the album. Through Closed Doors is a 2014 Anna Pidgorna piece for two violins, inspired by a door smashed in with a hatchet and what may be on either side of it. Grynenko is joined by Guillaume Tardif for a piece that uses the violins in a sort of conversation where repeated figures play over drone-like elements and bits of folk tunes…

CD Review | Oiseaux de passage, Natalie Dessay & Philippe Cassard

0

By Pascal Blanchet on 4 June 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Piano, Vocal

Oiseaux de passage Natalie Dessay, soprano; Philippe Cassard, piano; André Previn, Stephen Sondheim, Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn, Maurice Ravel, Louis Beydts, Francis Poulenc, composers La Dolce Volta, 2025 Twenty years ago this year, Natalie Dessay gave a major recital with orchestra in Montreal, invited by Opéra de Montréal as part of its annual benefit concert. The singer, who had just resumed her activities after two episodes of vocal problems, was eagerly awaited. We knew her thanks to many iconic recordings, but also from DVDs, notably in a scathing version of Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus…

Browsing: CD and Book Reviews

CD Review | Górecki’s World of the Piano, Dunn, Górecka

DVD Review | Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

CD Review | Zéphyros Winds, Desert Pass

Lebrecht Weekly | Alkan’s Early works: Mozartian with Added Chutzpah

DVD Review | Bavarian State Opera, War and Peace, Jurowski; Tcherniakov

CD Review | Puccini: Tosca; Burrato, Tetelman, Tézier

CD Review | Primum Opus, Voces Domini; Alta Caelis

CD Review | Rameau: Platée; Château de Versailles Spectacles

CD Review | Unbroken: Music from Ukraine, Viktoria Grynenko

CD Review | Oiseaux de passage, Natalie Dessay & Philippe Cassard

Current Issue