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Bryce Dessner on his new album 'Solos'

Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2024 Shortlist is revealed!

Exclusive video interview: Klaus Mäkelä on Shostakovich's symphonies

Introducing the September 2024 issue of Gramophone, featuring Nathalie Stutzmann

Leonard Bernstein the Composer – with Edward Seckerson

Les Talens Lyriques | Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year 2024 Nominee

Why Les Talens Lyriques deserves your vote for the 2024 Orchestra of the Year Award

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra | Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year 2024 Nominee

Why the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra deserves your vote for the 2024 Orchestra of the Year Award

Explore ‘Dalia’s Mixtape’ with the Gramophone Podcast

Follow Dalia Stasevska's mixtape project with a new podcast as each new track is released

Chopin in Context: introducing the 20th Chopin And His Europe festival

The 20th Chopin And His Europe festival will underline the composer’s place at the heart of the continent’s musical identity

The Gramophone Podcast

The composer explores his new release of work for solo artists

Anna Clyne on her new album 'Shorthand'

The composer speaks with Hattie Butterworth about her album of string music

Podcast: Alexandra Dariescu on the piano concertos of Clara Schumann and Edvard Grieg

The pianist Alexandra Dariescu speaks to Editor Martin Cullingford about her new album for Signum

Gramophone contributor and long-time admirer of the musician, Edward Seckerson discusses Bernstein’s wide-ranging compositional output

The composer Alexander Goehr has died at the age of 92

Alexander Goehr was one of the leading Modernists of the 1960s generation

Composer Errollyn Wallen named Master of the King's Music

Gramophone’s former editor christopher pollard has died aged 67, video of the day: voces8 perform parry's 'i was glad'.

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Editor's Choice

The Best Classical Music Albums of 2024 (So Far)

All of these outstanding classical albums were Editor's Choices in Gramophone magazine and are highly recommended. If you are searching for an inspirational new recording, look no further

Editor's Choice: September 2024 | The best new classical albums

This month's selection includes ‘The Kurt Weill Album’ from Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra and Joana Mallwitz

Hi-Fi, Books, Reissues & Archive Reviews

Review - The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute, Edited by Jessica Waldoff

A fascinating, occasionally provocative and (mostly) accessible companion for anyone seeking...

Review - Cambridge Audio CXA81 Mk II

The model it replaces was already excellent, but digital and analogue upgrades have made this...

Book review - Olivier Messiaen (A Critical Biography) By Robert Sholl

This is a book that manages to say a great deal in relatively few words

Box-set Round-up: September 2024

Rob Cowan on two quartet collections and surveys of two composers’ piano works

Special Editions

Gramophone Presents … My Classical Music

Your favourite stars on the composers, artists and albums they love

Gramophone Presents … Film Music

Our Editor introduces a special edition of Gramophone, out now, celebrating music for the movies

Gramophone Presents ... Mahler

Our special edition reproduces the most significant articles about his music from our archives

Gramophone Presents ... Mozart

Our special edition draws on 99 years of the finest writing about the composer's music

Reflecting recording’s past, present and future

Editor Martin Cullingford introduces the September issue of Gramophone

Exploring excellence across generations of classical musicians

Editor Martin Cullingford introduces the August issue of Gramophone, featuring interviews with Joana Mallwitz and Leonard Slatkin

John Culshaw and the unsung heroes of music

Martin Cullingford introduces the July issue of Gramophone

For the love of Liszt

Emmanuel Despax shares his unique perspective on Liszt's work, shaped by his personal connection to the composer

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All new reviews appear on our new modern mobile-friendly site here: https://www.musicwebinternational.com/ Since MusicWeb was founded nearly 30 years ago, the internet has moved on, and at an increasing pace. We have been conscious of the need to upgrade the site; for example to make it mobile-friendly. I’m delighted to say that moment has arrived. The new site will be the home for all new reviews and articles published from December 2022 onwards. The new site represents a really important step in MusicWeb’s development. It will offer a clearer layout, easier navigation and a crisp, modern look. However, we know that our readers greatly value, as a source for reference, the huge amount of material that MusicWeb has previously published. Therefore, MusicWeb will now operate on two sites with the old site (where you are now) to be known as the MusicWeb Archive . The old site will not be completely inactive - a number of the more substantial sections (e.g. the indexes) will remain here and continue to be updated.  The Message Board will still work from either site and you will still be able to access all our nearly 60,000-strong back catalogue of reviews and all original articles. You will know which site you are on because they will look totally different. Links on both sites will mean you can easily flip between the two. There will be one or two features of the present site which we won’t be able to replicate, at least initially, on the new version. However, I think that any lost features will be amply compensated by the improved look and feel of the new site; furthermore, we will continue to work on it to make it even better for you over time. Onwards and Upwards! Len Mullenger

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It has come to our attention that the now defunct online CD retailer Crotchet, to which we used to link reviews back in the 2000s, has had its domain name taken over by an escort agency. So if you see a link to Crotchet on our site, please don't click on it. There are probably thousands of reviews with the Crotchet link, so it isn't feasible to go back and delete them all.

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Disclaimer Any opinions expressed in reviews or articles on this site are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the site owner, Len Mullenger or the Editors. Reviewers and authors retain copyright in their work unless it has been paid for or commissioned by the site owner.

Founder: Len Mullenger 1995 MusicWeb International is a registered Trade Mark 2265784; MCPS/PRS Online Exploitation Licence LE000498. Discs for review may be sent to: Jonathan Woolf 76 Lushes Road Loughton Essex IG10 3QB United Kingdom [email protected] MusicWeb Visitor Loyalty In 12 months 96,000 visitors visited MusicWeb more than 150 times in addition another 56,000 visited more than 100 times 63,000 more than 50 times (approx once a week) 67,000 more than 25 times 59,000 more than 15 times 60,000 more than 10 times (approx once a month)

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Veracini’s Virtuoso Violin Sonatas

In her personal comments included in this disc’s liner notes, violinist Rachel Barton Pine laments the fact that, although they used to be concert staples [...]

