Archive
The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.
The instant appeal of this recording is that it contains not just two well-known Haydn concertos but three extra pieces that complement and contextualize them. The second benefit is the performance.
Read MoreFour releases, arriving in timely fashion for the upcoming New Year, explore the shushed-up sounds of creative Jewish femininity.
Read MoreNone of the music on this gripping compilation will be familiar to anyone alive, but much of it is essential listening.
Read MoreA vintage piano helps Alexei Lyubimov redeem C.P.E. Bach's late keyboard music from mediocrity, adding pastel colours to the sound picture, along with a hint of unpredictability that can almost be Cageian.
Read MoreIt has been five years since Hans Werner Henze left us, and it is once again a pleasure to encounter these otherworldly pieces, rich in references to a forgotten age and its leisurely pace.
Read MoreMarc-André Hamelin plays a piece, tainted by controversy, that Morton Feldman wrote as an act of homage to Bunita Marcus, who accused him of theft and sexual abuse.
Read MoreA new release from Opera Rara usually consists of some bel canto work that has languished forgotten in a vault since its premiere 160 years ago. This package, though, is different: a pair of debut releases by two fast-rising singers, soprano and tenor, mingling well-known arias with the fairly obscure.
Read MoreDaniel Barenboim's new recording of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius is the best-sounding on record. But is it the best-played?
Read MoreMahler's 5th Symphony has no shortage of fine interpretations. Two new recordings join them: one great and the other among the greatest of all time.
Read MoreWilliam Walton is very much an on-off composer. What’s remarkable about this recording is that the performance transcends his shortcomings.
Read MoreTogether, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and his wife Julia Varady make the love in Schumann’s songs seem somehow less hopeless, and the hope in Mendelssohn less forlorn.
Read MoreTwo cello concertos, one upbeat, the other pessemistic, make a perfect companions on this new disc.
Read Morehe music of Ben-Haim will not change lives – by 1984, when he died, it was hardly heard in Israel any more – but the musical personality behind it is attractive, smart and persuasive
Read MoreTo sing Richard Strauss, everything has to be just-so, shimmering on the surface and hinting at Freudian urges below. English soprano Louise Alder meets his challenge.
Read Moreever heard of Carbonelli? Don’t feel too bad about it. Listen to the music, though, and you will wonder how work of such quality and intricacy could vanish so comprehensively into the mists of history.
Read MoreGeorgy Sviridov was born in the thick of Russia’s metamorphosis, and his idiom in these lieder – narrative, tonal, almost static at times – reflects the stand-off between political upheaval and the impervious cycles of nature.
Read MoreThere is a lot of competition for performances of Ravel and De Falla's work for piano and orchestra, but Steven Osborne's new release belongs among the best.
Read MoreThere is nothing wrong with this account of Shostakovich's First Symphony it if you count all the notes and admire the sound. It takes no risks at all, and is only partially redeemed by the inclusion of rare juvenalia.
Read MoreListening to these Kathleen Ferrier tracks, newly retrieved from BBC broadcasts and never released before, one is struck over again by the great contralto’s overriding characteristic – her natural, unfettered generosity.
Read MoreShai Wosner has released a fine recording of impromptus by various composers. But when you're done listening, where do you put it?
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