Lebrecht Weekly | Isabella Leonarda – A portrait (Brilliant Classics)
In the inexhaustible search for women in history, Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) has emerged from the mists of Novara as the most prolific composer of the…
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Lebrecht Weekly | Nico Muhly: Stranger (AVIE)
Covid has been cruel to rising composers. Two years out, with theatres shut and managements unwilling to commit to new work, is equivalent to having…
Lebrecht Weekly | Ferdinand Ries: Piano trio and sextets (Hyperion)
While writing a book about Beethoven (to be published next year), I recoiled from many of the pupils, acolytes, secretaries, amanuenses, self-seeking musicians and all…
Lebrecht Weekly: Metamorphosen (Chandos)
In mid-March 1945 Richard Strauss set about writing a suite for string orchestra that would reflect his feelings at the surrounding devastation. The eighty year-old…
Lebrecht Weekly – Ebony Quartet: Unheard (Channel Classics)
Quarter of a century ago, Decca sank its Three Tenors profits into an ‘Entartete Musik’ series, breaking the silence that had settled on a generation…
Lebrecht Weekly – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Late keyboard pieces (ECM New Series)
No label generates such a buzz around new releases as the quirky Munich-based ECM which, after 48 years of high output, still manages to produce…
Lebrecht Weekly – Hans Werner Henze: Kammermusik 1958, Neue Volkslieder (Tudor)
Modern composers, when they die, go into limbo for about a decade before their reputation settles. It has been five years since Henze left us…
Lebrecht Weekly – Morton Feldman: For Bunita Marcus (Hyperion)
The US composer Bunita Marcus worked for seven years with Morton Feldman and subsequently accused him, after his death, of sexual abuse. Feldman wrote this…
Lebrecht Weekly – Joyce El-Khoury, Michael Spyres (Opera Rara)
Now here’s a surprise. A new release from Opera Rara usually consists of some bel canto work that has languished forgotten in a vault since its premiere…
Lebrecht Weekly – Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius (DG)
The first thing you need to know about Daniel Barenboim’s live performance with the Staatskapelle Berlin is that it is the best-sounding Gerontius on record.…