Stephen Paulus Choral Works–Powerful & Poignant

Stephen Paulus was a successful, prolific, and much-revered American composer acclaimed for his work in all the major genres, particularly opera, orchestral, and choral; his [...]

Magnificent Magnificats by Bach & Vivaldi

How does a group of performers make a Vivaldi concerto you’ve heard more times than you can count sound, well, fresh and engaging? You play [...]

Sounds & Silence

Silence is a highly underrated component of music. But to fully appreciate and understand–especially in the world of a cappella music–it’s necessary to focus on [...]

Tai Murray’s Estimable Ysaÿe

Violinist Tai Murray can legitimately boast just a third-degree separation from the composer of these solo violin sonatas: one of her teachers, Yuval Yaron, was [...]

Latest Music Reviews

Randall Thompson’s Requiem Recalled To Life

by David Vernier

For at least the middle decades of the 20th century To access this content you must login to your Insider account, or purchase a subscription for $5 monthly, or $49 annually. ... Continue Reading

A Very Good Strauss Macbeth, But A Dull Heldenleben

by David Hurwitz

Macbeth is one of Strauss’ earlier tone poems, and it really does not deserve the neglect that it has suffered in recent years. It has... Continue Reading

Poulenc’s Scintillating Concert Champêtre

Naxos has done it again! Francis Poulenc’s delicious Concert Champêtre for harpsichord and orchestra, surely the finest work of its genre, also is one of... Continue Reading

Orpheus does Orpheus

It was bound to happen: the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has finally gotten around to recording Stravinsky’s “Orpheus”. At 50 minutes, this disc offers somewhat short... Continue Reading

Paul Paray’s Sprightly Schumann Symphonies

Paul Paray’s Schumann performances are exactly what you would expect, coming from this source. They’re bright, clear, peppy, neat, and elegant, without a trace of... Continue Reading

Comparisons: Walter vs. Klemperer in Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music

Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music is a brief, powerful elegy performed To access this content you must login to your Insider account, or purchase a subscription for $5 monthly, or $49 annually. ... Continue Reading

In her personal comments included in this disc’s liner notes, violinist Rachel Barton Pine laments the fact that, although they used to be concert staples... Continue Reading

Stephen Paulus was a successful, prolific, and much-revered American composer acclaimed for his work in all the major genres, particularly opera, orchestral, and choral; his... Continue Reading

A Slow and Soggy Alkan Symphony for Solo Piano

by Jed Distler

Timings ought not be a harbinger of performance quality, yet Igor Do Amaral’s unusually protracted ones throughout Alkan’s Symphony for Solo Piano give fair warning.... Continue Reading

How does a group of performers make a Vivaldi concerto you’ve heard more times than you can count sound, well, fresh and engaging? You play... Continue Reading

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• RIP David Vernier, Editor-in-Chief by David Hurwitz August 4, 2024 David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com’s founding Editor-in-Chief passed away Thursday morning, August 1, 2024 after a long battle with cancer. The end came shockingly quickly. Just a
• Finally, It’s SIR John by ClassicsToday June 24, 2024 He’d received many honors before, but it wasn’t until last week that John Rutter, best known for his choral compositions and arrangements, especially works related
• Tanglewood On Parade: Celebrating Seiji! by ClassicsToday May 11, 2024 This year’s Tanglewood on Parade, a much-anticipated tradition that dates to 1940, will celebrate the life and legacy of the BSO’s beloved Music Director Laureate,

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A galaxy of rising chamber stars orbits around Uchida at Marlboro Festival

Since the creation of the Marlboro Music Festival in 1951, it […]

Dudamel, Venezuelan youth orchestra tear the roof off at Carnegie Hall

When people get together to celebrate with music, it may be […]

Kalmar returns, serves up season highlight with stirring Bruckner, kaleidoscopic Janáček

The Grant Park Music Festival has entered its final two weeks […]

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Noseda and NSO serve up a spirited showcase for Carlos Simon’s music

Simon: The Block ; Tales: A Folklore Symphony ; Songs of Separation ; Wake Up! National Symphony Orchestra; Gianandrea Noseda, conductor (NSO).

A new recording from the National Symphony Orchestra, released Friday, celebrates the ensemble’s partnership with Carlos Simon. The American composer, born in 1986, has served as composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center since 2021. The album brings together live recordings of four orchestral works by Simon, on the heels of the announcement that the Kennedy Center has extended the composer’s residency through the 2026-2027 season.

The disc offers a chance to assess Simon’s achievements in writing for large orchestra, and all these works are recent, composed since 2018.

The Block , from that year, drew inspiration from Romare Bearden ’s portrait of life in Harlem, a series of six panels in cut-paper collage. The NSO performed this concise piece in 2021, and the tribute to the polyglot noise of urban life comes across in Simon’s effortless swings between full orchestra swells and the more intimate sounds of piano and drum kit. An effervescent rhythmic pulse unites the work.

Tales: A Folklore Symphony refracts black history through the lens of Afro-futurism. The luscious second movement (“Flying Africans”) uses fantastic sound effects to conjure the myth that African ancestors could fly. Simon’s music is impressively polystylistic, touching on American film music, the heritage of Duke Ellington, his own gospel roots as the son of an Atlanta preacher, and European art music.

Spirituals, like “Steal Away” in the second movement and “Go Down Moses” in the third, are present but not always obvious to the ear. Hints of authoritarian force, reminiscent of Prokofiev at times, haunt the third movement, about the hard-hearted pharaoh oppressing the Hebrews. The fourth movement (“John Henry”) evokes the work song about how hard labor can kill a man. In the latter, percussion and brass hammer out a deliberate pace.

