Albert Sammons, Peers Coetmore, Bbc Symphony Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult Moeran: Symphony

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 7 – Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, conductor
Classical | 1 CD | EAC Rip | 370 MB (3% recovery) | | FLAC+LOG+M3U+Cue | Full scans | FS & RS links
Publisher: Decca | Recorded: 1971 | Published: 1992

GRAMMY WINNER - Best Classical Performance – Orchestra; 1972 - 15th Annual GRAMMY Awards

Johannes Brahms: Piano Concertos No. 1 and No. 2; Works for Piano Solo –
Stephen Kovacevich, piano; London Symphony Orchestra; Sir Colin Davis
Classical | 4 CDs | EAC Rip | 942 MB, 3% recovery | FLAC+LOG+Cue | Full scans | Fson & RS links
Publisher: Philips | Recorded: between 1968 - 1983 | Published: 2005

Let me say straight away that the performance is extremely fine; indeed, such is its eloquence that I put aside the score and notepad and just listened for pleasure the first time round. – On Concerto No. 1 – Gramophone
This new version of Piano Concerto no. 2 from Stephen Kovacevich and the LSO under Sir Cohn Davis must be numbered among the very finest of recent years… The performance combines poetic feeling and intellectual strength in no small measure, and it is one to which I am sure I will want to returnGramophone

Anton Bruckner - Symphonie Nr.5 (BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jascha Horenstein)
Classical | EAC | FLAC, IMG+CUE, LOG | Covers | 1CD, 415 MB
Label: BBC Legends | Catalog Number: BBCL 4033-2 | TT: 74'44''

My admiration for Horenstein’s tireless championship of Bruckner and Mahler in Britain has always been tempered by what I actually hear on the recordings that have been preserved, whether live or in the studio. While his dedication is never in question, Horenstein had a serious interpretive weakness that manifests itself in virtually everything he did: an inability or refusal to make necessary tempo adjustments, particularly in sonata form first movements and finales. This habit, combined with a certain nervousness that sometimes gives an unwelcome sense of haste to slow passages, mars much of what would otherwise be a major achievement, from the first movement of Mahler’s Third and the “Abschied” finale of Das Lied von der Erde, to the second movement of Nielsen’s Fifth.

Weller releases the audio from his live performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley with special guests, Celeste, Boy George and James Morrison. An Orchestrated Songbook spans Paul’s career and includes ‘You Do Something to Me’, ‘English Rose’ and ‘Wild Wood’ alongside tracks from his latest two number 1 albums On Sunset and Fat Pop.

Alexander Ullman was the winner of the 2011 Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. He studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute and the Royal College of Music. His teachers include William Fong, Leon Fleisher and Dmitri Alexeev. Alexander’s debut album on Rubicon was a recital of great Russian ballet music arranged for piano – Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky – and received enthusiastic reviews from around the world. This album is his first concerto recording – the two Liszt Concertos are coupled with the B minor Sonata.

Caterina Cornaro was written in the extremely productive last period of Donizetti's life (between Don Pasquale and Linda di Chamounix) and was the last of his operas to be premiered in the composer’s lifetime. Like every other work of this period, it is intensely original, in this case being unusually dark in both subject matter and general musical tone. This is the only opera of Donizetti’s later period not to have had a quality modern recording.

One of the most versatile trumpeters in the classical world, Simon Höfele, releases a new album “Nobody Knows” together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Geoffrey Paterson and Ilan Volkov. On his 4th album on Berlin Classics he plays the trumpet concertos by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Christian Jost and Toshio Hosokawa, spanning an arc from the 20th to the 21st century and proves once again that the trumpet can do more than just "shine". “These three works are really important to me. I have played all three before and I was always fascinated by their darkness.”, he explains his choice of repertoire. “This is heavy, almost depressive music, and that applies to all three of these works. This is heavy music in two respects: loaded with gloom, and also not at all easy to play. The is a definitive political message to “Nobody Knows de Trouble I see”, which makes it even more fascinating.”

This disc not only completes Richard Hickox’s Elgar cycle but also provides a fourth recording of the Third Symphony in Anthony Payne’s ‘elaboration’. Indeed, it collates all three of Payne’s Elgar realisations – including recorded debuts of the 1932 memorial ode for Queen Alexandria and the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6…in terms of recording, then new disc (with a succinct and informative note by Anthony Burton) is a clear winner, the SACD sound having a depth and spaciousness that does justice to Payne’s Elgarian sound-world.