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Also this issue: The Top 20 rock/pop/hip-hop CDs of 2002 Top 10 Jazz 2002 Best (Underrated) Roots 2002 DJ Nights Beat Box |
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January 2- 8, 2003
music
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Zwilich: Three Concertos
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is not a household name, but her work has tremendous integrity and power, with an almost old-fashioned dedication to nuts and bolts craft and direct expressiveness. Her music is novel and completely satisfying at once, a most unusual combination. Zwilich's muse, the redoubtable Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, honors her with vibrant, heartfelt playing.
As much as any other composer, Steve Reich has reinvented the way the world thinks about new classical music. This program of four of his works, spread out over several decades, demonstrates both his artistic growth and the remarkable consistency of his core sensibilities.
Perahia has become one of the great piano artists of our day, adding, with this exciting new release, yet another brick in the wall. Perahia is still the poet of his early career, but now a Byronic sort, with much fire and steel. Here is a reading of Chopin's dazzling music to stand comparison to the legends.
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George Enescu was a Romanian composer best known for his folksong settings, but in this more cosmopolitan vein he produced music of stunning richness and emotional depth. If you enjoy the music of, say, early Schoenberg or Bartík, this will be a great treat. Kremer and his band play magnificently.
This performance of this warhorse seems to capture the radical spirit of the music that caused the audience to erupt into fist fights at the Paris premiere in 1913. Gergiev cannot be counted on for much finesse here, but there is no more exciting version than this in the catalog.
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6. Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
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Arvo Prt's music can descend into a sort of pious religiosity that some can respond to on a superficial level. When he strives less fervently to this kind of false meaning, his prodigious gifts can yield music of great power and beauty, with an uncanny mix of mysticism and minimalism. It happens here, on one of the most successful Prt releases in years.
The fine Norwegian pianist Andsnes gets off to a stiff start in the monumental Schubert Sonata, but quickly settles into a warm and lucid account that finds the wondrous, epic scope of this music. Bostridge is an ingratiating, up-and-coming British tenor, and he dispatches these lesser-known songs with easy charm.
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These two complete recordings are the bookends of Gould's celebrated career. In photographs, the contrast between the sprightly, boyish Gould of 1955 and the shockingly dissolute-looking artist of 1981 is extreme, but musically, the differences are more subtle. Both versions are filled with irresistible joy and wonder. A third disc features interviews with the eccentric pianist.
These are cool, brilliant performances, but the same adjectives also apply to Vivaldi's jaunty music. This is not the warm, emotional baroque of J.S. Bach. The Venetian ensemble dispatches this material with superb panache and unerring style.
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There are a lot of hot young violinists out there, but Maxim Vengerov harks back to another age with his captivating combination of elegant technique and self-confident swagger. He performs here alone, without the safety net of a pianist, let alone an orchestra, drawing a bold, silvery line across an inky black background. (p_burwasser@citypaper.net)
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