The NSO itself commissioned the other two pieces, beginning with Songs of Separation , which received its world premiere from the NSO in 2023, with lush-voiced mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. The four songs cover a broad territory, from sentimental platitudes (“The Garden”), through harsh despair (“Burning Hell”), to a Hollywood film ballad (“Dance”). The cycle reaches an upbeat climax in “We Are All the Same,” as the title sentiment is repeated many times like a liturgical litany.

Taking the “National” part of its name seriously, the NSO took Simon’s dynamic concerto for orchestra, Wake Up! , on its 2024 European tour as a concert opener . All sections of the orchestra get moments in the sun, with the flute, the percussion, and the brass making the biggest impressions.  

It is unlikely that any of these works will become regular concert repertoire, yet Simon has set a standard of consistency in his music, taking advantage of the opportunities the NSO has set before him, and for the individuality of his voice. Gianandrea Noseda leads the performances with verve and warmth and the NSO musicians efficiently shift gears between Simon’s stylistic moods, bringing out the moments of energy and beauty.

Jansen & Mäkelä make simpatico partners in new concerto disc

Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1.  Janine Jansen, violinist; […]

Carlos Kalmar looks back on 25 years leading the Grant Park Music Festival

This summer will mark the 90th anniversary of the Grant Park […]

John Mangum appointed new chief of Lyric Opera

The Lyric Opera of Chicago announced Wednesday that John Mangum will […]

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

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MUSIC AND ARTS

MUSIC OF THE WEEK

Written in Cöthen and later revised in Leipzig in 1730, the work is unique in Bach’s output. One of the notable elements of both the Fantasia and the Fugue is their exploration of remote keys, which would become more common in Bach’s organ works. Have a listen!

BBC Proms 2024

With 89 concerts, 16 of which are away from the royal albert hall and in venues around the uk from aberdeen to bristol and from belfast to nottingham, the 2024 bbc proms season promises to be one of the most ambitious and wide-ranging seasons ever presented. from friday 19th july to saturday 14th september, the classical source shall bring you reviews and news right up to the spectacular last night..

Prom 47/48: Doctor Who Prom @BBC Proms

Back after an 11-year gap (that’s a longer break in the time-warp continuum than either of the two gaps in the 60-year history of the TV programme itself), the Doctor Who Prom was back at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time since 2013.  A lot has happened since

Bristol Beacon 5/6: CBeebies Prom – Ocean Adventure

The first of two CBeebies Proms today (same programme), offered a vibrant afternoon where the exuberance of childhood met the sophistication of classical music. It was a carefully crafted event designed to cater to the boundless energy and short attention spans of young children, while still providing an enriching experience

Bristol Beacon 4: Evelyn Glennie plays Jennifer Higdon

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra – Bristol Beacon’s Orchestra in Residence – opens its concert with a little-known gem of Ukrainian music. Feodor Akimenko was born in Kharkiv in 1876, going on to teach Igor Stravinsky before writing his beautiful ‘Poème- Nocturne’ Angel in 1912. The BSO’s Ukrainian Chief Conductor (and Akimenko aficionado)

Prom 46: RCM and Sibelius Academy with Sakari Oramo@ the BBC Proms

Whether planned meticulously or not, this last week at the Proms has been a chronological musical history week: Bach (Monday), Mozart (Tuesday), Beethoven (Wednesday); 19th Century (mostly, Thursday); 20th Century (Friday and Saturday), before culminating in a world premiere in Saturday’s Prom, celebrating the skill and musicianship of the next

Prom 45: Dalia Stasevska conducts Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony

Another Saturday and another decent house for what must rank as one of the more challenging concerts of the season if only because we began with what Sir Henry Wood would have called a ‘novelty’. This was the belated UK concert premiere for a major work by the pioneering, troubled

Bristol Beacon 1/2: The Virtuous Circle

Exploring the idea of the orchestra as the perfect embodiment of teamwork, this innovative performance recasts the classical concert as an immersive experience. Associate Artists of the Bristol Beacon, the Paraorchestra is the UK’s only ensemble made up of disabled and non-disabled professional musicians. It performs Mozart’s Symphony No. 40

Prom 44: Lahav Shani plays and directs Prokofiev

Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto isn’t just a surefire showpiece that paints a vivid picture of its creator’s acerbic spirit, it’s also a treacherously difficult work conceived for Prokofiev’s own extraordinary pianistic prowess. Bringing his Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra to the Proms, Lahav Shani goes all-in: playing the concerto while directing it

Prom 43: Ravel, Mozart, Holmes, Mussorgsky – City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – Kazuki Yamada

The main item in this most enjoyable concert by the visiting City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under their chief conductor Kazuki Yamada may have been Sir Henry Wood’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, receiving a comparatively rare outing, but there were other things to enjoy as well in

more prom reviews...

Reviews of live performance.

A Tanglewood Diary 2024 – July 5-17

I spent nearly two weeks at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home, which brings performers, teachers, and students together, enabling music lovers to experience

Bampton Classical Opera – Gazzaniga’s Alcina’s Island

Ludovico Ariosto’s long narrative poem Orlando furioso, from the early 16th century, proved to be highly influential not only as a masterpiece within the domain

Opera Holland Park 2024 – Wolf-Ferrari’s Susann’s Secret & Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci

Opera Holland Park’s new production of Pagliacci this season is paired, not with its usual partner Cavalleria rusticana, but with a contrastingly comic take on the theme of suspicion and jealousy,

Yuja Wang at Tanglewood – Shostakovich, Barber and Chopin

Yuja Wang began with eight selections from Shostakovich’s cycles Opuses 34 & 87 blended into a continuous whole, creating dreamy auras, sweet melodies, dance-like passages,

Anthony Negus conducts Longborough Festival’s new staging of Wagner’s Die Walküre, directed by Amy Lane, with Lee Bisset, Paul Carey Jones, Emma Bell, Eleanor Dennis and Mark Le Brocq

Longborough’s second full Ring cycle started in 2019, then, because of Covid, had to wait a year before the company’s socially distanced semi-staging Die Walküre

Boston Symphony Orchestra – Andris Nelsons conducts Opening Night at Tanglewood – Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, and the Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra launched their 2024 Tanglewood Season with two works from a crucial period that not only marked a transition

more performance reviews...

