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LEON KIRCHNER
Kirchner: Duo for Violin and Piano / Piano Trio / Piano Sonata / Triptych Continuum, with Mark Steinberg (violin) & Maria Kitsopoulos (cello) [ Naxos / CD - released 28/Mar/2005 ] Kirchner was born in Brooklyn in 1919, the son of Russian Jews. At the age of nine his family moved to Los Angeles, which was in the 1930s to become a creative mecca with the influx of distinguished figures fleeing Nazi Europe. Family hopes for a... |
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CHARLES-VALENTIN ALKAN
Alkan Edition [Piano, Organ & Chamber Music] Costantino Mastroprimiano, Mark Viner, Laurent Martin, Alan Weiss, Alessandro Deljavan, Costantino Mastroprimiano (pianos) / Trio Alkan, Kevin Bowyer [ Brilliant Classics / 13 CD Box Set - released 20/May/2018 ] "Two major pluses are the excellent contextual essay and the budget price. It's a steal." BBC Music |
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IAN VENABLES
Venables: Chamber Music Coull Quartet, Graham J. Lloyd (piano), Mark Bebbington (piano) [ Somm / CD - released 1/Aug/2010 ] Ian Venables has been described as one of the finest song composers of his generation. He has written over 50 works in this genre, which includes six major song-cycles and his reputation as an art-song composer of great depth and integrity is now... |
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TELEMANN
Overture (Suite) in A minor / Recorder Concerto in F Dan Laurin (recorder) Mark Caudle (viola da gamba) / Arte dei Suonatori [ BIS Baroque / CD - released 30/Jun/2004 ] 10 de Répertoire; "Recomendado", CD Compact |
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J. S. BACH
Bach: Cantatas 8, 125. 138 Deborah York (sop) Ingeborg Danz (alto) Mark Padmore (ten) Peter Kooy (bass) / Collegium Vocale / Philippe Herreweghe [ Harmonia Mundi / CD - released 27/Mar/2020 ] The theme of death and dying was one of the favourite themes of Bach and his contemporaries in their cantatas - that "musical theology" which was held in such high esteem in deeply Lutheran Northern Germany. Composed between 1723 and 1725, the three... |
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TRADITIONAL
Folksongs Alfred Deller (countertenor), Mark Deller (countertenor), Desmond Dupré (lute) [ Harmonia Mundi / CD - released 10/Aug/2013 ] "a beautifully plaintive, soft-grained recital" (Gramophone) |
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CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
Monteverdi Cycle: L'incoronazione di Poppea / L'Orfeo / Il Ritorno d'Ulisse, Il Combattimento (Complete operas) Deneder Landse Opera / Cynthia Haymon, Brigitte Balleys, Michael Chance, John Mark Ainsley, Juanita Lascarro, Christopher Gillett, Lorna Anderson, etc [ Opus Arte DVD / 7 DVD Box Set - released 20/Sep/2016 ] Each opera has an insightful introduction, directed by Roeland Hazendonk, featuring interviews with Pierre Audi, the musical director and members of the cast....."…strikingly staged, beautifully sung…" New York Times |
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Shostakovich: The Bedbug / Love and Hate Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Mark Fitz-Gerald [ Naxos / CD - released 1/Nov/2019 ] Shostakovich was still a young composer when he was hired to provide incidental music for The Bedbug, a surreal and farcical satire on Communist utopian dreams and bourgeois corruption and vulgarity. He produced a terrifically knockabout score that... |
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GEORG FRIDERIC HANDEL
Ode for St. Cecilia's Day Dorothee Mield (soprano) Mark Wilde (tenor) / Alsfelder Vocal Ensemble / Concerto Polacco / Wolfgang Helbich, conductor [ Naxos / CD - released 2/Jun/2004 ] Georg Friedrich Händel, later more generally known under the English forms of name that he assumed in London, George Frideric Handel, was born in Halle in 1685, the son of a successful barber-surgeon and his much younger, second wife. His father... |
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HUW WATKINS
Watkins:Fanfare, Symphony no.2, Concerto for Orchestra Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder [ Hallé / CD - released 6/Mar/2026 ] This album celebrates a warm and close musical relationship between composer, conductor and orchestra - and the extraordinary impact the Covid pandemic had on British cultural life. Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé commissioned and premiered the works on... |
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GABRIEL FAURE
