Posts tagged as "academy-of-st-martin-in-the-fields"

Grieg: Peer Gynt (excerpts); Holberg Suite

April 29, 2016

Two of Grieg’s most popular works on a single CD. The ‘Peer Gynt’ excerpts are more extended than those normally encountered on the suites, incorporating both choruses (in ‘In The Hall of the Mountain King’, for example) and songs (those of Solveig). To finish, Marriner directs one of the freshest performances of the zestful ‘Holberg […]

Bach: Cantatas BWV 170, 82 & 159

April 29, 2016

Long unavailable, these classic 1960s recordings of a trio of Bach cantatas have been restored to circulation, now at super-budget price. Here’s what two Amazon.com ‘surfer’s had to say about these recordings: ‘I have every reason in the world to be grateful for having encountered this wonderful CD over ten years ago now when I […]

Gluck: Don Juan (ballet music); Handel: Ariodante & Il Pastor Fido (ballet music)

April 29, 2016

These rarities of sprightly, energetic and utterly charming music make a welcome return to the catalogue at budget price. A contemporary reaction to the first production is found in the diary of Count Zinzendorf, who found the subject ‘…extremely sad, lugubrious and frightening… Hell appears, furies dance with lighted torches and torment Don Juan; in […]

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 3 & 5

April 29, 2016

Among the many recordings of the complete Mozart Violin Concertos, this one, with the late Iona Brown directing the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from the violin, has lain dormant for far too long. Gramophone magazine welcomed it with the words: ‘a series which is outstanding for its freshness and spontaneity in a […]

Bach: Coffee & Peasant Cantatas

April 29, 2016

Not all of Bach’s Cantatas were written for Sunday service. Here is a pair of humorous offerings performed with great charisma by the husband-wife duo of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Julia Varady.

Arie Antiche

April 29, 2016

The sequence of Italian operas on this recording take us from the birth of opera at the end of the sixteenth century to the first flowerings of the Classical period nearly 200 years later. The extraordinary power and agility of Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s voice comes fully into its own on this recording, allowing for a richness […]

Mendelssohn: String Symphonies Nos. 9, 10, 12; Piano Concerto in A minor

April 29, 2016

Bringing together four of Mendelssohn’s earliest works, this collection also showcases Marriner and the Academy in one of their earliest recordings – that of three of the composer’s String Symphonies. Warmly recorded and virtuosically despatched, they are coupled with a scintillating (unnumbered) Piano Concerto by Mendelssohn, with John Ogdon as a fleet-fingered soloist.

Music for Strings – Hindemith, Prokofiev, Bartók, Vivaldi

April 29, 2016

A collection of music for strings, including the first complete appearance of a rare LP by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Rudolf Barshai of music by Bartók (one of the most invigorating “Divertimento” recordings ever made). Vivaldi is coupled with a selection of gleaming ‘Visions Fugitives’ (arranged by Barshai from Prokofiev’s piano pieces) and the […]

The Best of Handel

April 28, 2016

Collectors’ ears will prick-up at the inclusion of the Bavarian Radio/Sir Colin Davis recording of a chorus from ‘Messiah’, otherwise unavailable.