Posts tagged as "pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovsky"

Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6; Tone Poems

March 12, 2016

Between January and December 1951 Dutch conductor Paul van Kempen recorded a series of major Tchaikovsky works with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The performances are at once fiery and incandescent – a kind of meaningful sound and fury – and have long been out of the catalogue. But even when they were issued they divided critical […]

Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1-3; Souvenir de Florence

March 12, 2016

Although the orchestra was the most natural vehicle for Tchaikovsky’s colourful and emotionally highly-charged music, in his string quartets (all dating from the 1870s) he showed a fine understanding of the medium and adopted a more purely musical train of thought – deriving in part from his deep fondness for the classical world of Mozart […]

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1; Liszt: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

March 12, 2016

Lazar Berman, a bear of a man whom The Times of London called ‘one of the last unabashed exponents of the Romantic tradition of Russian pianism’, was known for the power of his playing and for his prodigious technique, but was also capable of great delicacy at the keyboard. The core of his repertoire was […]

Virtuoso Violin

March 7, 2016

The violinist who straddled the divide between the old ways and the new, was the Viennese virtuoso, Wolfgang Eduard Schneiderhan. He was born on 28th May 1915 and beginning violin lessons at five, he polished his technique under Sevcík and Winkler. From the 1950s onward, Schneiderhan displayed all the qualities normally associated with German musicians. […]

Tchaikovsky: Concertos; Beethoven: Triple Concerto

March 5, 2016

Most parents will assert that siblings do not always play well together but classical music gives many examples to the contrary. Although violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, was the most famous member of his family, he performed and made several recordings with his sisters, Hephzibah and Yaltah both pianists. (Pianist Marcel Ciampi who taught both sisters, remarked […]

Inge Borkh & Ljuba Welitsch: The Decca Recitals

March 5, 2016

These recordings of the voices of Inge Borkh and Ljuba Welitsch are very fine examples of the art of the dramatic soprano from the 1950s and early 1960s. Borkh acquired a considerable reputation as Aida, Tosca, Turandot, and Medea in Cherubini’s opera of the same name, as well as Leonora in Fidelio. On this anthology, […]

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1; Concert Fantasy

March 5, 2016

On this reissue, Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular Piano Concerto No. 1 is coupled with a relative rarity – the Concert Fantasy. Peter Katin was not the first pianist to make a studio recording of Tchaikovksy’s Concert Fantasy – that honour went to Tatiana Nikolayeva in 1950 – but his 1958 recording with Sir Adrian Boult was the […]

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake (highlights)

March 5, 2016

Although Pierre Monteux was a notable exponent of both Beethoven and the modern French school, it was with the Ballets Russes that his name was linked. Further, when he was conducting French repertoire in American theatres (particularly at the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1917 to 1919), he also took on the premières of […]