Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
Resch/Beethoven: String quartets (Genuin)
The Frankfurt-based Aris Quartet play Beethoven with sweeping flair and something close to insouciance
Johanna Martzy/Michael Mann (DG Eloquence)
The fruits of Michael Mann’s musical career is neither one thing nor another; trapped between Weimar modernism and American consumerism
1942: Prokofiev – Copland – Poulenc (Delphian Records)
In the midst of war, three composers in different countries wrote sonatas which have now been collated in an album of pure escapism
Vaughan Williams: Symphonies 4 and 6 (LSO Live)
Italian-born and London-bred Antonio Pappano lets the gentle rhythms of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s music say it all
Hindemith: Wind sonatas (Warner)
Paul Hindemith’s music is extremely well-made, intelligent, civilised, and moderately witty — so why has it all but vanished?
Hilary Hahn: Paris (Deutsche Grammophon)
Hahn’s finely honed skills as a violinist are seldom in demand on this one-star album
Im Abendrot (DG)
The baritone Matthias Goerne sings with a voice like brushed velvet and diction clearer than iced vodka in this five-star album
Krzysztof Penderecki: Credo (Hänssler Classics)
The climaxes are sensational, some of the strongest music Penderecki ever created; we may never see its like again
Alexei Stanchinsky: Piano works (Ondine)
Stanchinsky occupies a tonal territory midway between Rachmaninov and Scriabin; an amalgam of suppurating misery and crackpot visionary
Friedrich Gulda: Symphony in G (SWR Musik)
Gulda’s Symphony in G has 35 minutes of invention, which is more than can be said for most late-twentieth century symphonies