This is a stunning disc. Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne have had distinctive careers and earned a reputation as doyens of modern British pianism, but they are also astonishingly fine chamber music players, having collaborated back in 2010 on a disc of Schubert’s piano duets, a recording that I still value very highly. But with this disc of French pieces for four hands, they surpass themselves.Continue readingSensational French Duets from Lewis/Osborne
Month: May 2022
The Austrian conductor Otmar Suitner (1922-2011) turned 100 this week, which gave me the perfect opportunity to look back at his very prolific legacy, much of which has languished into oblivion. A conductor who spent most of his career behind the Iron Curtain, those who knew of him remembered him for his lengthy, but artistically not particularly groundbreaking, tenure with the Staatskapelle Berlin between 1964 and 1990, during which he churned out mostly mediocre recordings of the German classics, and which gave him a reputation of being yet another stodgy Kapellmeister. Continue readingSuitner@100: The (Truly) Legendary Recordings
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Ivan Fischer’s Brahms 3 and Serenade 2
Ivan Fischer has taken his time with the Brahms symphonies. He first embarked on the cycle in 2009 with the first symphony and the Haydn Variations; he now concludes it with the tricky Third and the Second Serenade.Continue readingIvan Fischer’s Brahms 3 and Serenade 2
In 1940, Sergei Rachmaninov completed his Symphonic Dances, a work which was destined to be his last major composition. Replete with quotations from orthodox chants and his own setting of the liturgy All-Night Vigil, the work served as a summary of his fascination with Russian liturgical music, as well as…Continue readingLife in a Nutshell: Medtner’s Piano Quintet
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A Towering Bruckner 4 from Karl Richter
Karl Richter: harpsichordist, organist, Baroque expert, pioneer of the historically-informed performance movement, best known for his Bach. But Karl Richter the Brucknerian? Who would have thought!Continue readingA Towering Bruckner 4 from Karl Richter