Archive for Review
The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos Reviewed in Audiophilia
Anthony Kershaw offers an in-depth review of Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recordings of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos in the Audiophilia Magazine: “I’m not sure whose idea it was to record this repertoire, but one of the US’s most interesting pianists with a fine conductor and a superb orchestra made up of top professional players from the US and further afield in an idyllic summer setting, sounds…
HRAudio Gives Four and Half Stars to The Complete Beethoven Concertos
Adrian Quanjer gives Four and half stars for performance and sonics to Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra’s recording of The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos: “Long-standing giants like Sir David Runnicles and Garrick Ohlsson, don’t have to prove anything anymore. Their extensive and rewarding international careers say it all. No longer dependent on the moods of critics, they can be themselves and, as we may assume, support wholeheartedly the…
Colin Anderson Reviews The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos
Classical Source editor Colin Anderson has published a rave review on his Colin’s Column site in his “Outstanding” Category for the Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and Grand Teton Music Festival’s Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recording: “I started at the very end, with Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture, to get a feel for recorded sound and the orchestral playing: both excellent, Sir Donald setting a dignified opening against a bustling allegro, an appreciable entrée to Garrick Ohlsson and the five Piano…
Fanfare’s Colin Clarke Adds Bach Aria Soloists to his 2023 Want List
Colin Clarke has added Bach Aria Soloist’s Le Dolce Sirene album to his 2023 Fanfare Magazine “Want List”: “this is a well-considered mix… It is worth taking the pieces in running order as one gets an idea of the variety of sound on offer. After that chamber Messiah, an organ sonata movement by Mendelssohn is heard in a grand performance by Elisa Williams Bickers, but one that retains miraculous clarity. Then it’s back to Handel for…
James Altena Gives Bach Aria Soloists High Praise in Fanfare
Subscribers can find the full review online or in the May/June 2023 issue of Fanfare Magazine
Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene is Brilliant and Captivating says Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare Magazine‘s Ken Meltzer recommends Le Dolce Sirene from the Bach Aria Soloists “with the utmost enthusiasm”: “In Le Dolce Sirene, the BAS explores vocal and instrumental music ranging from Monteverdi to the 21st-century English composer Cecilia McDowall. The emphasis is on Baroque repertoire, performed with such HIP elements as minimal vibrato and ornamentation in repeated sections. Within that foundation, the BAS offers music-making of striking beauty, energy, and an infectious enthusiasm for the works at…
Italy’s Macallé Blues Reviews Doug MacLeod’s “A Soul To Claim”
Italian Blues Magazine, Macallé Blues has a new review for Doug MacLeod’s A Soul To Claim in their “Discs to Consider” section: “Doug MacLeod is one of the last and most iconic songwriters in blues that the contemporary scene can still offer. One of those endangered beings who should be preserved by some special law to protect the species and its few devotees. A Soul To Claim is his most recent album and … Despite…
Gramophone Reviews Le Dolce Sirene
The Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene gets a great review from Laurence Vittes in the March 2023 issue of Gramophone Magazine: “The Kansas City-based Bach Aria Soloists make their recording debut on Reference Recordings with a lovely album of Monteverdi, Bach, Handel and Mendelssohn, complemented by Cecilia McDowall and concluding with their own improvisation on La folia. Recorded with the label’s trademark sweet and clear perfection, ‘Le dolce sirene’ achieves that audiophile miracle, sounding even…
Audiophile Audition Gives an Ovation to Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene
Audiophile Audition‘s Fritz Balwit has a wonderful overview and review for the Bach Aria Soloists’ Le Dolce Sirene recording: “The most striking feature of this opening track is the keening sound of the violin paired with a minimal cello basso continuo. This was my first exposure to the exceptional skills of the violinist and director of the ensemble, Elizabeth Suh Lane… substantial works that will appeal to fans of modern vocal recitals. They don’t lack…
Fanfare Says Invasion is Not To Be Missed
Fanfare Magazine’s Colin Clarke says Nadia Shpachenko’s Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine is “Not To Be Missed”: “Spratlan’s music is viscerally exciting, a sonic representation of (understandable) anxiety via a preponderance of gesture. The performance is as good as one could imagine. It falls to Shpachenko to present Piano Suite No. 1 (2021), a somewhat Schoenbergian utterance, perhaps particularly in the initial “Capriccio.” Shpachenko truly understands, as does Spratlan, the expressive nature of dissonance,…
All Music Reviews Nadia Shpachenko’s Invasion
James Manheim gives 4 and a half stars to Nadia Shpachenko’s Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine recording on All Music: “The piece titled Invasion is not a wartime dirge but a mix of elements overturned by the war, “a counterpoint of moods — between ominous undercurrents, folkloric touchstones, and a modernist ‘authorial’ commentary,” in the words of annotator Peter Yates. This work is echoed in the Six Rags for solo piano, which are not classical…
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring Nominated for Engineering GRAMMY®
We are thrilled to share that Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 and Stucky: Silent Spring was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY® Award in the Best Engineered Album, Classical category! Congratulations to engineer Mark Donahue on his nomination! “Throughout the symphony, passion is omnipresent, be it in a positive or ominous posture. Honeck unravels with his musicians to infinite perfection a modern version of a symphony that is all too…
Two 2023 International Classical Music Awards Nominations!
We are thrilled to share that the International Classical Music Awards have nominated two of our recordings in the 2023 ICMAs! The final result with all winners will be announced on January 18, 2023, and the Award Ceremony and Gala concert will take place in Wrocław, Poland on April 21, hosted by the NFM Philharmonic. Nominations Symphonic Music Manfred Honeck & Pittsburgh Symphony Contemporary Music Martin West & the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra
Migration in Gramophone’s November Issue!
Gramophone Magazine’s Christian Hoskins reviews the University of Texas and Jerry Junkin’s Migration recording in the November 2022 issue: This generously filled album brings together four works by contemporary American composers either scored or adapted for wind ensemble. Adam Schoenberg’s Second Symphony is a programmatic piece inspired by his wife’s family’s migration to the United States. The first of its five movements, ‘March’, with its imposing brass statements and busy percussion, communicates the tension that…