Category: Classical
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 1-4
After playing Beecke (Ignaz von Beecke: Piano Concertos) it was interesting to listen to this Mozart CD, the final volume of Brautigam’s cycle of Mozart piano concertos recorded on copies of period fortepianos. The instrument in this case is by Paul McNulty (2007), and it gets its own page in the excellent sleeve notes;…
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Ignaz von Beecke: Piano Concertos
You can’t really go wrong with this collection of piano concertos from the long-forgotten Beecke. If your new year resolution was to get some classical music in your collection, this is easy to listen to and approachable. If you’re fan of Mozart and Haydn, he’s not at that class but it’s still a pleasure to…
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Aylish Kerrigan, Dearbhla Collins: I Am Wind on Sea
This is a selection contemporary vocal music from Ireland, six composers’ work presented by mezzo-soprano Aylish Kerrigan and pianist Dearbhla Collins. By contemporary we mean the last century or so and by Irish we don’t mean songs about whisky in jars: while some parts of this CD are charming, others are more challenging. The opening…
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Randall Thompson: Requiem
We should have played this sooner: it’s superb and would be a great recording for early Christmas morning (or late Christmas Eve). The sleeve notes say that more than 30 years after Thompson’s death, several of his choral works are performed “with regularity”, and Alleluia (1941) at one point had more copies in print than…
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James Weeks: Signs of Occupation
Avant-garde composer Weeks is trying to make mundane, minimal music. “Occupation” is used in the sense that Weeks occupies our time by filling that time with music, and occupies the musicians, filling their time by giving them something to do, rather than asking them to play actual music. Landscape, occupied by man in another meaning…
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Donizetti and Mayr: Messa Di Gloria and Credo In D Major
Again, not really Christmas music but at least it’s church music, and the polar opposite of the comforting open-fire-and-logs baroque we recently reviewed: this is the music from a Dan Brown film where a full choir sings in St Peter’s as Tom Hanks fights to keep evil at bay. According to the sleeve notes, Donizetti’s…
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Johann Joseph Fux: Concentus musico-instrumentalis
This isn’t really a Christmas album but it’s baroque (with a feel of early music). It’s the kind of music you’d have playing while you imagined you lived at Chatsworth House, freshly-scrubbed servants singing carols out in the hall and wood, gathered by minions that morning, burning merrily on an open fire on Christmas morning.…
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James Whitbourn: Carolae Music for Christmas
Another Christmas album but like the Septura one last week, mostly not specifically for Christmas. It’s a choral album but Whitbourn is adept at taking magnificent music and making it listener-friendly; this could be music from 500 years ago, contemplating the Christian message and enormity of eternity but in Whitbourn’s hands it’s palatable for modern…
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Kate Williams: Four Plus Three
Williams is the daughter of one of the world’s greatest guitarists, John Williams (a member of Sky for those with long memories), though given her own talent it would be appropriate to say that John is the father of pianist Kate. This latest project of hers combines a jazz piano trio with a string quartet…
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