Updates from the world's leading classical music label
Working with a small selection from this month’s new releases, I’ve forged a theme of the orchestra as a scene-setter, story-teller, support artist, symphonic duettist, and stand-alone protagonist. Many orchestral concerts begin with a warm-up act, a few minutes of attention-grabbing music in which the orchestra flexes its facility for colour and impact. Such concert Read More …
As July turns to August many of us will be enjoying the sunshine and thinking of vacations past and present, so here’s a clutch of examples of classical music seasoning to set the mood. Once heard, never forgotten: few melodies conjure the languid spirit of the season as effectively as Summertime by George Gershwin, from Read More …
Known principally for his prodigious output of concertos, Antonio Vivaldi was also a prolific composer of operas, so it’s perhaps no surprise that an engaging and demanding operatic vocal style also permeates Vivaldi’s sacred music. Raymond Bisha introduces both the music and the performers on this fourth volume of Naxos’ survey of Vivaldi’s catalogue of Read More …
As July turns to August many of us will be enjoying the sunshine and thinking of vacations past and present. For music lovers, few melodies conjure the languid spirit of the season as effectively as Summertime by George Gershwin, from his 1934 opera Porgy and Bess (8.110287-88) which is, paradoxically, a tale of hardship and Read More …
