Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
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
Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Cello Concerto (CPO)
If Norman Lebrecht goes a month without hearing Weinberg he feels the loss
Britten, Hindemith, RVW, Martinu (Claves)
The 1934 suite by Ralph Vaughan Williams demands a sympathy for the rolling contours of the English countryside
