Maria João is an extraordinary, skilled jazz vocalist. Her stylings can be mesmerizing. And her accompanist, Mario Laginha, is spectacular.
Il mare calmo della sera is the debut album released by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, following his win of the Sanremo Festival in 1994, singing his first single and the leading single of the album of the same name…
Deutsche Grammophon has another excellent Schumann Concerto in its catalog, the Pollini/Abbado, with the Berlin Philharmonic, coupled with a good but not great Schoenberg Piano Concerto. Not surprisingly, Pollini is more muscular and evenly balanced in the Schumann, even if he is, as usual, a bit straitlaced. Pires is always the sensitive and probing artist, or so it seems. Here, she is alert from the opening descending chords to the expressive potential in every bar. She puts much more thinking and feeling in her interpretation than Pollini and most others I've heard.