Lebrecht Weekly – Robert Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze (Hyperion)
Do not be put off by the cover, which shows two Victorians of different gender having a pre-Raphaelite snog. What they look like post-Raphael is…
Browsing: Norman Lebrecht
Lebrecht Weekly – Karol Szymanowski; Stabat Mater, 3rd Symphony (Warner)
Never a big Easter bunny, I generally receive the springtime festival releases with the same excitement as I’d feel about a Placido Domingo Christmas record.…
Lebrecht Weekly – Rachmaninov: Piano concertos 2 and 3 (Sony Classical)
It’s raining Rachmaninov concertos and I’m not sure the roof can take any more. The past couple of weeks have brought Vanessa Benelli Mosell on…
Lebrecht Weekly – Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer: Bach trios (Nonesuch)
Hard to know whether to give this confection one star or five. The dominant voice is the mandolin of Chris Thile, an instrument probably unknown…
Lebrecht Weekly – Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (Sony)
This is one of those treasurable major-label releases, made with the best of intentions, in which everything turns out wrong. Mahler wrote The Song of…
Lebrecht Weekly – Hanns Eisler: Hangmen Also Die! (Capriccio)
In the Hollywood walk of composing fame, Hanns Eisler is the forgotten man. Erich Korngold was the founding father, Waxman and Newman the busy bees,…
Lebrecht Weekly – Nadia Boulanger: Works (Delos/SWR Music)
In half a century of listening to records, I cannot recall ever hearing music by the noted French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Revered by a stream…
Lebrecht Weekly – Boris Tishchenko: 8th symphony (Naxos)
Try as I might, I can’t stop listening to these late works of a Russian composer who was close to Shostakovich but never tried, as…
Lebrecht Weekly – Not bad music, just not very good Bartók
The unique selling point of this release is what appears to be the first recording of Bartók’s piano quartet in C minor, an unpublished work…
Lebrecht Weekly – Complete piano music of Vítězslava Kaprálová is compelling listening
Don’t look away just because the composer’s name is unfamiliar and has too many syllables. Kaprálová (1915-1940) is a vital link in Czech music, her…