Faure: Requiem (with Mozart-Ave verum corpus, K618, etc) Elin Manahan Thomas, Roderick Williams, Ruth Massey, Mark Dobell / The Sixteen / Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Harry Christophers [ Coro Live / CD - released 1/Apr/2008 ] The result of a brand new collaboration between two of the finest modern day exponents of classical music, this exquisite disc brings fresh life to Fauré's peerless Requiem and injects imaginative invention and poetic phrasing into two of Mozart's... |
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HANDEL
Messiah (complete oratorio) Elizabeth Watts / Catherine Wyn-Rogers / Mark Le Brocq / James Oldfield / Huddersfield Choral Society / Northern Sinfonia / Jane Glover [ Signum Classics / 2 CD - released 20/Jul/2011 ] "The Huddersfield Choral Society surely knows this music inside out. You can sense the sheer discipline that has gone into its preparation...Pick of the bunch...is the soprano Elizabeth Watts" (International Record Review) |
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HANDEL
Joshua (Complete oratorio) Emma Kirkby / James Bowman / John Mark Ainsley / The Choir of New College, Oxford / The King's Consort / Robert King [ Hyperion / 2 CD - released 13/Apr/2006 ] 'With first-rate casts and careful attention to Handel's original texts, King has blown the dust off some magnificent music' (BBC Record Review) |
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J. S. BACH
St. Matthew Passion / St. John Passion / Mass in B minor / Easter & Christmas Oratorios Emma Kirkby, Catherine Bott, Michael Chance, Paul Agnew, Martyn Hill, John Mark Ainsley / various conductors [ Brilliant Classics / 9 CD Box Set - released 20/Jul/2012 ] "This boxed set is perfect for those people wishing to get to know Bach's Passions. Cleobury's performances of the St. Matthew and the St. John are good steady musical performances. Many people will be attracted to this disc by the name of King's... |
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DVORAK
Rusalka (complete opera recorded in 1986) English National Opera / Eilene Hannan / John Treleaven / Rodney Macann / Ann Howard / Phyllis Cannan / Mark Elder (cond) [ Arthaus / DVD - released 4/Sep/2003 ] G :- Dvorak's three act opera is based on two fairy tales and tells the story of a water-nymph, Rusalka, yearning to become human because she has fallen in love with a mortal. |
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN
War Requiem, Op. 66 (live from Coventry Cathedral, May 2012) Erin Wall, Mark Padmore, Hanno Müller-Brachmann / City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, CBSO Chorus & CBSO Youth Chorus, Andris Nelsons [ Arthaus Musik DVD / DVD - released 1/Oct/2012 ] |
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN
War Requiem, Op. 66 (live from Coventry Cathedral, May 2012) BLU-RAY Erin Wall, Mark Padmore, Hanno Müller-Brachmann / City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, CBSO Chorus & CBSO Youth Chorus, Andris Nelsons [ Arthaus Musik Blu-ray / Blu-ray Disc - released 1/Oct/2012 ] 2012 brought the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Britten's War Requiem, one of the most powerful pacifist statements in music. |
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GIACOMO PUCCINI
Puccini: Le Willis (complete original production) Ermonela Jaho, Arsen Soghomonyan, Brian Mulligan / Opera Rara Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Mark Elder [ Opera Rara / CD - released 25/Sep/2019 ] "The chorus and orchestra are both impressive, while conductor Mark Elder delivers a lively and loving account of the score" BBC Music Award Finalist 2020 |
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JOHN CORIGLIANO
Conjurer & Vocalise Evelyn Glennie (percussion), Hila Plitmann (soprano), Mark Baechle (electronics) Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller [ Naxos / CD - released 9/Jan/2014 ] "Fresh, vital, vigorous; contemporary music of quality, winningly played [DM] Two stimulating and interesting scores by John Corigliano in excellent performances" (MusicWeb Recording of the Month Feb 2014) |
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Ex Cathedra, Britten Sinfonia, Jeffrey Skidmore (condutor), Philippe Honoré (violin), Mark Padmore (tenor), Vayu Naidu (speaker)
The Traveller: Earth & Sky [ Signum / CD - released 7/Jul/2023 ] THE TRAVELLER for choir, children's choir, orchestra, tenor, violin and speaker. The Traveller was the third in a series of four major works with words by Vikram Seth and music by Alec Roth, com- missioned jointly over four years by the Salisbury,... |