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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.

Organs, Toccatas & Fantasias

Composer(s):
  • Bach
Titles: 
A musical journey through Bach’s Baroque Europe
Performer: 
Marie-Claire Alain (organ)

Directed by Bruno Monsaingeon, this film follows Marie-Claire Alain around Baroque churches to organs Bach would have known, featuring virtuosic performances and good insights. John Allison

 

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Monteverdi: Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria

Composer(s):
  • Monteverdi
Works: 
Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
Performer: 
Kobie van Rensburg, Christine Rice, Cyril Auvity, Joseph Cornwell, Umberto Chiummo, Juan Sancho, Xavier Sabata, Ed Lyon, Hanna Bayodi-Hirt, Robert Burt, Marina Rodriguez-Cusi, Terry Way, Claire Debono, Luigi De Donato, Sonya Yoncheva; Les Arts Florissants/William Christie dir. Pier Luigi Pizzi (Madrid, 2009)

In 1641 Monteverdi made this masterpiece based on Homer’s Odyssey for a public opera house in Venice. It has more characters than you can shake a stick at – presumably one reason why William Christie chose to direct it from the harpsichord – so it needs a cast that has strength in depth.

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Clementi: Complete Piano Sonatas

Composer(s):
  • Clementi
Works: 
PIano Sonatas, Vol. 5: Two Sonatas, Op. 34; Six Progressive Sonatinas, Op. 36; Three Sonatas, Op. 37; Sonata in B flat, Op. 46
Performer: 
Howard Shelley (piano)

Howard Shelley continues to restore Clementi’s reputation, overshadowed in his time, and since, by Haydn, with this varied selection from the Six Sonatinas to Op. 34/2 of Beethovenian proportions.

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Albéniz & Granados

Composer(s):
  • Albeniz
  • Granados
Works: 
Albéniz: Iberia; Granados: Goyescas
Performer: 
Artur Pizarro (piano)

The pianist that his admirers have long wanted to hear in Iberia delivers a cultivated and probing performance that seems destined to grow greater with familiarity. In this he’s at one with several colleagues.

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Kodály: Cello Sonata

Composer(s):
  • Kodaly
Works: 
Solo Cello Sonata, Op. 8; Sonatina; 9 Epigrams; Romance Lyrique; Adagio
Performer: 
Natalie Clein (cello), Julius Drake (piano)

 Zoltán Kodály’s long life (1882-1967) is mirrored in the wide span of works on this excellent new release. More than half a century separates the early Romance lyrique of 1898 and the Nine Epigrams of 1954, a period in which Kodály (along with Bartók) set about collecting folk music from the remotest corners of Hungary.

In his perceptive notes accompanying this release, Calum MacDonald compares Kodály with Vaughan Williams as two great national composers who played a broad role in society.

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Brahms: Piano Quartet & Clarinet Trio

Composer(s):
  • Brahms
Works: 
Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114; Piano Quartet No. 2 in A, Op. 26
Performer: 
The Nash Ensemble

These are beautifully expressive, thoughtful performances of two unalloyed masterpieces, presented with all the sonic excellence and distinction that we’ve come to expect from Onyx’s series of recordings with the Nash Ensemble. It makes a fine companion to their previous disc of Piano Quartets Nos 1 and 3 which I reviewed some months back.

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Alina Ibragimova & Cédric Tiberghien: Beethoven

Composer(s):
  • Beethoven
Works: 
Violin Sonatas in D, Op. 12 No. 1; in A minor, Op. 23; in G, Op. 30 No. 3; in C minor, Op. 30 No. 2
Performer: 
Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano)

This is very special. For a start Alina Ibragimova is more than a talented, promising youngster. She is a mature, intelligent, impassioned musician, technically and emotionally focused to a degree that would be exceptional in any violinist twice her age.

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Wagner: Götterdämmerung

Composer(s):
  • Wagner
Works: 
Götterdämmerung
Performer: 
Katarina Dalayman, Lars Cleveman, Attila Jun, Peter Coleman-Wright, Nancy Gustafson, Susan Bickley, Andrew Shore, Ceri Williams, Yvonne Howard, Miranda Keys, Katherine Broderick, Madeleine Shaw, Leah-Marian Jones; Hallé Choir; Choruses of Royal Opera, BBC SO & London Symphony; Hallé/Mark Elder

This magnificent recording, made live over two evenings at the Bridgewater Hall, renews the Hallé orchestra’s long and honourable Wagner tradition dating from founder Hans Richter, and Mark Elder proves himself a worthy heir. Originally a weighty disciple of Reginald Goodall, Elder has developed his own very convincing voice; this is a beautifully paced performance – measured, poetic but dynamic. The orchestra responds superbly.

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Rimsky-Korsakov: Orchestral Suites

Composer(s):
  • Rimsky-Korsakov
Works: 
Snow Maiden – Suite; Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya – Suite; Mlada – Night on Mount Triglav
Performer: 
Russian National Orch/Mikhail Pletnev

Rimsky-Korsakov’s gorgeous orchestral colours, here richly played and caught with a vividness arresting even for SACD, too often make us undervalue the music’s actual content. Rimsky’s pantheist nature-worship in particular is given less than its due in the unhelpful booklet note. The Snow Maiden is no mere fairy tale, but is based on a drama by Ostrovsky (whose The Storm became Katya Kabanova).

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Mozart: Symphonies Volume 4

Composer(s):
  • Mozart
Works: 
Symphonies: Nos 12-14; in C, KV96
Performer: 
Danish National CO/Adam Fischer

The four symphonies on this disc were all composed by the 15-year-old Mozart for Italian orchestras. Already the complete professional, he wrote with the needs of particular orchestras or even individual players in mind. The results, as we hear them on this fourth volume of Adam Fischer’s series, are fun, bracing, and quite unmemorable. It was still several years before the stupendous talent would shift into incomparable genius.  

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