How good to see Riccardo Chailly so radiant at the end of this great event.It's an exhilaration he earns through sheer hard work as well as injecting the adrenalin at most of the right moments.(Majority) of the singers are excellent,from two very different but keenly-projected lyric-dramatic sopranos,Erika Sunnegardh and Ricardo Merbeth,to Georg Zeppenfeld,whose bass is rock solid and expressive across a huge range.Chailly holds attention between movements and makes you realise how many soloists within the orchestra have to sing,too.His Leader,the superb Sebastian Breuninger,assists him between blazes in the most striking of chamber-musical moments.Breuninger shares the front desk of viloins in Claudio Abbado's Lucerne festival Orchestra,but this one Mahler symphony Abbado's forces have yet to tackle,and Chailly's rendering leads the field on DVD. (BBC Music Magzine)
Take the primal wail of American Blues and amplify them beyond the point with no limitations. Jay Gordon continues to shake planet earth with his onslaught of Electric Voodoo Blues. When you listen to this CD you will see how Jay has moved the blues forward to the 21st century, infusing the music with the fire and power of rock while carving out his own place in the music world. This CD features songs like, Dockery's Plantation (for Robert Johnson), World Blues, Slow Burn/Biker Mama, Red Hot Tempered Woman and more, even a bonus track in honor of the late great Phillip Walker.. Joining Jay on this CD is Bassist: Sharon Butcher, Drummer: Rich Gordon Lambert, Hammond B3 & Piano: Harlen Spector, Mississippi Saxophone: Mario Ramirez (Younger brother of the great Richie Valens) also on Hammond B3 & Piano: Rich Wenzel. For all Blues/Rock fans everywhere we created "Blues Venom - No Cure".
Maurizio Pollini's 2011 concert recording of Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor is an important document because it not only captures his return to playing with the esteemed Staatskapelle Dresden (his first performance with the group since 1986), and his first collaboration with conductor Christian Thielemann, but it presents the very work the pianist played at his Staatskapelle debut in 1976. All of this background is helpful to know, to understand the significance Deutsche Grammophon attaches to this release, even at the risk of offering a CD that runs just over 45 minutes, without any filler for added value.
Claudio Abbado was undeniably the supreme Mahler conductor of our time. With his Lucerne Festival Orchestra he has set new standards in the field of classical music, especially in the interpretation of works by Gustav Mahler. The core of the orchestra is provided by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, itself an élite body of players. Soloists like violinist Kolja Blacher, clarinettist Sabine Meyer, oboist Albrecht Mayer, violist Wolfram Christ, cellist Natalia Gutman, the Hagen Quartet and members of the Alban Berg Quartet to name just a few, make the Lucerne Festival Orchestra a star-studded ensemble.
The abundant concert works of Italian composer Nino Rota continue to surface in recordings, many on major labels. Doubtless this is partly because Rota carries marquee value from his association with the Godfather films, but his music, although surely a mixed bag, is often just plain fun. You can break it down into three general categories, which don't necessarily correspond to individual works but are heard in combination. First is the group of marvelously cinematic tunes that make this release of interest to the still-numerous fans of Rota's film music; the Concerto Soirée for piano and orchestra offers a generous selection.
Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia performed Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in A minor, "Tragic," in concerts to mark the 100th anniversary of the composer's death, and this 2011 EMI Classics release captures the excitement and amazing precision of the playing. While this might seem like a fairly leisurely run through the symphony, with a timing of just over 1 hour 24 minutes and requiring two discs to hold it, Pappano keeps the energy and interest levels elevated throughout, and despite taking tempos that would be momentum-killers in less skillful hands, he gives the music urgency when it most needs it.