Brilliant Classics

Rimsky-Korsakov's tenth opera, The Tsar's Bride moves away from the fairytale tableaux-style of opera in which he had triumphed. This is a grand narrative in the Verdian style. That said, the musical language is unmistakably Russian, with a motif (Slava) running like a thread throughout the score. This motto can also be heard in Boris Godunov,...

Spanning 6 CDs and featuring many a consummate performance, this release celebrates the genius of Schubert through detailing all of his late chamber music.The compilation begins with the two piano trios, works of immense virtuosity whose fluent melodies betray the composer's affinity for song. Moving on to the quartets, we encounter expressive...

Did Richter give more concerts than any other pianist of the 20th century? It's certainly possible. He shunned the high life and lights to set up a festival in a barn in southwest France; to drag himself across the plains and mountains of Soviet Russia, playing Hindemith and more to audiences who likely had never even heard a piano -- as well as...

Spanning three CDs and providing hours of fascinating listening, this compilation surveys an important facet of the Russian school through detailing one of the lesserknown areas of its output: piano trios.The compilation begins with Tchaikovsky's famous A minor Trio Op.50, a work that effectively initiated the in memoriam trio and which pays homage...

Although Girolamo Frescobaldi is said to have had a beautiful singing voice, it was his talent as a keyboardist that brought him into the spotlight in Italy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and which allowed him the opportunity to frequent such established composers as John Dowland and Orlando di Lasso. After Frescobaldi was appointed...

Mahler's Fifth Symphony was completed in 1903, and subjected to immediate revision before the composer conducted the premier in Cologne in October the following year. For such a brilliant conductor and composer for the orchestra, the Fifth appears to have caused him much trouble, and he continued to reviseand tinker with the score right up to his...