New Album Review: J.S. Bach: Ouvertüren

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I grew up with Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra’s recording of the Bach’s Orchestral Suites for EMI. They were gorgeously played but hardly historically informed performances. Now period instrument bands enjoy interpretive hegemony in this repertoire, so this new set by the Freiburger Barockorchester isn’t the novelty it would have been some years ago.
The suites or “ouvertüren” as they are called in performance source materials are filled with some of Bach’s most colorful orchestral writing. Two of the suites (BWV 1068 and1069) are richly scored for an ensemble that includes trumpets, drums, oboes, bassoon, strings and continuo. The BWV 1066 is more modestly scored for oboes, bassoon, strings and continuo, while the BWV 1067 for flute, violins, viola and continuo. Each of the suites is comprised of dance movements that run a range of styles and moods.

FLAC Friday Sale on Classical Music Lossless Downloads

Each Friday, Ariama will offer six FLAC titles selected for their superior audiophile sound quality and artistic merit. Ariama’s editorial team will select titles from a pool of over 70,000, featuring music in a wide range of genres from such labels as BIS, Chandos, Harmonia Mundi, LSO Live, Naxos, Ondine, Sony, Supraphon and others. Ariama's FLAC Friday sales end on Tuesday the following week.

New Album Review: Mendelssohn: Double Concerto; Piano Concerto

In 1840 Robert Schumann called Felix Mendelssohn “the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the most brilliant musician to penetrate the contradictions of the age and the first to reconcile them.” The two works on this recording, the Concerto for piano and strings in A minor and Double Concerto for piano, violin and orchestra in D minor, were written by the teenage Mendelssohn as he approached musical maturity, a growth spurt that would result in the Octet for strings and Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture. Fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout is joined by violinist Gottfried von der Goltz and the Freiburger Barockorchester in the two concertos.

New Album Review: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: A Tribute

This must have been a very difficult album to produce. The consistent brilliance of mezzo-soprano’s Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s Harmonia Mundi recordings certainly must have made the practical task of selecting recordings, by an artist who never sung an unfelt note in her life, a challenge. Then there’s the emotional weight of assessing the career of an artist whose life was tragically brief. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for producer Robina G. Young to put this beautiful album together, but she has made a great one and we are grateful.

Lucy Crowe

Lucy Crowe, photo by Sussie Ahlburg

A friend who always wants to know what's the next big thing in music e-mailed me yesterday. She wanted to know if the soprano  singing in the Vesperae solennes de confessore at Mostly Mozart had made any recordings. The singer is Lucy Crowe, she's made some recordings and yes, she's the next big thing. Crowe's Handel aria album will be released by Harmonia Mundi in November, but here's "Let the Bright Seraphim" from Handel's Samson to tide us over. Oh yes, she is the next big thing.