Lebrecht Weekly | Isabella Leonarda – A portrait (Brilliant Classics)
In the inexhaustible search for women in history, Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) has emerged from the mists of Novara as the most prolific composer of the…
Browsing: Norman Lebrecht
Lebrecht Weekly | Nico Muhly: Stranger (AVIE)
Covid has been cruel to rising composers. Two years out, with theatres shut and managements unwilling to commit to new work, is equivalent to having…
Lebrecht Weekly | Olivier Messiaen – Quartet for the end of time (OUR)
Neither the title of the work nor the circumstances of its creation offer much by way of levity. Messiaen was 31, a soldier in uniform,…
Lebrecht Weekly: Paderewski, Stojowski: violin sonatas (CPO)
We don’t hear much of Ignacy Jan Paderewski these days, let alone his friend Zygmunt Stojowski. The first prime minister of independent Poland has been…
Lebrecht’s Albums of the Week: Singing in the Dead of Night / Love and Death
You’ll often hear me telling people a couple of generations down the line that they should listen to new music of our time rather than…
Lebrecht’s Album of the Week: Malcolm Arnold – The Dancing Master (Resonus)
The most popular and prolific composer of his time, Malcolm Arnold was shunned by the British music establishment for being, mostly, too popular and prolific,…
Paul Dessau: Chamber music (MDG/Deutschland)
Like Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler, and with equal reluctance, Paul Dessau left McCarthyist America in the late 1940s to settle in the austere and…
Howard Skempton: 24 Preludes and Fugues (Orchid)
First there was J S Bach. Then came Dmitri Shostakovich. The form is open for others to play with. I was unaware of Skempton’s contribution…
Paul Ben-Haim: Evocation (Bis)
When Paul Frankenburger was taken on as Bruno Walter’s assistant conductor in Munich in 1920, he was one among thousands of highly-trained musicians in a…
J S Bach: Goldberg Variations/Sonatas and Partitas (Delphian/Navona)
In times of stress I reach for Bach in the raw, one instrument, one pair of hands. I’m choosy who I listen to when the…
