Lebrecht Weekly | War poems (Somm)
I am generally resistant to albums that impose an external theme on unrelated pieces of music from different places and times. In this case, it is eastern Europe, 1814 to 2024.
Norman Lebrecht
Norman Lebrecht
Norman Lebrecht is a prolific writer on music and cultural affairs. His blog, Slipped Disc, is one of the most popular sites for cultural news. He presents The Lebrecht Interview on BBC Radio 3 and is a contributor to several publications, including the Wall Street Journal and The Standpoint. Visit every Friday for his weekly CD review // Norman Lebrecht est un rédacteur prolifique couvrant les événements musicaux et Slipped Disc, est un des plus populaires sites de nouvelles culturelles. Il anime The Lebrecht Interview sur la BBC Radio 3 et collabore à plusieurs publications, dont The Wall Street Journal et The Standpoint. Vous pouvez lire ses critiques de disques chaque vendredi.
From this author
Lebrecht Weekly | Liszt: Faust Symphony (Bis)
Franz Liszt has been cancelled by the world’s orchestras, probably for something he said on social media. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a Liszt orchestral work on a concert programme, other than the two piano concertos?
Lebrecht Weekly | Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Complete string quartets (Naxos)
If it’s summer music you’re after, it doesn’t come much sunnier than this. Castelnuovo-Tedesco – it translates as Newcastle German – was a Florentine who traced his lineage to the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492.
Lebrecht Weekly | Did Bartok Play Klezmer?
Did Bartok play klezmer? The Hungarian composer enthused over many authentic forms of folk music and spent his summers tracking them down across the Balkans, the Iberian peninsula and north Africa.
Lebrecht Weekly | Klaus Tennstedt: The Radio Broadcasts
Klaus Tennstedt fled East Germany in his mid-40s in 1971 and hung around for half a decade before anyone noticed he was a truly remarkable conductor – ‘last of the old Kapellmeisters,’ as Herbert von Karajan drily put it.
Lebrecht Weekly | A Tale of Two Piano Concertos
In the early days of long-playing records, a man in a suit at EMI realised that the Grieg and Schumann concertos were half an hour long, in the same key of A minor and would fit on either side of a plate of shellac without requiring fillers.
Lebrecht Weekly | Yundi Gives Mozart a Makeover
Unlike elements in Beijing who had him arrested on phony morals charges, I have never wavered in my belief that Yundi Li is the most interesting and original pianist to emerge from China.
Lebrecht Weekly | Is it worth messing with Beethoven? Brett Dean and Jonathan Biss find out
Composers have learned not to mess with Beethoven. Fewer variations have been written on themes by Beethoven than on any other master’s work.
Lebrecht Weekly | Mieczyslaw Weinberg: String quartets 6, 13, 15 (Chandos)
What small labels do best is backing the owner’s hunches. BIS in Stockholm produced symphonies by Alfred Schnittke when he was unheard outside Russia. Hyperion…
Lebrecht Weekly | Arnold Schoenberg’s “Expressionist Music” (Orchid)
I have no problems with impressionism. It’s what French artists do off the cuff when they can’t be bothered with sketches, what French composers do…
