Louis Frémaux News
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2024-04-20
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2023-10-02 07:30:00
RVW, Elena Kats-Chernin & John McCabe's Notturni ed Alba with Donna Lennard from Kensington Symphony Orchestra & Russell Keable
[…] sketch of her memories of hearing her mother play Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 when the family lived in Russia. The work was commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2017. John McCabe's song-cycle Notturni ed Alba dates from 1970 and features settings of four Medieval Latin poems dealing with various aspects of night. Premiered at the 1970 Three Choirs Festival by soprano Sheila Armstrong, to whom it is dedicated, and the City of Birmingham Orchestra, conducted by Louis Frémaux, it has been described as most exotically and seductively beautiful music McCabe has written. Kensington Symphony Orchestra will be joined by soprano Donna Lennard for the performance.Looking ahead, the orchestra's season is full of the exciting, interesting and unusual, with Martinů's Symphony No.3 and Janáček's Taras Bulba (27 November, Cadogan Hall), Ruth Gipps' Horn Concerto (6 February 2024, Cadogan Hall), Dohnányi's Symphonic Minutes plus Mahler, Lili Boulanger and Stravinsky (18 March 2024, St John's Smith Square), Full details from the orchestra's website.
2022-01-03 06:14:00
By John J. PuccioAs you may remember, I don’t do “best-of” lists. “Best” suggests that I’ve sampled everything available, and even though I review a lot of music every year, I have not heard but a fraction of what’s out there. So I prefer to do a simple “favorites” list. Here are just a few of the discs (listed alphabetically, to be fair) I heard last year that I enjoyed for their performance and sound. I know I’ve forgotten some; forgive me.Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Volume 1The Opus 18 quartets, Nos. 1-6. Dover Quartet. Cedille.To read the review, click here: ici Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7Carlos Kleiber, Vienna Philharmonic. K2HD Mastering.To read the review, click here:ici Symphony No. 7Also, Creatures of Prometheus, complete ballet. Gottfried von der Goltz, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Harmonia Mundi.To read the review, click here:ici Violin Concerto in […]
2021-12-13 05:52:00
Music of Elgar, Britten, Walton, and Vaughan Williams. Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. DG 486 1547.By Karl W. Nehring and John J. PuccioThe music according to Karl:Parts of this recording were previously made available by DG in dribs and drabs as digital downloads by DG but now the entirety of The British Project featuring the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla (b. 1936) is finally available on CD. Having been quite impressed by a previous recording by these same forces (Weinberg’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 21, reviewed ), and being quite a fan of British music, I have long been looking forward to this release. So, with a Lithuanian conductor and a German label, what do we have going here?The program opens with Sospiri (“Sighs”) by Sir Edward Elgar, a brief composition for string orchestra, harp, and organ. This is not the […]
2021-09-13 04:44:00
Massenet: Ballet Music (XRCD24/K2 review)
Le Cid. Also, Scenes Pittoresques; The Last Sleep of the Virgin; Offenbach: La Belle Helene; Berlioz: Dance of the Sylphs; Minuet of the Will-O’-the-Wisps. Louis Fremaux, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Klavier/JVC VICJ-035-1107.By John J. PuccioTo be honest, I don’t think audio recording has improved all that much since the introduction of home stereo almost seventy years ago. Sure, there have been some big changes, like Dolby noise reduction and digital engineering, but they haven’t always resulted in actual improvements. The real improvements have come in mastering techniques, transferring original recordings to LP, CD, SACD, or download. Here is where a number of companies over the years came up with unique strategies to perfect the art. In the old vinyl days, Sheffield Labs, for instance, had their direct to disc masters, and Mobile Fidelity had their half-speed remasters. Then came the digital age, and audiophile companies had to come up […]
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