Music Reviews
A grand collection of reviews. If you are a professional music reviewer and would like to contribute a review to this blog, please contact us.
Recent Finds No. 64 NativeDSD Releases Pure DSD256 Audio Treasures
View Original Over the years I’ve freely admitted to being something of a sound nut. I revel in recordings that feel transparent, timbrally truthful, and utterly convincing in their portrayal of natural acoustic space. For me, the deepest listening pleasure comes from acoustic instruments captured in real environments, without artifice. With that in mind, I’m […]
Dvorak’s Cello Concerto from Pieter Wispelwey, BFO and Fischer
Available now at 40% OFF! I love Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and I have since I first heard it in the 1962 recording with Janos Starker, backed by Dorati and the LSO. I would never want to be without it, but this one with Pieter Wispelwey, backed by Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra is […]
Godowsky’s ‘Java Suite’ – Two Interpretations
Now Available at 40% OFF! I didn’t know much about Polish-American pianist and composer, Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938). I saw his name occasionally, but it wasn’t until I spent some time with his Java Suite that I wanted to know more. Godowsky is celebrated for his extraordinary technical imagination and his ability to transform the piano […]
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra Ignites Nielsen’s ‘The 4 Temperaments’ and ‘Inextinguishable’
Available now at 40% OFF! It’s easy to lump composers together simply because they are contemporaries, or they come from the same place or area. I’ve written about this before in relation to Sibelius and Nielsen. The “Nordic” similarities seem stretched– Denmark (Nielsen) is traditionally more aligned in culture with Germany and continental Europe. Finland […]
Recent Finds No. 62 – Exquisite Releases at NativeDSD
View Original Article In this issue, we have some exquisite new albums at NativeDSD, led by a new Pure DSD256 release from Cobra Records with a fascinating program for solo piano. And two new releases from the creative artists partnering with Brendon Heinst at TRPTK, and more. I hope you will find something to further […]
Guillaume Coppola’s ‘Satie: Amoureux’
Now Available for 40% Off I have loved the music of Erik Satie since… Well, I admit it, since I was first exposed to his Gymnopedies, no 2 as interpreted by Blood Sweat and Tears in their landmark 1968 album. I wasn’t alone in this. I’d been enjoying Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc for years, and when I […]
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique from Rafael Payare
In 1830 Hector Berlioz created a groundbreaking, programmatic work about an artist who falls in love with a woman, becomes obsessed with her but is rejected, and eventually kills her. The Symphonie Fantastique was the first major symphony to follow a written narrative – a radical departure from the “absolute music” of earlier composers. Innovative orchestration […]
One of the best Discoveries so far
This is one of the best “Discoveries” I’ve made so far! 840, with guitarist Enno Voorhorst, is a wonderful album! The artistry is superb, the music program couldn’t be better, and the recording quality is the best I’ve heard for a solo guitar. I’m not alone in saying it will seem like Voorhorst is in the room […]
December 2025 Classical Record Reviews [Excerpt from Stereophile review by Jason Victor Serinus]
These reviews are re-posted from Stereophile.com, written by Jason Victor Serinus / Stephen Francis Vasta. Dvořák: Slavonic DancesCzech Philharmonic/Sir Simon RattlePentatone Music PTC5817414 (CD). 2025. Holger Urbach, prod.; Stephan Reh, eng.Performance ***Sonics ***½ I shouldn’t have praised Tomá Netopil for recording the Slavonic Rhapsodies instead of the seemingly inevitable Slavonic Dances: Apparently he was leaving […]
When Good Enough is Not Enough: Cobra Records Producer’s Choice Vol. 2 in Pure DSD256, with Free Sample Download
View Original Producer’s Choice, Vol. 2. Cobra Records 2025 (Pure DSD256-Direct Mixed, Stereo) Edit Master Sourced (To be released December 12 at NativeDSD) Cobra Records’ 25th Anniversary celebration continues with the release of Producer’s Choice, Volume 2. And it is phenomenal. Earlier this year, I wrote with enthusiasm about the release of Volume 1 which included selected tracks recorded […]
Review: Haydn 2032 Series from Giovanni Antonini
Back in 2013 Giovanni Antonini embarked on Haydn 2032, where, in time for the 300th anniversary of his birth, he would record with the two orchestras he is most associated with all of Haydn’s Symphonies and major choral works interspersed with pieces mainly by the composer’s contemporaries. As of June 2025, they had reached volume 17, […]
‘Gratia’ Is Unexpected and Amazing
I’ll admit, it took me a while to really dive into this classical-jazz crossover album. Is it fusion, or confusion…? Italian Double bassist and composer Enzo Pietropaoli features arrangements of traditional sacred Marian antiphons, as well as some compositions of his own. Pietropaoli is on bass, Gabriele Mirabassi on clarinet, and Michele Rabbia on percussion and […]