Updates from the world's leading classical music label
Raymond Bisha presents the first in a series of podcasts that explore newly remastered recordings on the VOX label dating from the 1970s. This instalment features four albums by the St Louis Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, in which the orchestra and solo pianists Abbey Simon and Jeffrey Siegel variously perform works by Rachmaninov and Read More …
This blog visits a new album scheduled for release on April 14 that features works for piano and orchestra by Sergei Rachmaninov (2023 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth). The solo pianist is Boris Giltburg, a seasoned Naxos artist noted not only for his outstanding musicianship and technical finesse (witness the numerous glowing reviews Read More …
Definitions of the word ‘fairy’ as perceived down the ages are wide-ranging, with notions of diminutive enchantresses contrasting with images of grotesque goblins. How have composers painted the former into humanly-generated sound? Let’s find out. All the audio selections in this week’s blog will feature at least the tail-end of the work, if only to Read More …
Here are the final bars of 15 well-known works. Can you name the composer and the title of the work? Scroll down the page to check your answers. Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Read More …
It’s worth pausing today to remember four notable musicians, the anniversaries of whose deaths all fall on 27 April. Sigismond Thalberg (1812–1871) was a virtuoso pianist considered by some of his contemporaries as a rival to Franz Liszt. Although his death in Italy on 27 April 1871 is clearly documented, details of his birth and Read More …
