Classical Music
Eighth Blackbird and Navarra String Quartet
I’m not giving up trying to persuade younger people to listen to new composers
Wagner, restless provocateur
Wagner’s sexual ambiguity spoke to Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and Thomas Mann, says Norman Lebrecht
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
Valentin Silvestrov: 7th symphony (Naxos)
Silvestrov writes almost as if Mahler is speaking to us from beyond the grave
A worthy heiress to Princess Ida
Where has originality and character gone in the art of Violin playing?
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
Theodorakis and Christou: Intersection 1955
The Ballad of Mauthausen ranks among the most beautiful music ever written about the Nazi Holocaust