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.
Janowski Schumann Complete Symphonies
Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and music critic. He was born in 1810 and died in 1856 after a lengthy battle with illness and depression. His approaches to thematic contrast, emotional narrative expression, and architectural innovation set precedents that later Romantics, like Brahms and Mahler, would expand upon. My first exposure to Schumann’s orchestral work […]
Rembrandt Trio ‘The Blue Hour’ in Pure DSD256
To Original Article Sometimes an album arrives on my shores that simply requires immediate comment because it is so deliciously good. This is one of those. The Blue Hour Sessions: Audiophile Jazz Recordings Rembrandt Frerichs, Rembrandt TrioJust Listen Records 2025 (Pure DSD256) Edit Master Sourced I have been a fan of pianist Rembrandt Frerichs for several […]
Recent Finds No. 36 – The NativeDSD Catalog Continues to Deliver Wonderful Recordings
Go To Original Article NativeDSD continues to earn highest recommendations from me as a preferred source for high resolution downloads. There are some labels they don’t have access to, unfortunately, but their catalog continues to grow with new labels showing up every few weeks. This means their new releases outpace my ability to write about […]
Three Discoveries of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 11
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905, is deeply rooted in Russian history. It was premiered in 1957 and commemorates the 1905 Russian Revolution, particularly the tragic events of Bloody Sunday. On January 22, 1905, thousands of peaceful demonstrators marched to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. […]
Iceland with Sono Luminus
View Original Article For some time I’ve wanted to share with you some of this outstanding music, performance excellence, and superb audio quality coming from Sono Luminus’ ventures with Icelandic composers and performers. Why Iceland? I didn’t have any clear understanding other than that Sono Luminus CEO Collin Rae has some connections there and they […]
Surprising Performances to Discover
Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto premiered on November 28, 1909, in New York City. The composer himself was the soloist, and Walter Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony Society. That must have been amazing! But even more amazing: just about 6 weeks later, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Rachmaninoff was again the soloist, but it was Gustav […]
Notes on Recent Finds No. 35 – Classical Music Composed Within the Past 25 Years
View Original Article With such a rich history of music in the western world, it is too easy to get lost in centuries past. We can too easily fail to see the amazing music being written today. With this article, I want to offer up some outstanding music of the 21st Century I’ve been privileged […]
Arabella Steinbacher | Beethoven & Lentz: Violin Concertos
Currently 35% OFF! *Offer valid through Monday, May 05 end of day PST*Discount will be applied automatically at checkout. Just adding another Beethoven Violin Concerto? Only two and a half months after I heard Arabella Steinbacher playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at the inaugural night of Poland’s Beethoven Easter Festival, in Warsaw’s Filharmonia Narodowa, with Sinfonia […]
Two Excellent Interpretations of Ravel’s Finest Orchestral Work
What’s your favorite recording of…? What’s the best recording of…? These are difficult questions! I’ve been collecting classical (and other genres) recordings for decades. At the beginning my favorites were the recordings that first made that work special to me. Later on I’d have more than one favorite. Now? There are things to like about many different performances. It […]
A Rare Musical Experience with Pianist David Fung
View Original Source David Fung, Evening Conversations. Yarlung Records 2006 2025 (Pure DSD256) Release date: 4-18-2025 I found myself talking recently on the phone with my friend Bob Attiyeh, the creative founder and visionary of Yarlung Records. I’m always intrigued by these occasional calls with Bob. One never knows whence they may wander. That day, Bob […]
An Exploration of Past and Present
I was lucky. I grew up with a baby grand piano inherited from my father’s mother (see picture). I learned to play Bach, Gershwin, Kabalevsky, and others on it when I was a pre-teen. Very few people have either the space or funds for an instrument like that now. Musicians face a similar problem for […]
LSO Live – Beethoven violin concerto(s)
Originally written for Classical Source Violin Concerti don’t come any greater or more popular than the Beethoven and the catalogue is awash with performances, so any newcomer is going to have to be exceptional to merit serious consideration. The big selling point of this new one is Jörg Widmann’s radical cadenzas, but these are arguably […]