Music reviews

This has been a great year for classical music and I've found it really hard to select only 5 releases. Many of my favourite...

Philip Glass, Symphony 11Bruckner Orchester LinzDennis Russell Davies (conductor)Orange Mountain Music Philip Glass, the non-minimalist composer In my review for the Ólafsson album of the Philip...

Music Reviews: Philip Glass, Piano Works (selection) Víkingur Ólafsson (pianist) Deutsche Grammophon Bach, Solo Piano Works (selection) Víkingur Ólafsson (pianist) Deutsche Grammophon   Philip Glass I have listened to a lot of different recordings of the...

Review: Mahler, Symphony 6 "Tragic" MusicAeterna Teodor Currentzis (conductor) Sony Classical This is not just another Mahler 6th. And this is no easy thing to say considering that the competition...

Rachmaninov, Piano Concertos 2 & 4 Daniil Trifonov (piano) The Philadelphia Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor) Deutsche Grammophon, October 2018 When a piece of music is among your favourite works of...

Is the Stenhammar 2nd symphony a great work? Listen to Lindberg’s account and you will realise that it is. And why shouldn’t it be?...

This is Brahms as it should be. Bold, grand, shamelessly romantic. Of course, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin have given us first-rate symphony cycles...

First the good news: This Shostakovich album by Nelsons is better recorded than the previous releases in this set (symphonies 5, 8, 9 and...

"Bruckner's Eighth Symphony is the zenith of symphonic writing." — Sergiu Celibidache Is this the best symphony ever written? Quite possibly: even if it is...

It's no surprise that this disc is immediately accessible and a joy to listen to. Lindberg's own compositions have always been a rewarding experience,...