CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

Lebrecht Weekly | Boult’s Elgar : An extraordinary double-album of unpublished recordings

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

There are days when only Elgar will do. When the skies are low and the politics grim, a wash of Elgarian orchestral colour relieves existential gloom like no other remedy. The first symphony delivers pull-your-socks-up bluster and the second a subtler encouragement. Elgar always does it for me. This extraordinary double-album, titled Boult’s Elgar, brings together unpublished recordings by the composer’s young friend, Sir Adrian Boult. The sleeve notes are by Nigel Simeone, whose new book, Edward Elgar and Adrian Boult, chronicles a friendship that was interrupted for seven years by the composer taking umbrage at something the conductor had…

CD Review | Israelievitch & Petrowska Quilico: Mozart Sonatas

By Heather Weinreb on 6 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Mozart: Complete Sonatas & Variations for Piano & Violin Jacques Israelievitch, violin; Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano Parma Records, 2025 Jacques Israelievitch made this recording of Mozart’s sonatas with Christina Petrowska Quilico in the wake of a cancer diagnosis. The recordings have recently been released by Parma Records to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Israelievitch’s death. While this album is a beautiful testament to the duo’s friendship, I do not think that these recordings are particularly strong from a purely musical point of view, especially when compared to the many great recordings of Mozart sonatas that already exist. Mozart wrote…

CD Review | Noémie Raymond-Friset and Zhenni Li-Cohen, Dialogues

By Justin Bernard on 4 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Dialogues Noémie Raymond-Friset, cello; Zhenni Li-Cohen, piano Leaf Music, 2024 This joint album by Noémie Raymond-Friset and Zhenni Li-Cohen, released in September 2024 by Leaf Music, provides the duo with an ideal touring program. Over the next few weeks, three concerts are scheduled: two in New York, on March 20 and 21, preceded by a performance in Farnham, Que., four days earlier. What is the basis for such success? First of all, the repertoire: the irresistible charm of Rachmaninoff’s music, combined with the virtuosity of the piano part, make the Sonata in G minor, Op.19, a delightful opener. Some passages…

CD Review | Quatuor Cobalt, Reflets du temps

By Justin Bernard on 4 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Reflets du temps Quatuor Cobalt: Guillaume Villeneuve and Diane Bayard, violin; Clément Bufferne, viola; François Leclerc, cello. GFN Classics, 2025 Already known for their large-scale concerts, GFN Productions have recently broken into the recording world. For this new release on the GFN Classics label, they called on renowned producer Carl Talbot. The result is an intimate album in which the chemistry between the musicians is palpable. The recording’s title refers to the band’s “historically informed” approach. For their debut album, Quatuor Cobalt’s first violin, Guillaume Villeneuve, and his accomplices play on period instruments, taking us through several periods as if…

CD Review | Freddie De Tommaso, Puccini, Decca

By Joseph So on 4 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Puccini Freddie De Tommaso, tenor; London Philharmonic Orchestra; Edward Gardner, conductor Decca, 2024 At the improbably young age of 31, British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso has taken the opera world by storm. His big, beautiful clarion tenor with its heroic timbre, not to mention his warm stage persona, has earned him worldwide recognition. His recent Met Live in HD Tosca, partnering the great Norwegian soprano, Lise Davidsen, was a huge success. For those wanting a De Tommaso fix, check out the seemingly endless supply of his live performances on YouTube. Without a doubt, he is the best young tenor around…

CD Review | Orchestre FILMharmonique, Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra “Dragon”

By Heather Weinreb on 4 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra “Dragon” Liu Fang, pipa; Orchestre FILMharmonique; Francis Choinière, conductor GFN Classics, 2024 In this album, Conductor Francis Choinière leads the FILMharmonique orchestra in a concerto for pipa and orchestra, composed by Christian Thomas. The pipa is an ancient Chinese string instrument which, since the 1980s, has been increasingly incorporated into Western musical idioms. There have been various concertos written for the instrument by both Chinese and Western composers. Thomas’s concerto is particularly cinematic, with a lot of colourful orchestration and rhythmic variety. It sounds like a typical movie score and, while there is nothing particularly…

CD Review | Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia, Alikeness

By Kaitlyn Chan on 3 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Alikeness Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia; Aiyun Huang, percussionist; Deantha Edmunds, soprano; Mark Fewer, violinist/conductor Leaf Music, 2024 Alikeness is an album that encourages listeners to find connections with its diverse range of music. This album features the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia, percussionist Aiyun Huang, soprano Deantha Edmunds, and violinist and conductor Mark Fewer. Alikeness offers a unique collection of all-Canadian, all-strings-based pieces including the world première of Deantha Edmunds’s Angmalukisaa (“round” in Inuktut), works by Serge Arcuri, Robert Carli, and a new strings arrangement of Matt Brubeck’s The Simple Life by Andrew Downing. “If we don’t immediately understand something, we…

CD Review | Elisabeth St-Gelais, Infini

By Pascal Blanchet on 3 February 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Infini Elisabeth St-Gelais, soprano; Louise Pelletier, piano; Georges Bizet, Cécile Chaminade, Henri Duparc, Francis Poulenc, Camille Saint-Saëns, composers ATMA Classique, 2024 We’re hearing more and more about soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais. Named Révélation Radio-Canada 2023-2024, she went on to win the prestigious Prix d’Europe in 2024. We’ve heard all about her—and we’ve heard her sing, in that full, generous voice that we imagine will one day resound on major stages. So you might be a little surprised to hear her first official recording, a collection of seven French mélodies that evoke the intimacy of a living room. But once you’ve got…

Lebrecht Weekly | Fatma Said’s New Album of Lieder Everyone Will Rave About

By Norman Lebrecht on 31 January 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

The Egyptian soprano, based in London and Berlin, had a mix of western and Arabic classical songs on her debut album, illustrating musical connections around the Mediterranean. Her ease in both ethnicities was enviable. To change tracks from microtonal maqam precision to the lushness of Ravel’s Shéhérazade was a hair-raising act of cultural transcendence, achieved without a hair out of place. Fatma Said’s new album is pure German: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. Hard to tell which she adores most. The opening track, ‘Ständchen’, has an arresting liquidity, only to be outshone by ‘Auf dem Wasser zu Singen’. Felix Mendelssohn’s…

CD Review | Early Donizetti: L’aio nell’imbarazzo

By Pascal Blanchet on 31 January 2025 CD and Book Reviews

Donizetti: L’aio nell’imbarazzo Alessandro Corbelli (Giulio), Alex Esposito (Gregorio), Francesco Lucii (Enrico), Marilena Ruta (Gilda), Lorenzo Martelli (Pippetto), Caterina Dellaere (Leonarda); Orchestra and Chorus of the Donizetti Opera; Vincenzo Milletarì, conductor Naxos, 2024 Fans of Donizetti will love L’aio nell’imbarazzo, an opera buffa first performed in 1824, then subsequently revived throughout Europe for several years, making it the composer’s first real lasting success. But the work might also appeal to fans of Rossini, who at the time reigned supreme over Europe’s opera houses, prompting most contemporary composers to “do a Rossini.” The young Gaetano sometimes tries a little too hard…

Browsing: CD and Book Reviews