James Ehnes has previously explored Béla Bartók’s concertos for violin and for viola, to great acclaim. This disc is the second in his equally successful survey of Bartók’s chamber music for the violin. His accompanist, once more, is Andrew Armstrong, a pianist praised by critics for his passionate expression and dazzling technique.
Andrew W.K.'s debut album, I Get Wet, certainly seemed like the ultimate expression of his party-hard, don't-stop-livin'-in-the-red philosophy. But if he was supposed to be a one-album phenomenon, no one bothered to let him know: The Wolf, his second album, arrives just a year and a half after I Get Wet was released in the U.S. So, how do you top a debut that was already turned up to 11? By cranking it up to 12, of course. The excellently named album opener "Victory Strikes Again" does just that, and serves as The Wolf's sonic statement of intent – it's all fist-in-the-air, exclamation-point climax, with Baroque metal guitar lines, insistent keyboards, and massed, shouted vocals that sound like an army of Andrew W.K.s ready to fight the good fight (or party the good party)…
Hyperion’s previous recordings with Winchester Cathedral Choir are among the jewels in its choral collection. Now the label begins a new relationship with this ancient foundation and its latest director of music, Andrew Lumsden. Their new disc features a composer who was at the centre of the English twentieth-century choral tradition.
As the most anticipated musical of the millennium, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies is almost guaranteed a lukewarm reception. Being the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, the most successful musical of all time, tends to have that effect…