BERND ALOIS ZIMMERMANN
Die Soldaten BLU-RAY Alfred Muff, Laura Aikin, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner / Wiener Philharmoniker, Ingo Metzmacher [ EuroArts / Unitel Blu-ray / Blu-ray Disc - released 1/Jul/2013 ] Alvis Hermanis stage design The "multimedia music theatre" Die Soldaten by Bernd Alois Zimmermann - based on a text by Sturm and Drang poet Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz - is the composer's only completed opera. This widely praised production... |
LORI LAITMAN
Laitman: Vedem - Music of Remembrance Angela Niederloh (mezzo) / Ross Hauck (tenor) / Laura DeLuca (clarinet) / The Northwest Boychoir / Joseph Crnko [ Naxos American Classics / CD - released 1/Aug/2011 ] Every Friday for two years between 1942 and 1944, a group of teenage boy prisoners in the Terezín concentration camp shared their poems, stories and artwork in a secret magazine they called Vedem. Most of those boys perished in the Holocaust, but the... |
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Rossini: Eduardo e Cristina (complete opera) Baurzhan Anderzhano, Laura Polverelli, Silvia Dalla Benetta, Kenneth Tarver, Xiang Xu / Virtuosi Brunensis, Gianluigi Gelmetti [ Naxos / 2 CD - released 19/Jul/2019 ] Rossini's Eduardo e Cristina was a huge success in its day, but as perhaps the last centone opera (one assembled from previously existing material) by a major composer, it became forgotten under the subsequent tide of Romantic idealism. Today we can... |
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Schubert: String Quintet / Quartettsatz Brodsky Quartet, with Laura van der Heijden (Cello) [ Chandos / CD - released 30/Sep/2022 ] Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, the Brodsky Quartet has performed more than 3000 concerts on the major concert stages of the world and has released more than seventy recordings. A natural curiosity and insatiable desire to explore... |
BERLIOZ
Benvenuto Cellini (complete opera) Bruce Ford / Laura Claycomb / Ralf Lukas / Franz Hawlata / MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig / Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart / Roger Norrington [ Hanssler / CD - released 28/Jul/2007 ] "Laura Claycomb’s heroine was very finely sung, with bright, open tone and excellent diction: the character does not give a singer much to work with, but she did all she could to portray this capricious 17 year old: ‘Quand j’aurai votre âge’ may not... |
ENESCU / PROKOFIEV / SHOSTAKOVICH
Enescu, Prokofiev & Shostakovich: Cello Sonatas Buruiana, Laura (cello), Alexandra Silocea (piano) [ Avie / CD - released 1/Mar/2016 ] "This performance matches the youthful enthusiasm of the [Enescu], with Silocea presenting her elaborate part in the grand manner, yet never swamping the cello…Silocea and Buruiana are entirely persuasive." (Gramophone May 2015) |
GEORGE ENESCU
Enescu: Cello Sonata nos 1 & 2 Buruiana, Laura (cello) Tchiba, Martin (piano) [ Naxos / CD - released 1/Jul/2008 ] Chamber music was a prominent feature of Enescu's music from his earliest years. Though separated by almost four decades, the two Cello Sonatas were not published until 1935. The First is indebted in many respects to Brahms and to Enescu's French... |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: La Traviata (complete opera recorded live in 1958) Maria Callas, Alfredo Kraus, Mario Sereni, Laura Zannini, Maria Cristina de Castro / Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisboa Franco Ghione [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Callas sang La traviata more frequently than any other opera, apart from Norma. She performed it over 60 times between 1951 and 1958, most famously in Luchino Visconti's production at La Scala in 1955/56. Her only studio recording of the role was... |
Carrie Underwood / Stephen Moyer / Audra McDonald / Laura Benati / Christian Borle
The Sound of Music Live! - Music From The Television Event [ Masterworks / Storyline / Sony Music / CD ] |
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Rossini: Chamber Music & Rarities, Vol. 4: Peches de vieillesse, Vols. 11 [Sins of my old age] Cecilia Molinari (mezzo-soprano), Alessandro Marangoni (piano), Bruno Taddia (baritone), Laura Giordano (soprano), Giuseppina Bridelli (mezzo-soprano) [ Naxos Peches de vieillesse Vol 11 / CD - released 1/Dec/2018 ] Volume 11 completes Alessandro Marangoni's monumental project to record all 200 or so individual works comprising the Péchés de vieillesse or 'Sins of Old Age' (including some preliminary sketches). Highlights include all four duets from the... |
LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis Laura Aikin, Elisabeth Kulman, Johannes Chum, Ruben Drole / Concentus Musicus Wien & Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Nikolaus Harnoncourt [ Sony Classical / CD - released 10/Jul/2016 ] "The sound is devoid of any glare, even in the brassiest passages, but clear and thrilling nonetheless. A unique Missa solemnis." (10/10 ClassicsToday Aug 2016) |
BENEDETTO MARCELLO
Marcello: Complete Sonatas for Organ and Harpsichord Chiara Minali (organ) & Laura Farabollini (harpsichord) [ Brilliant Classics / 3 CD Box Set - released 1/Sep/2018 ] Historically informed performances of poised and inventive keyboard music from the Golden Age of the Venetian Baroque. The epitome of a Renaissance man, Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) won success and acclaim as a poet, writer, musician, lawyer,... |
Edward De Souza / Paul Jesson / Simon Harris / Karen Archer / Laura Paton
Classical Love Poetry [ NAXOS AUDIOBOOKS / 2 CD ] An Anthology of Greek and Latin Amorous Verse. |
GAETANO DONIZETTI
Donizetti: Anna Bolena (complete opera recorded in 2013) BLU-RAY Federico Benetti, Marta Torbidoni, Laura Polverelli, Dionisos Tsantinis / Belcanto Chorus, Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi (conductor) [ Dynamic Blu-Ray / Blu-ray Disc - released 1/Jul/2015 ] This production of Anna Bolena faithfully meets the musical vision proposed by Fabio Biondi. The mise-en-scène, therefore, excludes any explicit reference to the plot's historical time, and the events have been set at the beginning of the 1800s, when |
LIAM SCARLETT / LOWELL LIEBERMANN
The Royal Ballet's Frankenstein Federico Bonelli, Laura Morera, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Koen Kessels (cond.) [ DVD - released 22/Sep/2017 ] Inspired by Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein is the world premiere of Liam Scarlett's new full-length ballet. A story of betrayal, curiosity, life, death and, above all, love, exploring the very depths of human nature. Federico... |
JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR
Leclair: Chamber Music with Flute (Complete) Fenwick Smith (flute) / Laura Blustein (cello) / John Gibbons (harpsichord) / Laura Jeppesen (viola da gamba) / Christophe Krueger (flute) [ Naxos / 2 CD - released 3/Oct/2007 ] The music of Jean-Marie Leclair exemplifies the values and aspirations of the Age of Enlightenment: clarity and rationality; balance, harmony and proportion; and avoidance of excess or exaggeration. |
W. A. MOZART
Mozart: Piano Quartets Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, Laura van der Heijden, Federico Colli [ Chandos / CD - released 25/Aug/2023 ] Following a highly successful series of concerts in the summer of 2022, Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, Laura van der Heijden, and Federico Colli headed into the studio to record Mozart's Piano Quartets. Whilst he may not have been the first composer... |
FERRUCCIO BUSONI
Busoni: Clarinet Concertino & Flute Divertimento Gianluca Terranova (tenor) Giammarco Casani (clarinet) Laura Minguzzi (flute) / Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma, Francesco La Vecchia [ Naxos / CD - released 2/Nov/2011 ] "This very well played selection of rarely heard orchestral works moves chronologically through Busoni's career...As so often with Busoni, the mix of styles is baffling." (The Guardian) |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare: As You Like It (recorded live at the Globe Theatre London in October 2009) Globe / Brendan Hughes / Naomi Frederick / Laura Rogers / Philip Bird / Jamie Parker / Jack Laskey [ Opus Arte DVD / DVD - released 1/Jun/2010 ] "Naomi Frederick's superb Rosalind is a woman of wit and intelligence… Laskey's Orlando is equally bewitched, bothered and bewildered, and the playfulness between the two is a pleasure" The Guardian |
RICHARD STRAUSS
Ariadne auf Naxos (Complete opera recorded in March 2013) Glyndebourne Opera / Soile Isokoski, Kate Lindsey, Laura Claycomb, Sergey Skorokhodov, Thomas Allen / Vladimir Jurowski (conductor) [ Opus Arte DVD / DVD - released 20/Aug/2014 ] Director Katharina Thoma sets Richard Strauss's comedy in a country house in the South Downs (a surrogate for Glyndebourne), immediately before and during the Second World War. Hofmannsthals' conceit - that a hapless young composer has to accept the... |