Songs for Peter Pears 

This recital by the young Irish tenor Robin Tritschler contains songs written for the great

Ta’ mig med –  Kim Larsen songs for classical guitar

Kim Larsen (1945–2018) was a Danish singer-songwriter and guitarist, who, as a solo artist and

Czech Songs – Czech Philharmonic Orchestra – Sir Simon Rattle on Pentatone

This, the second album of songs Magdalena Kozena has recorded for Pentatone with her husband

Schubert String Quartet in B flat and G – Takacs Quartet

Of the original Takács Quartet, formed 49 years ago, only the cellist András Fejér remains, but having

Radu Lupu Live, Volumes 3 and 4

As with the first two volumes of this series, these CDs mainly capture the celebrated

Takács Assad Labro

Through their work with the Hungaraton, Decca and Hyperion labels the Takács Quartet are very

more recording reviews...

News & press releases, these are usually taken from press releases provided to us and published verbatim..

Catherine Tate to host the Doctor Who Prom

What’s On at Brighton Dome this Autumn

ANJA BIHLMAIER APPOINTED PRINCIPAL GUEST CONDUCTOR OF THE BBC PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

JONATHAN MANNERS APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF THE BBC SINGERS

RAMBERT BRING AN EXCERPT OF PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY AND MORE TO NATIONAL THEATRE’S FREE RIVER STAGE FESTIVAL

24 BBC Proms programmes to be broadcast on BBC TV and BBC iPlayer this summer

BBC Proms 2024 welcomes the world’s best international and British orchestras to the Royal Albert Hall and launches more residencies across the UK

The Ivors Academy announces the appointment of Roberto Neri as Chief Executive Officer

Classical music’s biggest awards announced in Manchester

More news....

A Tanglewood Diary 2023 – July 7-16

I spent ten days at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home, which brings performers, teachers, and students together, enabling music lovers to experience a

Romsey Chamber Music Festival 2023 – May 30-June 4

Held annually since 2018, the Romsey Chamber Music Festival is one of Hampshire’s best-kept musical secrets. This year’s six-day festival, comprising ten events, featured repertoire given by an

A Conductor’s no-nonsense response to a tempo dilemma

We are all influenced by our first exposures to greatness. Whether it is a person, structure or work of art, those initial contacts inform us

The Cleveland Orchestra in South Florida, January 2023. Franz Welser-Möst conducts Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ & Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’; Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Intensity, Respighi’s Feste romane & Lisa Batiashvili plays Tchaikovsky

Venues: Dreyfoos Concert Hall, Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, West Palm Beach, January 23; Knight Concert Hall, Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, January 27

A Tanglewood Diary 2022 – July 7-16

I spent ten days at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home, which brings performers, teachers and students together, enabling music-lovers to experience a wide

Music for the End of Time – BBCSO Total Immersion – Theresienstadt

It is impossible to take in the scale and thoroughness of what happened in Theresienstadt (Terezín in Czech), the fortress town in Moravia that Nazi

more articles...

American Record Guide

Independent critics reviewing classical recordings.

Founded in 1935; American Record Guide is America’s oldest classical music review magazine.

We cover only classical music. There are at least 300 reviews in every issue, written by a freelance staff of over 35 writers and music critics. Many issues have an “Overview”, an extensive survey of recordings of one composer or one area of the repertoire, such as “Guitar Music”.

“Independence” is a guiding principle: in an industry dominated by advertising, ARG remains free of advertiser influence, which results in few ads and no puff pieces for record labels or artists.

ARG is no longer sold in most stores. A few independent stores still carry it, but distribution thru the large chains (like Barnes & Noble) has become too much a money-loser for us. Statistics show that the internet is not killing off magazines in general; more people are reading them than ever. But we hope you will subscribe. Subscribers are what keeps us going.

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Today at the BBC Proms: legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma

What is the mysterious 'dark saying' plumbing the unsolved mystery of elgar's enigma variations, the rings of power – is this some of the best music ever written for the small screen, 'please thank marquis for missing me and for sniffing at my door': 15 composers who loved their dogs, die meistersinger von nürnberg: why it's so much more than 'wagner's longest opera', today at the bbc proms: elgar's timeless, beloved enigma variations, wu-tang clan’s rza releases his first classical album: a ballet through mud, who asked john lennon to turn the music down a musical tour of new york composers' homes, the gifted american composer whose prodigious gifts were stifled by social norms, these are the 20 best operas of all time - and the revelatory recordings you need.

Meet the most fascinating figures from classical music

Meet the sixteen - britain's happiest choir, from mozart to megadeth: how classical violinist rachel barton pine is converting heavy metal fans to classical music, musicians of the titanic: the tragic tale of the doomed ship's musical heroes, the great composers, a thousand wild concerts: how liszt invented the piano recital and became a 19th-century pin-up, 'his music could have come from another planet': how french composer erik satie liberated music, frédéric chopin: he was the quintessential romantic artist. but he was also a tricky character to be around, franz liszt: public showman and creative visionary who had them swooning in the aisles, greatest recordings, bruckner's fifth symphony: a work almost destroyed by well-meaning but misguided acolytes, simon rattle and the berlin philharmonic: seven of the best recordings, pictures at an exhibition: a guide to mussorgsky's original piano masterpiece and its best recordings, the best recording of each beethoven symphony to add to your collection, albums of the week, forgotten sounds, hindemith • schnittke: piano concerto etc, audio equipment reviews and advice, these are the best hi-fi systems for your money right now, what is a digital music streamer and which one should i buy, best speakers: how to select the perfect audio for your listening needs.

