32 3642017851_3652444830

Wilhelm Backhaus recorded Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas in mono for Decca in the early 1950s, and with the advent of stereo he began the process anew in 1958. Although he managed to finish 31 out of the 32, the pianist died before he got around to remaking the Hammerklavier (Op. 106). Consequently, the mono Hammerklavier fills out Backhaus’ stereo cycle that Decca now reissues in its Original Masters series. Although numerous piano mavens hold Backhaus’ Beethoven in high, nearly iconic esteem, I’ve always had mixed reactions to these recordings. In general, the pianist’s cavalier attitude toward Beethoven’s dynamics, articulation, and phrasing obscures the composer’s clearly specified linear trajectory and implicit drama.

Reference Recordings proudly presents Holst’s best known and beloved works in an outstanding interpretation from Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony. This release was recorded in the beautiful and acoustically acclaimed Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It was produced by David Frost, six-time winner of the Classical Producer of the Year GRAMMY® award. It was recorded by RR’s engineering team, comprised of GRAMMY® winning engineer and Technical Director Keith O. Johnson, and multi-GRAMMY® nominated engineer Sean Martin. This is the seventh in Reference Recordings’ series with Kansas City Symphony. Previous albums are "Shakespeare’s Tempest"; the Grammy® Award-winning "Britten’s Orchestra"; an Elgar/Vaughan Williams project; "Miraculous Metamorphoses"; an all-Saint-Saëns album featuring the magnificent Organ Symphony, and the music of contemporary American composer Adam Schoenberg (nominated for two Grammy® Awards).

The church cantata very quickly came to occupy a privileged place in Bach’s output, but it was in his Leipzig period that he explored new stylistic possibilities for the genre in several cycles. The third of these, mostly scored for relatively small forces, features in these Dialogkantaten three fine examples of the ‘madrigalian’ type: in their arias, recitatives and chorales, the composer deploys a poetry that does not exclude audacity and an eloquence worthy of opera.