Although Hannu Lintu closed his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in the midst of pandemic lockdown back in May 2021, fabulous recorded documents of their extraordinary collaboration still keep coming. Last year alone, Lintu and the FRSO released no less than three notable albums of contemporary music. In the summer... Continue Reading →
Premiered simultaneously in Hamburg and Cologne on 4 December 1920, under Egon Pollak and Otto Klemperer, respectively, the twenty-three-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s first full-length music drama, Die tote Stadt, Op. 12 (1916-20), soon became one of the greatest operatic hits of the century. On 10 January 1921, the opera was first performed in Vienna, the... Continue Reading →
Despite the fact that the pandemic called off the most of the celebrations scheduled for Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year, the recorded legacy from the year 2020 does still include many notable album renditions, as demonstrated by the new entries made in the composer’s discography by the end of 2021. Among all these... Continue Reading →
Although proclaimed dead repeatedly throughout the streaming era, the old-school concept of an album is alive and well. The latest evidence comes in the guise of Víkingur Ólafsson’s superlative Mozart & Contemporaries, released on the Icelandic pianist’s venerable house label Deutsche Grammophon. Alongside Ólafsson’s outstanding performances, the new album is a case in point of... Continue Reading →
Having film music available in both original soundtrack recordings and various re-recordings is an immense joy. Since the pioneering work of Bernard Herrmann and Charles Gerhardt, film music anthologies have mounted into an appealing sub-genre in the record market. Released in the eighties and early nineties, John Williams’s albums with the Boston Pops established a... Continue Reading →
Ever since its wake in the course of the Age of Enlightenment, the medium of string quartet has lured composers into untrodden creative paths, resulting in sonic discoveries of unique intimacy and connectivity. Honed into being by Haydn and Mozart with their ground-breaking scores, the string quartet was carried over to the next level by... Continue Reading →
In conjunction with Sofia Gubaidulina’s two-season residency with the Gewandhausorchester, Deutsche Grammophon has put out a terrific portrait album, coinciding with the composer’s ninetieth birthday. Conducted by Andris Nelsons, three works are featured on the new CD, each scored for an extended orchestral line-up of triple, quadruple and, occasionally, quintuple winds and brass, full strings... Continue Reading →
The connections between Leonard Bernstein’s comic operetta Candide (1956/1989) and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chours go back thirty two years. On 12 and 13 December 1989, the composer made his last public appearance with his beloved LSO, conducting two concert performances of Candide at the Barbican Centre. Preserved on video, the live performances were... Continue Reading →
Andris Nelsons conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker. © Lena Laine Returning to the Philharmonie podium this week, Andris Nelsons’s latest guest appearance with the Berliner Philharmoniker presented the audiences with a splendid programme, featuring three very different works by three very different composers, Jüri Reinvere, Mieczysław Weinberg and Igor Stravinsky. The program-opener, Reinvere’s Maria Anna, wach,... Continue Reading →
Pricipal Cello Lauri Kankkunen, Chief Conductor Susanna Mälkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic performing Esa-Pekka Salonen's Cello Concerto (2017) at the Helsinki Music Centre on Thursday. © Jari Kallio This week, coinciding with Jean Sibelius’s birthday, the Helsinki Philharmonic, Chief Conductor Susanna Mälkki and Principal Cello Lauri Kankkunen celebrated the multi-faceted traditions of Finnish music with... Continue Reading →
AIM - Adventures in Music 