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"Period" Bruckner? Really? In the '90s, the historical-practice movement's incursions into Romantics extended to Verdi's Requiem, so maybe Bruckner isn't so far-fetched. Neither does this depart much from a standard Romantic approach, although Pablo Heras-Casado, a "modern" conductor, eschews routine interpretive touches and underplays certain episodes in favor of the larger picture. In the first-…

What is this? That question is reasonable to ask after hearing Alpha's new concept album, Electric Fields. The plans for this recording began with the Labèque sisters. They teamed up with the ever-adventurous soprano Barbara Hannigan and composer/performer David Chalmin, who combined spiritual texts by…

John Atkinson reviewed Aurender's N10 music server ($8000, 4TB; add $500 for 8TB capacity) in the April 2016 issue. When he offered me his review sample to use in my review, in the March 2019 issue, of EMM Labs' DV2 DAC, I replied with an enthusiastic "Yes!" As I marveled about the beauty of the Aurender-EMM combo's smooth, warm, nonfatiguing sound, John proposed I write this Follow-Up.

Previously, the only Aurender product that had visited my reference system had been the A10 caching network music…

Luisi serves up forthright yet unusually cultivated Nielsen. His suave manner, a bit like Rattle's, smooths the music's rougher edges; he doesn't overplay, literally or figuratively, such characteristic gestures as the obsessive short motifs (ostinato, indeed!). In contrast to the Briton, Luisi does this without sacrificing propulsion, energy, or…

The best American conservatory players can match fully fledged professionals in musicality and polish, so it's no surprise that the Curtis Institute has launched its own label. Kicking off with a showpiece like Scheherazade might have been a gamble, but not with Osmo Vänskä, recently of the Minnesota Orchestra, at the helm.

Once past the self-conscious opening gestures, the conductor limns an unusually…

The Seventh, Bruckner's most accessible symphony, has proved elusive on record. Traditionalists have emphasized its "vertical" aspects, its tonal and harmonic weight, at the cost of forward motion; "horizontal," Italianate conductors (Abbado, Chailly) have reversed that imbalance.

François-Xavier Roth gets it right. Tempi, save in a conventional Scherzo, are…

The Tchaikovsky trio, cast in two large movements, frequently struggles to find an identity, or an aesthetic point. The Tr°o Arriaga's recording is the first I've actually liked. In the first movement, the players project the two themes with clear contours and firm direction; in the codetta, they delve more deeply into typical Tchaikovskian yearning, turning introspective as the recap winds down. Their…

Here's a superbly executed oddity that somehow manages to enthrall: Atmospherically recorded arrangements for string orchestra of works written between 1847 (Mendelssohn's final String Quartet No.6 in F minor, Op.80) and 2019 (Joanna Marsh's In Winter's House). That a string program that includes two pieces initially composed for choral voices works so superbly is due to the care and…

The Danish String Quartet's "Prism" series pairs a Beethoven quartet with a connected Bach fugue and another, related work: The Beethoven becomes a prism to diffract the others. I couldn't tell you I heard motivic relationships among these three scores, but they constitute a pleasing program.

The firm-bowed, full-bodied rendition of Bach's G minor Fugue sets the tone for the program, marked by the Danish's…

It's not immediately clear why these well-wrought concerti should be in Hyperion's "Romantic Piano Concerto" series. The First Concerto, a transitional score, is planted solidly in the Classical period.

The opening ritornello offers ruggedly Classical contours, while the predominantly linear piano writing could be amped-up Mozart; a turbulent tutti where we…