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European Youth Orchestra rises to the Mahler challenge at Carnegie

Carnegie Hall is nearing the end of World Orchestra Week (WOW!), […]

NYO-USA brings it all home with assist from Thibaudet

On Monday night at Carnegie Hall, the World Orchestra Week festival […]

Wu Man lifts a mixed outing by the Beijing Youth Orchestra

A little of the wow went out of Carnegie Hall’s WOW! […]

Africa United brings, passion, purpose and wow to WOW!

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Concert review

Music in exile from afghan youth orchestra closes carnegie festival with poignance .

The subtext of Carnegie Hall’s youth festival World Orchestra Week (WOW!), which wrapped Wednesday night with a rousing concert by the Afghan Youth Orchestra, has always been hope.

Hope that classical music–seemingly forever endangered by competing amusements, budget deficits, and an aging audience—will live on through the love and dedication of the young players whose skills have been wowing audiences all week. Hope that the matchless energy of young people can be channeled into enterprises that make the world a better place.

And in the case of these musicians from Afghanistan, hope that music itself will someday have a country to come home to.

In remarks from the stage, four teenage players and the director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) drew a picture of “a silent nation” under the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban regime, where not only Western symphonies and concertos but traditional ragas and folk music are proscribed.

They also described a society in which severe restrictions on girls and women are silencing the talents of half the population.

Today ANIM, founded in Afghanistan in 2010 by its current director Ahmad Sarmast, operates as a sort of conservatory-in-exile based in Portugal, sending its youth ensembles and its message of hope to concert halls worldwide.

Wednesday’s program began with what has become a WOW! custom, the young musicians entering down Carnegie’s two aisles, waving to the audience. In this case, the players kept going onto the stage and right out the stage doors, leaving the space free for the program’s first act: sitarists Shabana Gulestani and Gulalai Nooristani and tabla player Ahmad Emad Karimi—two women and a man, it should be noted—seated on rugs and performing ragas.

In “Rag Pilu” and the late-evening raga “Rag Bihag,” the sitars danced gently or meditated amid the shimmer of their sympathetic strings, while the tabla drummed out a metrically complex commentary, occasionally accelerating into a flurry of beats that sparked applause from the audience.

This music, with its strong influence from India, gave way to something more specifically Afghan: an ensemble of tabla and four rubabs, the robust-voiced Afghan lute, performing two Qawwali, or Sufi spiritual songs.

The first, “Tark-e Arezo Kardam” by Mohammad Hussain Sarahang, wove a hypnotic circling tune over the eager tabla. The ensemble expanded by another drum, sitar, and harmonium and seven male and female singers for the traditional song “Pir-e-mano,” whose enthusiastic playing, singing, and clapping put a hootenanny vibe under the words of the Sufi poet Rumi.

After intermission, the program shifted into Western symphonic mode, at least as far as instrumentation was concerned. Two young musicians introduced the all-female orchestra Zohra as “a symbol of freedom” and “a celebration of diversity for the future Afghanistan.”  

Under the direction of conductor Tiago Moreira da Silva, the group of about two dozen young women performed “Zendagi” by Ahmad Zahir, building from a soft woodwind melody over light percussion through catchy rhythms to a full-throated finish.

The composer Nainawaz wrote “An Selsela Mo” in the 1950s to commemorate the liberation of Afghan women from wearing the obligatory hijab. Its theme-and-variations form allowed each section to shine in turn. The prominence of flutes, bells, xylophone and tambourine in the scoring established a kind of carousel-organ timbre that would come back again and again in this concert’s arrangements of Afghan tunes.

For “Sarzamine Man” by Amir Jan Saboori, the full complement of Western and Afghan instruments that makes up the Afghanistan Youth Orchestra came onstage at last, joined by a dozen players from another festival group, the European Union Youth Orchestra. Moreira da Silva led a performance that swung from delicate rubab and sitar solos over pizzicato to broad sweeping symphonic vistas. The hissing swell of cymbal crescendos added to the cinematic character of this and other pieces on the program.

Other highlights of the twelve short pieces on the concert’s second half included a spirited rendition of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5, its Central Asian influence emphasized by casting the Afghan rubab in the role of the Hungarian cimbalom (dulcimer). The march-like Intermezzo from Kodaly’s Háry János Suite could have used more of the tempo freedom one heard in the Brahms, but gave horns and woodwind soloists opportunities to shine.

William Harvey’s Saudade do Afeganistão evoked, in a series of cinematic vignettes performed with passion and sweep, the coming of political darkness to Afghanistan, the flight of the musicians to Portugal, the hospitality of their adopted country, and their longing ( saudade ) for home.

An Afghan in New York , Moreira da Silva’s own composition inspired by the fish-out-of-water scenario of An American in Paris , found a lone rubab wandering among enigmatic sounds emanating from the percussion section, but also dancing along with the full orchestra in lively variations.

The program concluded with two arrangements of well-known Afghan songs, with conductor Moreira da Silva encouraging the audience to clap along with their tricky 7/8 Afghan meter. “Maste Mange Bar” featured some virtuoso picking on the rubab, while “Watan Ishq Tu Iftekharam”—originally a Greek song by Mikis Theodorakis, but adopted by Afghans as an unofficial national anthem after the fall of the Taliban in 2001–danced exuberantly through many variations, ranging from pianissimo to all-out fortissimo.

