MAHLER
Symphony No. 7 in E minor (recorded live in 2005) BLU-RAY Lucerne Festival Orchestra / Claudio Abbado [ EuroArts BLU-RAY / Blu-ray Disc - released 29/Jul/2011 ] "Has there ever been a suaver, more transparent Mahler performance or one in which everything stays so beautifully in tune? ... Abbado's music-making is a celebration of the purest joy." The Gramophone Magazine |
GUSTAV MAHLER
Mahler: Symphony No. 7 (recorded in 2005) Lucerne Festival Orchestra / Claudio Abbado [ EuroArts DVD / DVD - released 19/Jun/2006 ] G :- "One day the Lucerne concerts will be appreciated for their role in developing Mahler performance practice" (MusicWeb Recording of the Month June 2006) |
GUSTAV MAHLER
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (recorded live in 2010) Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado [ Accentus Music / DVD - released 1/Mar/2011 ] Gramophone Award Finalist 2011 (DVD Performance) - "This is as mind-blowing experience - a Mahler Ninth as great as any I've heard" International Record Review, April 2011 |
GUSTAV MAHLER / LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Claudio Abbado and Maurizio Pollini at Lucerne Festival (recorded 2004) Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, with Maurizio Pollini (piano) [ EuroArts DVD / DVD - released 16/Sep/2022 ] Fostering young musical talents was particularly dear to Claudio Abbado's heart. Abbado founded the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2003. In this orchestra, he united the world's best young musicians from youth orchestras. |
MAURICE RAVEL
Ravel: Orchestral Works (recorded 2018) Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly [ Accentus DVD / DVD - released 23/Apr/2019 ] "[La valse] is extremely fine, as indeed are the Daphnis Suites, where the playing is superbly accomplished in its understated virtuosity and Chailly is marvellously acute in his understanding of Ravel's sonorities…The recorded sound is tremendous" |
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
Britten: War Requiem Lynda Russell, Thomas Randle, Michael Volle / Scottish Festival Chorus / BBC Scottish Symphony / Martyn Brabbins [ Naxos / 2 CD - released 9/Nov/2005 ] |
GUSTAV MAHLER
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 / Ruckert-Lieder [recorded in August 2009] BLU-RAY Magdalena Kozena (mezzo-soprano) / Lucerne Festival Orchestra / Claudio Abbado [ Euroarts BLU-RAY / Blu-ray Disc - released 20/Nov/2010 ] Abbado combines the orchestral work (which features a solo soprano in the finale) with Mahler's "Rückert-Lieder". Soloist in both works is the Czech soprano Magdalena Kozena. |
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 2 / Symphony No 2 BLU-RAY Mao Fujita (piano) / Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly [ Accentus Blu-ray / Blu-ray Disc - released 16/Jun/2023 ] For Riccardo Chailly, celebrating Rachmaninoff in Lucerne is something dear to his heart. In 2022, the the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and their music director devoted themselves to the Second Symphony and the Piano Concerto No. 2. |
Marilyn Hill Smith / Southern Festival Orchestra / Robin White
Moonstruck [ CD ] |
WAGNER
Gotterdammerung (complete opera) (Recorded in stereo live at the 1955 Bayreuth Festival) [second cycle] Martha Madl · Hans Hotter · Gra Brouwenstijn · Wolfgang Windgassen / Bayreuth Festival Chorus & Orchestra / Joseph Keilberth [ Testament / 4 CD Box Set - released 20/Feb/2009 ] Partly for security, partly out of interest, Decca's engineers under Peter Andry also recorded the second cycle, from which this first-ever release of Götterdämmerung is drawn, providing a chance to appreciate the depth of New Bayreuth's casting... |
ARNOLD BAX
Orchestral Works, Volume 8 (Incls 'Enchanted Summer' & 'Walsinghame') Martyn Hill (tenor) Anne Williams-Kingm, Lynore McWhirter (sopranos) / Brighton Festival Chorus / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Vernon Handley [ Chandos Classics / CD - released 1/Feb/2007 ] 'This issue represents a considerable achievement for all involved. The spacious recording copes beautifully with everything Bax can muster.' Hi-Fi News |
Stainer
The Crucifixion Martyn Hill (tenor) / Michael George (bass) / Margaret Philips (organ) / BBC Singers / Leith Hill Festival Singers / Brian Kay [ Chandos Classics / CD - released 15/Jan/2005 ] Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 13,14 January 1997 |
GAETANO DONIZETTI
Donizetti: Roberto Devereux (Complete opera) Massimiliano Pisapia (tenor) Federica Bragaglia (mezzo) Andrew Schroeder (baritone) / Bergamo Musica Festival Chorus & Orchestra / Marcello Rota [ Naxos Opera Classics / 2 CD - released 1/Sep/2008 ] "Complete opera sets where all the pieces fit together are rare indeed and while admiring both Sills and Gruberova enormously, I think that the cast as a whole on this new Naxos set makes it a better proposition" (MusicWeb Feb 2009) |
HEALEY WILLAN
In the Heavenly Kingdom Matthew Larkin (Organ) / Joseph Schnurr (Tenor) / Elora Festival Singers / Noel Edison (Conductor) [ Naxos / CD - released 13/Jun/2006 ] Healey Willan had a life-long love affair with the human voice – perhaps not surprisingly as his first solid instruction in music came to him as choirboy and he finished his life as an organist and choirmaster. |
VERDI
Il Trovatore (complete opera) Maurizio Frusoni / Daniela Longhi / Irina Tschistiakova / Roberto Servile / Budapest Festival Chorus / Hungarian State Opera Orchestra / Will Humburg [ Naxos Opera / 2 CD - released 1/Jan/2007 ] "The Naxos recording, scores across the board, something not encountered on discs since the Price-Cossotto-Domingo-Milnes/Mehta set foe RCA, some three decades past. As such, it deserves to be short-listed among available Trovatore recordings, even... |
W. A. MOZART
Mozart: Piano Quartets, K. 478 and K. 493 Menuhin Festival Piano Quartet [ Naxos / CD - released 23/Feb/2006 ] The Piano Quartet in E flat major, K.493, was completed on 3rd June 1786, a month after the first performance of the new opera The Marriage of Figaro. |
HECTOR BERLIOZ
Berlioz: Requiem Mass (Grande Messe des Morts, Op.5 ) Michael Schade, tenor ; Elora Festival Orchestra ; Toronto Mendelssohn Choir / Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir ; Noel Edison, conductor [ Naxos / 2 CD - released 4/Feb/2003 ] "I'm drawn to Maestro Edison and crew because theirs is, first and foremost, a choral performance." - American Record Guide (Philip Greenfield), July-August, 2000 |
Minuetto-1999 Chamber Music Festival Highlights
Various [ NAXOS / CD - released 16/Jan/1999 ] |
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
Turn of the Screw, The (complete opera recorded 1n 2001) Festival d'Aix-en-Provence / Mireille Delunsch, Gregory Monk / Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Daniel Harding / Luc Bondy [ Bel Air Classiques / Harmonia Mundi Distibution / DVD - released 29/Jul/2005 ] G :- "Richard Peduzzi's set of sliding walls and panels is elegantly simple; Miller, McLaughlin and the two children sing their roles very well. Daniel Harding's conducting with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra really takes risks..." --The Guardian |