Hasse, arr. Handel
These days the idea of an artistic director who was also a composer presenting an opera by a contemporary the year after its first production would be thought of as a co-production…
Silk Baroque
Perhaps the last thing one expects from this extraordinary disc is to find that it starts with the chimes of Big Ben played on the sheng, in a piece derived from one of Telemann’s a century before that bell tolled…
Hallé – Vaughan Williams
This is England’s most intelligent conductor meeting the country’s greatest symphonist with its most consistently excellent orchestra: hard to better…
Elgar – Barbirolli Records
Now I have this box, I wouldn’t want to be without it…
Fantasiebilder aus Wien – Zassimova
For once the CD album cover photo (by Magnus Arrevad) sums up its contents very accurately: Anna Zassimova in black dress storm-tossed in a bleak evening landscape. She carries a hat, the interior of which seems to contain a cyclone all its own…
Schubert – Mullova & Beatson
There is an attractive smokiness to Viktoria Mullova’s playing on gut strings which gives these performances a truly domestic chamber feeling, far removed from the modern concert hall…