Giacomo Puccini La Fanciulla del West Zubin Mehta, Placido Domingo, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden PENTATONE REMASTERED CLASSICS PTC 5186243 May 2017. Puccini’s late opera La fanciulla del West bristles with drama and intrigue in this newly remastered classic recording with Zubin Mehta conducting…
Tag: Shostakovich
Van Cliburn: The Texan who Conquered Russia
Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 Van Cliburn, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner Release date: 04 Nov 2016, G010003642898N Time magazine hailed him as “The Texan who conquered Russia” and “Horowitz, Liszt and Presley rolled into one”. Praise indeed for the tall, slim, mild mannered yet unknown Van Cliburn who, as an unwitting…
Béla Bartók, Out of Doors
Budapest – a fine city. Formerly a provincial backwater made up of three small towns (Buda, Pest and Obuda), at the turn of the 20th century it was Europe’s fastest growing metropolis and a symbol of Hungarian national pride, the population ballooning from around 300,000 in 1870 to over a million in 1910.
Sabre Dance
Together with Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian (1903 – 1978) is considered one of the three giants of Soviet music, albeit the most conservative for he wrote colourful, evocative and unashamedly tuneful music with a broad popular appeal.