Beethoven Boundless: Beethoven for piano four hands Beethoven discs don't often include World Premiere recordings ...
Beethoven Beethoven's "Eroica": arranged Scharwenka! Beethoven's Third Symphony, the "Eroica," is embedded in any musician's consciousness. It has been played regularly since the date of its composition and in the recorded era has unsurprisingly generated a cornucopia of recordings. Small surprise the market is flooded. And yet here is
Chamber Ravel and Saint-Saëns Piano Trios from the Sitkovetsky Trio A glorious coupling here from the Sitkovetsky Trio: plus an animated cartoon!
Piano Alexander Koryakin, winner of the International Competition Prize Jaén The competition itself might be a bit of a mouthful ("International Competition Prize Jaén"), but it seems to have found a worthy winner in Russian pianist Alexander Koryakin. Founded in 1958, it is Spain's oldest running annual piano competition. But the real reason for this post
Romantic Romantic Piano Encores from Kenneth Hamilton The front cover image says it all: a young girl peeping inside a treasure chest to see what lies within. And what we have here is a treasure trove of sound - beautifully shaped performances of music both well-known and awaiting discovery, each performance shaped like an individual jewel. Small
English Music Cecil Coles & Gustav Holst: Piano Music Pianist James Willshire is born to play this music; and Scottish composer Cecil Coles is a real discovery
Mozart Mozart Sonatas for Four Hands with Rados & Gerstein An absolute joy: two top musicians, beautfully attuned, both to each other and to Mozart
Beethoven Daniel Barenboim revisits the Beethoven Piano Sonatas An invaluable survey of the 32 Sonatas; Barenboim is never less than stimulating, his mind as chock-full of curiosity as ever
Orchestral Fantasy of Companionship My, how the world needs upbeat music, expertly performed, right now. And here it is!
Piano Spira, Spera: Bach transcriptions A disc of great imagination, performed with both power and beauty
Flute Bonus Post! Trail of the Angels: Ireland meets China At once a celebration of diverse cultures and a gift to the World to raise flagging spirits, there's no doubt that enterprises such as this should be encouraged
Piano York Bowen Piano Concertos Hyperion's series of recordings The Romantic Piano Concerto is one of the glories of our age. This is volume 46 and presents two concertos by a composer whose name is today known but not well known: York Bowen (1884-1961). Long-lived and prolific, Bowen's music is currently
Piano The many sides of Sabine Weyer The Luxembourgan pianist Sabine Weyer's most recent disc, Mysteries, has just been released on the Ars Produktion label. It's at once a celebration of the music of Nikolai Miaskovsky - a composer who certainly warrants our attentions - and contemporary composer Nicolas Bacri on the Ars
Piano A composer like no other: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji Mythologising about composers in general is rife: think Wagner, Beethoven; or Mozart with his Freemasonry and the alleged rivalry with Salieri. Few composers hold such a fascination as Sorabji (1892-1988), whose works are of magnificent length. His Opus Clavicembalisticum is a mammoth evening of knotty fugues and mind-bending complexity, all
Beethoven A Creative Collision, A Bag of Bagatelles Hodges' disc holds a definite authority, given his working relationship to Birtwistle
Piano A trip to the opera, on the piano: Vanessa Benelli Mosell It is not so often posts are tagged as both "Piano" and "Opera," but that's the case here. Even rarer in music criticism, I would have thought, for two versions of an operatic transcription by Sigismond Thalberg to come out in close proximity, but
Chopin BBC Young Musician winner Lara Melda plays Chopin Lara Melda is most definitely a name to watch