Unlike their young counterparts on other evenings of the WOW! festival, these players didn’t tackle any of the monumental Western symphonies that would have tested their sense of nuance and musical architecture. That didn’t matter–as a demonstration of courage and determination and love of music, this concert would be hard to top.

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Six of the best audio streaming platforms for classical music in 2023

It’s been a busy two years since our 2021 article about classical music streaming. One of the two dedicated classical music platforms, Primephonic, has been acquired by industry giant Apple – and they have just released the new Apple Music Classical, based on Primephonic’s technology. The other, Idagio, has announced important initiatives outside their core streaming business. A third platform has been launched by Presto Classical, a UK retailer of CDs and sheet music.

Meanwhile, the music streaming market has come under intense scrutiny from a UK parliamentary committee. Spotify has come under similar pressure from members of the US Congress. And not a week goes by without someone making an announcement about concert or opera video streaming. It’s time for a refresh.

Once again, I’ve chosen six platforms to compare, each of which has an extensive collection of classical music recordings available on a “full catalogue” basis. From the list last time, I’ve added Presto Music and Amazon Music Unlimited. (Primephonic has merged into Apple, and I’ve omitted Qobuz.) I’ll also comment on various platforms that I haven’t included in the main comparative review.

Here’s the list:

Idagio – the original app which set the bar for classical music streaming, with extensive classical-oriented metadata allowing you to search by composer and work. Its user interface is unashamedly aimed at packing in as much information about each recording as it can into the available screen space.

Presto Music – launched this year by this long-standing retailer of CDs, downloads and sheet music. The service also contains extensive classical-oriented metadata. Its distinguishing feature is that many recordings have press reviews and awards information attached to them, to help you find your way through the maze of options for much-recorded works.

Apple Music Classical – a newly launched free app which bolts on to the paid-for Apple Music service. The main Apple Music app covers all genres; the bolt on provides classical-oriented metadata and curated content. For now, it’s only available on iPhone/iPad, with an Android version to follow at some point in the future. [Update: the Android app was announced on 31st May 2023]

Spotify – the original all-you-can-eat music streaming app. It’s included here because it’s still the largest and has the most extensive hardware compatibility. However, it has no dedicated classical features, and some users (myself included) won’t touch it because of its links to the far-right Joe Rogan podcast.

Tidal – in my opinion, the best of the Spotify equivalents and the one that I use daily. It has options for higher quality audio and a substantial list of curated playlists, including classical ones.

Amazon Music Unlimited – worth investigating to see what another tech giant provides. Its distinctive feature is relatively large album cover artwork in its search results: if the thing you remember about a recording is how the original cover looks, its search works well.

All of Tidal, Idagio and Presto claim to remunerate artists more fairly than Spotify, Apple or Amazon.

A reminder before we start...

For classical listeners, the big issue is metadata : the format of the information your service keeps about each recording. The traditional format for streamed music metadata is “Artist, Album, Track”. If you are looking for “Taylor Swift, Midnights, Anti-Hero”, that works fine. But if you’re looking for Maria Callas’s 1955 recording of Bellini’s Norma at La Scala, or to pin down a specific recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in C minor , Op.37,  “Artist, Album, Track” isn’t going to cut the mustard: the concerto has been recorded by over a hundred different pianists, orchestras and soloists in hundreds of combinations.

The selection process

I’m going to cover six questions that should help determine your choice.

• What music do you listen to?
• Is it compatible with your platform and any need for offline use?
• Does the audio quality meet your aspirations?
• How effectively can you find a selection of recordings for a given piece (and a recommendation, if available)?
• How easy is it to find a specific recording?
• Can it help you learn more about the music?

Question 1: what music do you listen to?

• Idagio only does classical music
• Presto Music only does classical music and jazz
• Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify and Tidal do all genres

Assuming that you only want a single subscription:

• If you listen to classical only, you can choose any of the six. Idagio is slightly cheaper than the others, in the UK.
• If you listen to classical and jazz only, you can choose any except Idagio
• If you listen to all genres, you can choose any except Idagio and Presto
• If you listen to all genres and you insist on dedicated classical metadata, your only current choice is Apple

If you can afford two subscriptions, a viable option is to have a subscription to Idagio or Presto for your classical needs, plus one to Amazon, Apple, Spotify or Tidal to use for other genres.

Question 2: is it compatible with your platform and any need for offline use?

You can use all of these services on iOS and Android phones and on your desktop browser, with one exception:

For now, Apple is iPhone/iPad only. An Android version is coming, but they haven’t said when. You can’t use Apple Classical on your desktop computer (although you can use the main Apple Music app).

If you often use music when you’re out of range of decent Internet (e.g. on a plane or train) or if you’re worried about data plan usage, you’ll want to download tracks to your phone while you’re safely in WiFi range. This works on all six platforms, but Apple makes you jump through some hoops, switching between Apple Classical and Apple Music. The process is clunky, to say the least.

Idagio, Tidal and Spotify all have desktop apps (for MacOS and Windows). The others don’t. 

Question 3: does the audio quality meet your aspirations?

Several platforms offer different maximum quality levels for different recordings. I’ve just looked at one relatively recent recording (Rachmaninov 2 with Khatia Bhuniatishvili and the Czech Phil) across all the platforms to see what was on offer. 

• Spotify’s highest quality is equivalent to 320 kbps compression
• Idagio offers 320 kbps compression for all paid subscriptions; they charge extra for HiFi quality
• Apple offers HiFi quality
• Tidal offers HiFi quality; they charge extra for 24-bit quality
• Presto offers 24-bit quality
• Amazon offers 24-bit quality

“HiFi quality” is the quality you get from a CD – lossless compression at 16-bit resolution and 44.1kHz sample rate. “24-bit quality” is also lossless, at 24-bit resolution and 96 kHz or higher sample rate.

