Extreme Classics

Interweaving the Baroque era and the 20th and 21st centuries, the newest addition to Emmanuel Pahud's Warner Classics catalogue is an imaginative 2-CD collection of music for unaccompanied flute. Among the composers are Telemann, Nielsen, Honegger, Varèse, Berio, Takemitsu, Pärt, Pintscher and Widmann. "Most of the pieces are about exploring new paths," says Pahud. "The power of this music often lies in the contrast between a simple line and the most refined complexities, between a note so quiet as to be barely perceptible and the loudest, most extreme notes playable on the instrument."

The Verdi Messa da Requiem is probably the best known Requiem in the repertoire. Many great conductors have recorded it. I’m thinking of Toscanini at New York/1951, Victor De Sabata at Milan/1954 and probably the best known of all Carlo-Maria Giulini at London/1964-65. Some more recent versions have proved popular notably John Eliot Gardiner using period instruments in London/1992, Claudio Abbado at Berlin/2001 and also Nikolaus Harnoncourt at Vienna/2004.

Sarah Chang - Mendelssohn & Sibelius - Violin Concertos (2017) {Warner Classics 0724355641823 rec 1996)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 261 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 138 Mb
Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 69 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1996, 2017 Parlophone / Warner Classics | 0724355641823
Classical / Romantic / Concero / Violin

It is coming up to five years since Sarah Chang, then in her early teens, made her brilliant and moving concerto recording debut in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto on EMI (12/93). Her concerto recordings for the label since then have been of brilliant showpiece works like the Lalo Symphonie espagnole (5/96) and the Paganini First Concerto (1/95) rather than of the central repertory. It is good here to have her remarkable artistry revealed again at full stretch in astonishingly mature interpretations of the Mendelssohn and Sibelius concertos.

A compilation boasting 101 songs and proclaiming them all as ''classics'' is always leaving itself open to ridicule, and it's human nature to be sceptical, but I have to say that this bumper five CD box from EMI in 2009 really is fantastic set. What's rare for a compilation offering so many tracks is just how very few of them are filler. In fact, I don't think that there are any, their all 'indie'' more or less, and the majority of them were big hits.

Vivaldi’s op.6 concertos first appeared in print in Amsterdam in 1719. However, this edition was unreliable in the extreme. Scoring was incorrect, the number of works indistinct, random movements separated from their correct work, and a host of other errors. What is clear though is that these concertos are a decisive step forward from the works found in opp. 3 and 4. For example, all follow the fast-slow-fast pattern of the three movement concerto. The solo violin has prominence, so we are moving away from the concerto-grosso style. These recordings are the world premiere of the new critical edition by Alessandro Borin, Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice.

She sang all the major mezzo roles, and also some in the dramatic soprano repertory, notably Leonora in Fidelio, Lady Macbeth and the Marschallin. Her voice is a rich, expressive mezzo capable of dramatic incisiveness and even throughout its considerable range. Her upper register in mezzo music is excintingly projected. Although this compilation is composed of different recordings in different settings in different years, all of them show a young Ludwig when she had not yet acquired her prime and her status of, arguably, the best mezzo of the world, which would arrive in the years to come.