• Henri Dutilleux: Cello Solos

    Emmanuelle Bertrand (cello), Pascal Amoyel (piano)Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, James Gaffigan Harmonia Mundi · HMC902209 · 47 minutes Dutilleux’s cello concerto Tout un monde lointain is one of those pieces that demands a soloist who can hold enormous tension without ever tipping into melodrama, and Bertrand does exactly that — her sound has this luminous, searching quality that feels perfectly matched […]

  • Prokofiev: Flute Sonatas

    Brandon Patrick George (flute), Steven Beck (piano), Jacob Greenberg (piano) Profil Medien · PH18039 · 66 minutes Brandon Patrick George opens his recording debut with a program that genuinely earns a second look — pairing Bach’s contrapuntal clarity with Boulez’s spiky modernism and Kalevi Aho’s solo writing makes for a genuinely adventurous 66 minutes. His tone is lovely and […]

  • Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20

    Clifford Curzon (piano)English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten Decca · 4767092 · 65 minutes Few composers understood the shadow side of major keys the way Mozart did, and his two minor-key concertos — well, one minor-key — reveal that gift most nakedly. The D minor Concerto No. 20 opens with this low, churning unease that feels almost Beethovenian before Beethoven […]

  • Chandos: Essential Recordings

    Sinfonia of London, John Wilson Chandos · CHSA5291 · 65 minutes There’s something about British string writing that lives in a very particular emotional weather — overcast skies, damp earth, something aching underneath the surface — and John Wilson gets that completely with the Sinfonia of London. His reading of the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas […]

  • Kevin Bowyer: Organ Solos

    Kevin Bowyer (organ) Priory · PRCD1193 · 79 minutes Somewhere between a historical rescue mission and a pure listening pleasure, Green and Pleasant Land, Vol. 2 pulls music from Charles Vincent’s early twentieth-century periodical The Organ Loft back into the light — 363 pieces spread across a projected 22-disc survey, which is the kind of mad, glorious ambition you […]

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