Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
Dear Mademoiselle (Alpha)
Mademoiselle was not much of a composer, too set on correct form to allow the flight of inspiration
Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem (DG)
Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem covers a gamut of moods, from pity to passion
Eighth Blackbird and Navarra String Quartet
I’m not giving up trying to persuade younger people to listen to new composers
Malcolm Arnold: The Dancing Master (Resonus)
The BBC thought Malcolm Arnold’s opera was not serious enough and a bit bawdy
Franz Schmidt: 4th symphony (Berliner Philharmoniker recordings)
This is music that is going nowhere
Leo Weiner: Divertimentos (Naxos)
Music from the Hungarian educator who shaped the sound of the modern American orchestra
Nostalgia – The Sea of Memories (Accent)
A marvellous blend of early Baroque and Mediterranean traditional songs
Valentin Silvestrov: 7th symphony (Naxos)
Silvestrov writes almost as if Mahler is speaking to us from beyond the grave
John Williams in Vienna (DG)
Zero stars for the vacuous Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Rachmaninov: Preludes, Etudes (DG)
Babayan’s Rachmninov is remarkable is its absence of obvious virtuosity