How much any of this matters to you is down to your ears and the quality of your listening equipment.

One complaint that has been made about streaming in the past concerns audible gaps between tracks. On the Krystian Zimerman recording of the Beethoven Emperor Concerto, the second movement runs into the third – you can hear the steady pp horn note and Zimerman’s breathing as he limbers up for the big theme of the rondo. 

I tried this transition out on all six services: all passed without a hitch, except Amazon and Spotify, where a clear break was audible.

Question 4: how effectively can you find a selection of recordings for a given piece (and a recommendation, if available)?

• Mahler Symphony no. 2 “Resurrection” (much recorded symphony)
• Janáček Jenůfa (well known to opera buffs, but not one of the genre’s greatest hits)
• Pärt Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten (key work by important living composer)

When finding out what’s available, Idagio on the desktop is the clear winner here. You can navigate to the work, showing significant details such as what language an opera is sung in, or whether the work is performed in a non-standard arrangement. The desktop platform provides a sidebar listing ensembles, conductors and musicians of various types. Idagio on the phone isn’t bad, but you’re missing that crucial sidebar.

Presto and Apple both perform perfectly well in giving you a variety of recordings for a given work. Idagio, Presto and Apple all had reasonable selections (Presto’s list was slightly shorter).

If, however, what you want is a recommendation, Idagio isn’t going to help; nor are Amazon, Spotify or Tidal, whose software isn’t even aware of what a “work” means in the first place.

The clear winner here is Presto, which flags recordings recommended in the press or in published guides. If a recording has been flagged, there’s a “reviews” section which shows you where it was recommended, with excerpts from what was said.

Apple gives you an “Editor’s choice” for the Mahler (Rattle/CBSO from 1987), but not for the others.

Bear trap: vintage recordings

When surveying available recordings of a popular work, it can be frustrating to find the same recording showing up many times in the list – often with dates that cannot possibly be correct. For example, in the list for the Mahler Resurrection Symphony on Idagio, the Lorin Maazel recording with the Philharmonia shows up five times. The Bruno Walter recording shows up three times, two of them with the correct date of 1957, but the third dated 2020 (Walter died in 1962).

The most common reason for multiple appearances of the same recording is that the original has gone out of copyright, and other labels, who were uninvolved in the original recording, are happy to rebadge it and upload it to the streaming platforms. In doing so, labels are able to make money without the tedious business of actually recording a performance. This is an intractable problem for streaming platforms which, as far as I can tell, no one has attempted to solve.

Question 5: how easy is it to find a specific recording?

• The 1961 Rigoletto with Joan Sutherland and Cornell MacNeil (obscure-ish recording of famous work)
• The Boieldieu Harp Concerto played by Nicanor Zabaleta (obscure-ish work)
• The 2019 Beethoven Emperor Concerto played by Martin Helmchen (recent award-winning recording of famous work)

For all six platforms, typing “rigoletto sutherland macneil” into the search bar delivers the desired result. Presto is the best in that it’s the only result shown; Tidal is the worst in that it’s some way down the list of results, with several instances of the wrong Sutherland recording shown first.

For all six platforms, typing “boieldieu harp concerto zabaleta” into their search bar gave the right result in top position.

For all six platforms, typing “beethoven emperor concerto helmchen” into the search bar gave the desired result. Once again, Presto filtered out all the others. For Amazon, it came some way down.

In summary: this task can be accomplished fine on all six platforms by choosing the right thing to type into the search bar.

Question 6: can it help you learn more about the music?

Amazon and Spotify provide no added material that I can see.

Tidal’s “Explore” section provides playlists in many categories. To be honest, I need more than just a playlist to persuade me that something should leap to the top of my list of things to listen to.

Apple provide a large number of playlists in various categories: “Composer Essentials”, “Undiscovered”, “Hidden Gems” and so on. (I can’t honestly say that any of them interested me hugely.) Also included is editorial content, both text and audio, and Apple have recruited some big names to do it. These often seem quite shallow: having Yo-Yo Ma give 40 seconds worth of thoughts on Bach’s Cello Suite no. 2 didn’t really add much to my experience.

Idagio provides an extensive series of playlists which, at first glance, look considerably more appealing than Apple or Tidal’s. They’re still just playlists, but several of them did pique my interest.

Presto is the clear winner here again: their “Articles” section contains full length interviews which are far meatier, and their inclusion of liner notes for 70,000 of the albums makes it far more likely that I’m going to find information that’s new or useful to me.

Other platforms

In addition to these six platforms, there are a lot of alternatives around. Here are the ones I’ve come across, in alphabetical order.

• Classical Archives : dedicated classical site with good metadata, good usability and some very loyal users. However, their catalogue is a small fraction of the number of recordings available on all of the platforms reviewed here. If you’re happy not to pick and choose between multiple recordings of any given work, they may be fine for you.
• Deezer : another all-genre streaming service, which claimed 9.6 million paid subscribers as of December 2021. No obvious classical emphasis, but could be worth you evaluating.
• Qobuz : my top pick for all-genre services in my previous article. I switched from Qobuz to Tidal last year because I didn’t like the way Qobuz was handling iPhone downloads.
• Tempso : this is a wrapper app for Apple Music or Spotify. If you’re an Apple user, it’s pretty much trounced by the new Apple Classical. If you’re a Spotify user and don’t want to change, it may be a valuable addition.
• Vialma : could be interesting as a lower cost alternative. The catalogue is less extensive than the six services in my main review and the website was a bit slow when I tried it, but it was nicely laid out and you may like the way it works.
• Youtube Music : the replacement for the previous Google Play Music. It was a toss-up between this and Amazon as to which of the tech giants I included in the comparison. I doubt that they’re massively different from each other.

