Music Reviews
A grand collection of reviews. If you are a professional music reviewer and would like to contribute a review to this blog, please contact us.
Stravinsky: Muses from Camerata Salzburg
Available Now for 40% Off Stravinsky’s “Big Three”, The Rite of Spring, Firebird, and Petrushka, are literally cultural icons. Hundreds of recordings, new and re-releases, have had a huge presence in concerts and in record sales. They each have a bold narrative, and are written for big orchestras. But the three neoclassical works on this […]
Recent Finds No. 72 NativeDSD Shows Again Why Not To Allow Format Dictate Music
Read Original I so often bring to you music in ultra-high resolution, but there are so many wonderful recordings not originally recorded in DXD or DSD256. I listen to many of these, but don’t regularly write about them because my brief is to focus on the higher resolution recordings so readers can know that they […]
Recent Finds No. 71: New Releases to Enjoy from NativeDSD
View Original I am frequently overwhelmed, in the most positive way imaginable, by the cornucopia of marvelous releases that appear. Such is the case today as I offer to you my thoughts on eight recent releases available at NativeDSD. They have made my heart sing these past few weeks. Santiago de Masarnau: Piano Works (Vol. […]
Recent Finds No. 69: A Potpourri of Nice Releases with Four Pure DSD256
View Original Over the past few weeks, my listening has been filled with enjoyable discoveries: four Pure DSD256 releases from Hunnia and Eudora (four!); another excellent LSO Live release with Gianandrea Noseda; a superb performance of Handel’s Theodora; a fine new recording from Barry Diament on his Soundkeeper label—who has something to teach popular and folk […]
Berlioz’s ‘Requiem’ from Sir Antonio Pappano and Concertgebouworkest
A memory crossed my mind the other day. I was attending a 6 week Summer Session at UC Berkeley in 1963, and one of my classes was Chorus, with longtime conductor and professor, Dr. Edward Lawton. I was in the chorus for the Summer Concert, Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts. It was a wonderful experience! […]
Boundless by Min Xiao-Fen and Julian Kytasty – an Evocative Listening Experience
Read Original Boundless (World Premiere Recording), Julian Kytasty, Min Xiao-Fen. Anderson Audio New York 2026 (DXD 32-bit, Stereo) Edit Master Sourced HERE Some albums just jump out at you on first listen and demand attention. Thus it is with Anderson Audio’s new release, Boundless by Min Xiao-Fen and Julian Kytasty. Boundless is a fascinatingly original cross-cultural duo duo project built […]
Recent Finds No. 67: A Basket Full of Great Music Releases at NativeDSD
Read Original (PF) A trove of truly wonderful recordings has appeared in the NativeDSD catalog over recent weeks. Here are eight that caught my immediate attention, with multiple turns in my listening queue. Each is a worthy addition to your music library and will reward over multiple listening sessions. Telemann Ino Cantata and Double Concertos, […]
Review: ‘Beethoven, Ligeti & Lefkowitz’ from Quartet Integra
Title: Beethoven, Ligeti & LefkowitzBeethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2Lefkowitz: Green Mountains, Now BlackPerformer: Quartet IntegraLabel: Yalung Records For my first review on Native DSD, I have chosen this recording of string quartets. The reason is severalfold; this is a pure DSD recording, a format I firmly believe […]
Yarlung Pure DSD256 Reissues from the Master Tapes Continue with the Ciaramella Early Music Ensemble (with free download)
Read Original (PF) Yarlung Records continues to celebrate its Twentieth Anniversary with another superb release from its analog master tape archives. In April 2025, we received the marvelous recording by David Fung, Evening Conversations, about which I wrote HERE. Now we have another release from Yarlung’s archives that has only seen light of day as a CD: […]
Film Music For The Piano – Ivar Anton Waagaard
In the first half of my 50 + years as a radio personality, I was exposed to hundreds of ho-hum albums of songs from movies. The last thing I wanted to hear was another version of the Theme from The Apartment, or the Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet. And that’s why I avoided spending […]
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra Ignites Nielsen’s ‘The 4 Temperaments’ and ‘Inextinguishable’
It’s easy to lump composers together simply because they are contemporaries, or they come from the same place or area. I’ve written about this before in relation to Sibelius and Nielsen. The “Nordic” similarities seem stretched– Denmark (Nielsen) is traditionally more aligned in culture with Germany and continental Europe. Finland (Sibelius) is more aligned with, […]