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CD Reviews

You can search through our extensive database of thousands of releases from Orchestral and Opera to Choral, Jazz and beyond.

 

Written by the expert critics of BBC Music Magazine and with over a hundred new reviews added every month, the archive dates back to the magazine's launch in 1992 and now includes over 20,000 reviews.

NB A few points to bear in mind when searching:

 

 

When looking for symphonies, concertos, etc., the numbers must appear as follows with a space between 'No.' and the number itself:

  • Symphony No. 2
  • Sonata No. 31

 

There is no need to include capital letters or accents in your search – the database is neither case- nor accent-sensitive.

Colour Yes

Composer(s):
  • Matthew Halsall
Works: 
Assorted
Performer: 
Matthew Halsall (trumpet), Nat Birchall (sax), Adam Fairhall (piano), Gavin Barras (bass), Rachael Gladwin (harp)
Trumpeter Matthew’s Halsall’s popularity, like many jazz acts, has sprung from a club residency. From a monthly stint at Manchester’s Matt and Phred’s, his reputation is now spreading beyond the North West.
 
His 2008 debut disc Sending My Love led to a recent billing at Ronnie Scott’s with Gilles Peterson. 
 
Performance:
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Chopin: La Dame aux camélias

Composer(s):
  • Chopin
Works: 
La Dame aux camélias
Performer: 
Letestu, Bullion, Denard; Paris Opera Ballet & Orch/Michael Schmidtsdorff; chor. John Neumeier (Paris, 2008)

A full length ballet which does justice to the Dumas novel on which La traviata is more loosely based. John Neumeier’s poetic choreography is blessed with Agnès Letestu’s Marguerite. David Nice

 
Performance:
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Chopin: Chez Pleyel

Composer(s):
  • Chopin
Works: 
Chez Pleyel: Preludes, Op. 28 Nos 4, 9, 11, 13, 15, & Op. 45; Etudes, Op. 25 Nos 1, 2 & 12; Nocturnes, Op. 9 No. 2, Op. 27 No. 2, Op. 48; Mazurkas, KK IIb No. 5, Op. 41 Nos 2 & 3; Andante spianato, Op. 22; Ballade, Op. 47; Impromptu, Op. 51; Grande valse, Op. 42
Performer: 
Alain Planès (piano)

Alain Planès creates an intense aural universe in this compelling recreation of a recital given by Chopin at the Salons Pleyel in Paris in 1842.

The CD considers not only the programme and the instrument  – a Pleyel dating from 1836 – but also the style of Chopin’s playing, as far as it’s possible to know through his pupils’ reminiscences.

Performance:
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JS Bach: Partitas

Composer(s):
  • JS Bach
Works: 
Partitas: No. 1 in B flat, BWV 825; No. 5 in G, BWV 829; No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830
Performer: 
Murray Perahia (piano)

Bach took immense pains over the production of the six Partitas, announcing them in 1726, writing one a year until finally revising and publishing them in 1731 as his ‘Opus 1 – offered to music lovers to refresh their spirits’.

This disc is Murray Perahia’s welcome completion of the set, following Nos 2-4 in 2008. 

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Grieg, Rachmaninov Cello Sonatas

Composer(s):
  • Grieg
  • Rachmaninov
Works: 
Cello Sonatas
Performer: 
Jamie Walton (cello), Daniel Grimwood (piano)
There are so many good – and characterful – young cellists emerging at the moment. I just hope there are enough dates to go round.
 
Performance:
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Berlioz: Grande messe des morts

Composer(s):
  • Berlioz
Works: 
Grande messe des morts
Performer: 
Paul Groves (tenor); EuropaChorAkademie; SWR SO Baden-Baden und Freiburg/ Sylvain Cambreling
Berlioz and Baden-Baden go back a long way: the composer conducted there regularly in his later years and wrote his last major work, the waspish comedy Béatrice et Bénédict, to open its new opera house in 1862.
 
Performance:
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Vivaldi: Pyrotechnics

Composer(s):
  • Vivaldi
Works: 
Pyrotechnics: arias from Catone in Utica, Semiramide, La fida ninfa, Griselda, Farnace, Tito Manlio & Mosmira fedele
Performer: 
Vivica Genaux (mezzo-soprano); Europa Galante/Fabio Biondi

American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux follows her fine discs of arias for Farinelli (Harmonia Mundi HMG 501778) and arias and cantatas by Handel and Hasse (Virgin 545 7372) with a recital from Vivaldi’s operas.

The disc is a delight not just because Genaux is a technically accomplished and warmly communicative artist, but also because the arias themselves are of high quality.

Readers who have been discovering the riches afforded by Vivaldi opera over the past decade or so will be familiar with a handful of them in this well contrasted programme.

Performance:
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Rossini: Joyce DiDonato

Composer(s):
  • Rossini
Works: 
Colbran, the Muse: arias from Armida, La donna del lago, Maometto II, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, Semiramide & Otello
Performer: 
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano); Orchestra and Chorus of the National Academy of St Cecilia, Rome; Banda Musicale della Guardia di Finanza/Edoardo Müller
Every generation yearns for its own Rossini heroine and Joyce DiDonato seems an answer to our prayers.
 
In arias that Rossini wrote for Isabella Colbran, first his mistress, then his wife and finally abandoned, DiDonato displays exactly that vocal style that particularly excited the composer and which we presume to have been Colbran’s range – a voice that is grounded in the middle register but takes wing with a top extension.
 
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Concerto Italiano

Composer(s):
  • Dall’Oglio
  • Lolli
  • Nardini & Stratico
Works: 
Violin Concertos by Dall’Oglio, Lolli, Nardini & Stratico
Performer: 
Giuliano Carmignola (violin); Venice Baroque Orchestra/ Andrea Marcon

These are tautly constructed and expressively engaging concertos by composers of the generation following Vivaldi, whose idiom by the way seldom comes to mind.

Rather, it is that of Tartini, and  never more so than in the cantabile style of the expansive and lyrical slow movements. Who better to disclose the poetic utterances of these pieces with their highly developed esprit de fantaisie than Giuliano Carmignola?

Performance:
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Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 2 & 6

Composer(s):
  • Beethoven
Works: 
Symphonies Nos 2 & 6
Performer: 
German Chamber Philharmonic, Bremen/Paavo Järvi

This is a quite wonderful disc, in which every demand one might have on a performance of these two great works is met, and then there are plenty of delightful surprises for even the most jaded listener too.

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