A fine string quartet stretches to 70 CDs while Furtwängler makes a vinyl comeback and Kats-Chernin celebrates her 60th.

Sir Andrew Davis plays it cool in Antarctica.

One of the great musical partnerships proves well worth the dollars and cents.

The hot Del Sol Quartet shines bright with Minimal effort.

Once upon a time, says Osmo Vänskä, there was a Symphony...

The German-born maestro is making a comeback thanks to the return of the LP.

The talented Mr Zimerman: Masterful performances of a pair of Schubert's late masterworks.

A no longer essential recording, hindered by some muddy sound.

Kissin in the moonlight: Evgeny Kissin gives us mature and dazzling Beethoven.

Delightfully warm and elegant Classical Cello Concertos.

The Scottish composer Erik Chisholm was nicknamed McBartók because his use of traditional Scottish music was similar to his friend Bartók’s treatment of Hungarian folk music. Both composers found a way to integrate ethnomusical sources into classical structures and an imaginative 20th-century idiom. During the Second World War, Chisholm was stationed in India where he fell under the spell of Hindustani music, particularly traditional Indian ragas, and began incorporating them into his work. He noted a resemblance between Indian music and the Scottish bagpipe music called Pìobaireachd – for example, their use of improvisation over a drone. In 1947, Chisholm accepted a university post in Cape Town, South Africa, where he died in 1965 at the age of 61. While in South Africa he wrote several operas and wrote a book that helped revive interest in the music of Janácˇek. Chisholm’s output is barely known today. In 2012, Hyperion released a marvelous disc of his Piano Concertos No 1, Pìobaireachd (1937) and No 2, Hindustani (1949), neatly encompassing his major musical influences. Both are authoritative, colourful and significant works. On this new release, we get two pieces from his Scottish period. The composer’s orchestration of three of his 24 Preludes…

South African-born English composer John Joubert turns 90 this year and SOMM Recordings are celebrating. In July, Clive Paget reviewed their recording of the opera Jane Eyre, remarking on Joubert’s stylistic resemblance to Britten. It’s very apparent in this choral music, written between 1952 and 2015. The polytonal harmonies, the word setting, and the choral voicings strongly recall the early Britten of A Boy Was Born and Cantata Academica, although Joubert’s settings are more robust. These traits appear clearly in Three Portraits, a setting of poems by Tudor poet John Skelton. The works are mostly unaccompanied, one exception the charming Autumn Rain (1985). The longest, most interesting work is South of the Line: an anti-war cantata, setting Hardy’s poems about the Boer War. The singers are accompanied by two pianos, percussion and timpani (very Noye’s Fludde), excitingly used. Two movements employ solo vocalists: soprano Chloe Salvidge is impressive in the demanding tessitura of A Wife in London. The Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir used boys in their 2014 Howells recording, but this time the sopranos and altos are female. In fortes (such as Chorus 1 of Incantation, or the Sonnet Op. 123) the women overpower the men, whose… Continue reading Get…