Experience Singapore's Orchestra of the Music Makers soar through Strauss's majestic "An Alpine Symphony". With its epic sweep and grandeur and compelling drama, there has rarely been such a spine-tingling and vivid depiction of nature as found in Richard Strauss’s magnificent tone poem, An Alpine Symphony. Calling for gargantuan orchestral forces, this lavishly illustrated journey is Strauss’s crowning orchestral achievement. Using a vast musical canvas packed with vivid and exquisite details, it’s a bold, optimistic and passionate work, unleashing ecstatic blazes of orchestral colour alongside moments of awestruck contemplation in a continuous narrative of 22 sections, which Strauss threads together with his usual mastery and aplomb.
Anyone interested in a high-quality performance of Mozart's violin concertos on period instruments needs to look no further than this inexpensive set. All the youthful exuberance of the music comes through brilliantly in this interpretation, enhanced by the transparent texture of period instruments. Everything from tempi to dynamics is well-chosen and well-rendered, and nothing stands out as being out of place.
‘Has there ever been a composer of more consistent elegance?’ If Steven Isserlis’s rhetorical question invites the listener to think of plausible alternatives, on the evidence of this wonderful album—an imaginative selection of Boccherini’s cello concertos and cello-centric chamber music—they are most unlikely to succeed. This is truly ‘music of the angels’, with performances to match.
Mozart's final opera returns to Glyndebourne after an absence of nearly 20years in a 'stark, compelling and very well acted' production directed byClaus Guth. Richard Croft sings the title role 'with exemplary stylistic poiseand tonal sweetness', and Anna Stéphany is a Sesto 'touchingly full of angstand remorse… with terrific élan and immaculate technical control' in thearias (The Telegraph) - her "Parto, Parto" 'simply breathtaking' (The Guardian). Guth's vision sets the 1st-century Roman story in a two-storeyoffice suite bureaucracy 'exquisitely lit by Olaf Winter', aptly framing thescheming of Vitelia, sung by Alice Coote 'in terrific form'. The OAE underRobin Ticciati 'brings out the sheer beauty' of Mozart's score (Express).
“Video” is the third chapter of the Swedish act Fans Of The Dark, an exciting new band formed in 2020 by Freddie Allen, drummer and main songwriter and lead vocalist Alex Falk, when they reconnected few year after the high school, where they went together, with a vision to create a band which would mix the melodies and approach of classic and melodic rock. Their musical output continue over the path of their first two albums and “Video” is one of the most exciting things you'll hear emerging from the fruitful melodic rock in Sweden, showcasing a tight, inventive musical approach with outstanding vocals. Get ready for a fantastic ride!
For this 2010 production, the first new staging of the opera in 10 years, Glyndebourne welcome back the winning team of director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown with Festival Music Director, Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Set at a time of seismic social and cultural change - in a Fellini-esque vision of post-war life - Jonathan Kent's urgently propulsive production offers a 'white-knuckle rollercoaster ride' through the events of the Don's last day as they unfold in and around Paul Brown's magical 'box of tricks' set.
Aside from skill, soul, and wonderful melodies, the wind chamber music of Carl Reinecke has nothing to offer the listener. And as this splendid 1992 recording re-released by Naxos in 2008 shows, that is more than enough. Performed by members of the Boston Symphony, Reinecke's Wind Octet, Op. 216, and Wind Sextet, Op. 271, are light and airy works with bouncy rhythms, buoyant tempos, warm harmonies, memorable tunes, and an enviable grasp of form and proportion. Used to playing under a conductor, the Boston Symphony musicians' poised and attentive performances prove they are entirely capable of producing balanced interpretations on their own.