Here is the UK price for a basic single user monthly subscription. I’ve given a link to each platform’s full UK price list wherever I could find one: Amazon and Apple seem to be trying to hide theirs.

Amazon, Apple, and  Presto  are all £10.99 per month.

Spotify  and  Tidal  are cheaper at £9.99.

Idagio  is the cheapest at €9.99 (£8.73 at time of writing). Commendably, they are the only platform who don’t just change the dollar or Euro sign to a pound sign and leave the number unchanged, penalising UK customers by 25% compared to their US counterparts, or 15% compared to Europeans.

My choice: use two subscriptions

My circumstances: most of my listening is on a desktop computer; some is my car or via a Sonos box in my living room. I also listen to music while travelling, in which case I need it downloaded to my phone.

For the last year or so, I’ve been happily using Tidal and Idagio : Tidal for general listening and Idagio when I need to research available recordings or find a specific one. That choice is going to stay unchanged for now.

Apart from classical metadata, Tidal does everything I need and neither Spotify nor Amazon is going to displace it.

Presto is a close contender for replacing Idagio. At the end of the day, I value Idagio’s more detailed metadata-driven search more than Presto’s more attractive user interface and additional liner notes. But it was a very close call and I would be happy with either.

It would be nice to have a single subscription to replace both Tidal and Idagio, and that’s what Apple Classical provides. But for now, it doesn’t do what I want: the lack of a desktop player and the extremely clunky process for downloading classical albums for offline use mean that for me, at least, it’s not worth the financial saving of switching over.

Single subscription choices

Require classical only at minimum cost and/or with the most accurate browse function: Idagio

Require classical and/or jazz only with an attractive interface, press recommendations and liner notes: Presto Music

Require all music genres and classical metadata (on iPhone/iPad/Android only) in a single subscription: Apple

[Update: 6-Apr-2023: Presto Music have informed me that they pay artists per second rather than per track. This is important because classical tracks are often longer than those in other genres, so I've added Presto to the list of services who are making an effort to be fairer.]

[Update: 31-May-2023: Apple have now announced the Android version of Apple Classical]

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Table of Contents

Classical-Music

Slipped disc.

If you’re a big music lover, this site is a must. 

Classic Cat

Classical connect, naxos records.

Naxos is a good place to find purchasable recordings and keep up to date on what new music is being recorded. 

Classical Archives

It also has a great blog, if I may humbly say so. 

Free Music Archive

While not strictly classical pieces, there are quite a few on here. 

Classics Today

Wikipedia sound files.

But it’s not easy to sort through. 

NPR Classical*

Storyblocks, gramphone blog, epidemic sound, orange free sounds, the rest is noise, interlude blogs.

The Artist of the Month and Classical Composer of the Month series, in particular, are great. 

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‘Mendelssohn’

Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano; London Mozart Players; Jonathan Bloxham, conductor (Decca)

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Yunchan Lim

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Yunchan Lim is a classical pianist sensation and “one-in-a-million talent” ( Dallas Morning News ), growing to global stardom after becoming the youngest person to ever win gold at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 18.

A co-presentation with Washington Performing Arts

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Yunchan Lim , piano

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH               Goldberg Variations , BWV 988

Yunchan Lim is a classical pianist sensation, growing to global stardom after becoming the youngest person to ever win gold at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 18. “A one-in-a-million talent” ( Dallas Morning News ), Lim’s performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 during the competition went viral and the New York Times listed it as one of the Top 10 Classical Music Performances of 2022. Lim has showcased his technical prowess and undeniable passion in successful orchestral debuts across the U.S. and abroad while continuing his studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Note from the Artist

“A huge universe of pianists have played this repertoire, and I have always wanted to become a fundamental musician like them, so I decided to follow their route. The etudes contain a range of expression that encompasses the groans of the earth, the regrets of elderly people, and love letters, and I could feel the freedom of longing within them. Even when I was not practicing them, their songs were still maturing in my mind.”

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National symphony orchestra nso annual labor day concert.

Sun. Sep. 1, 2024 8p.m.

The National Symphony Orchestra’s FREE annual Labor Day weekend concert returns to the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol! This year, the NSO performs classics by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, John Philip Sousa, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and more led by charismatic conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez and featuring Grammy–nominated rapper/beatboxer Christylez Bacon. A must-see celebration!  This performance is free to attend, no tickets required. Seating is first-come, first served.

The Kennedy Center and 0xCollection present Dvořák Dreams : An Installation by Refik Anadol

Sep. 4 - 24, 2024

Join us on September 4 at 7 p.m. for the U.S. premiere of Dvořák Dreams ! Refik Anadol’s acclaimed fusion of art, music, history, and artificial intelligence makes its U.S. premiere.

The Kennedy Center and 0xCollection present Dvořák Dreams: Opening Celebration

Wed. Sep. 4, 2024 7p.m. - Midnight

Join us on September 4 at 7 p.m. for an evening of innovative art and music amid the beauty of nature.

National Symphony Orchestra DECLASSIFIED ® : Ben Folds Presents Rob Thomas, Madison Cunningham & Yasmin Williams

Fri. Sep. 6, 2024

Ben Folds’ popular late-night series returns with iconic Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas, Grammy ® -winning singer Madison Cunningham, and acclaimed acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams! This “part-party, part-concert” also features Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” and more modern masterworks by Valerie Coleman, Jessie Montgomery, and Carlos Simon. NSO  DECLASSIFIED ® concerts go beyond the classical symphony experience—come early for drink tastings, photo booths, and the Heidi Martin Quartet; stay after for Harikaraoke live band karaoke on the Millennium Stage!

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