February 29, 2024 • 7:46 am Comments Off on Philip Glass: Solo
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My Gramophone review of Philip Glass’s recent release has been posted:
‘If I’m to be remembered for anything’, Philip Glass has remarked, ‘it will probably be for the piano music, because people can play it.’ …
Filed under: CD review, Gramophone, Philip Glass, piano
November 4, 2023 • 1:13 pm Comments Off on Brooklyn Rider and Kinan Azmeh: Starlighter
My review of Starlighter, the latest Brooklyn Rider release featuring the quartet’s collaboration with clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh, is in the November issue of Gramophone:
Ever since they formed nearly two decades ago, Brooklyn Rider have been reimagining the string quartet’s potential both in their playing style and in their devotion to new repertoire. …
Filed under: Brooklyn Rider, CD review, Gramophone, Kinan Azmeh, review, string quartet
January 9, 2023 • 10:20 am Comments Off on Amanda Forsythe Sings Bach with Apollo’s Fire
I reviewed Heavenly Bach, Amanda Forsythe’s wonderful new release of Bach arias and cantatas with Apollo’s Fire, for Early Music America:
“Happiness writes white,” as the phrase goes—or, to borrow the formulation by Tolstoy that has become modernity’s default position: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Attempting to convey the condition of unadulterated joy in artistic terms is to risk a bland sentimentality; the bad news about the human condition is what sells. Part of J.S. Bach’s greatness lies in his ability to paint the full spectrum so convincingly, without compromise.
Filed under: Bach, CD review, Early Music America
September 10, 2022 • 8:18 am Comments Off on Album Review: Sarah Plum’s Personal Noise
My latest review for Gramophone is of violinist/violist Sarah Plum‘s new release, Personal Noise:
A slim discography barely hints at violinist Sarah Plum’s prolific career as a ‘new music specialist’ but confirms her engagingly adventurous sensibility….
Filed under: CD review, Gramophone, violinists
April 11, 2022 • 9:35 am Comments Off on St. Matthew Passion from Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion
I reviewed the new Raphaël Pichon/Pygmalion recording of the St. Matthew Passion for Early Music America:
Perhaps the best way to adequately describe the extremely intense, 3-D quality of motion that Raphäel Pichon and the Pygmalion ensemble achieve in the St. Matthew Passion’s opening chorus is by way of comparison with another art: say, Stendhal’s description of the young Fabrizio caught up in the fog of Napoleonic battle in The Charterhouse of Parma (which Balzac praised as a marvel that “often contains a whole book in a single page”)….
Filed under: Bach, CD review, Early Music America
February 16, 2022 • 10:33 am Comments Off on Lowell Liebermann’s Frankenstein
My latest CD review for Gramophone is of the recording by the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra of Lowell Liebermann’s lengthy ballet score Frankenstein:
Within just five years of its publication in 1818, Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel inspired a stage play that became a hit – the first of a seemingly endless stream of adaptations for other media that has flowed ever since. While the most popular of these are associated with the screen (going back to a 1910 short silent film from Edison Studios), Frankenstein has additionally spawned operas, musicals and this full-length ballet, premiered by the Royal Ballet in 2016….
Filed under: ballet, CD review, Gramophone
October 28, 2021 • 11:54 am Comments Off on Christian Baldini’s New CD
The talented young conductor Christian Baldini conducts the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra on this newly released album — a challenging and fascinating collection of music by Lutosławski, Ligeti, Varèse, and Baldini himself. I was delighted to review it for the November issue of Gramophone:
Having proved himself an engaging Mozartian with his previous release (a collection of arias and overtures with Elizabeth Watts and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra – Linn, 7/15), Christian Baldini here displays his expertise in modernist and contemporary fare…
Filed under: CD review, conductors, Gramophone
August 4, 2021 • 12:37 pm Comments Off on Paul Lansky’s Angles
I review Paul Lansky’s latest release in the August issue of Gramophone:
After more than three decades as a computer music pioneer, Paul Lansky made a dramatic change of tack and began composing exclusively for acoustic instruments. This release is Vol 17 in the extensive series from the Bridge label …
Filed under: CD review, Gramophone
July 15, 2021 • 12:27 pm Comments Off on Lavena: in your hands
My review of the cellist Lavena is in the July issue of Gramophone:
An enigmatic soundscape shivers into being in Gemma Peacocke’s Amygdala for solo cello and fixed electronics. The cellist wends her way, tentatively, towards acoustic clarity, playing richly expressive double-stops as if coming up for air….
Filed under: CD review, Gramophone
May 17, 2021 • 9:02 am Comments Off on Yuri McCoy, Symphonic Roar
My latest review for Gramophone, in the May issue, is of organist Yuri McCoy’s debut album, Symphonic Roar:
The impetus for this debut album by Yuri McCoy was to celebrate the French Romantic organ and the gloriously rich, ‘symphonic’ sonority associated with it. But the American organist has set about doing so with a bracingly original programme of pieces…
Filed under: CD review, Gramophone, organ
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MEMETERIA by Thomas May 