CD Reviews | CTD (Briefly Noted) | JFL (Dip Your Ears) | DVD Reviews

22.12.13

In Brief: Christmas Listening Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.) Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.


  • Listen to Bach's Christmas Oratorio, in a performance by the Choir of London and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, recorded in Melbourne. [ABC Classic]

  • Hear a concert by the Ricercar Consort at the Eglise des Minimes, with music by Bach, Zelenka, Lotti, and Palestrina. [RTBF]

  • Watch the Christmas Concert by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, with Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, conducted by Pablo González. Medici.tv]

  • Listen to a performance of Britten's opera Gloriana, starring Susan Bullock (Queen Elisabeth I), Toby Spence (Robert Devereux), Patricia Bardon (Frances Devereux), and Kate Royal (Penelope), recorded last June at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. [ORF]

  • Watch William Christie and Les Arts Florissants perform airs de cour by Michel Lambert, François Couperin, Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and Honoré d'Ambruys. [Cité de la Musique Live]

  • Listen to a performance of Gluck's Armide, from De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, recorded last October, starring Karina Gauvin (Armide) and Frédéric Antoun (Renaud) and conducted by Ivor Bolton. [France Musique]

  • Simon Rattle leads a performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde plus two scenes from Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen, with Magdalena Kožená, Michael Schade, and Simon Keenlyside joining the Vienna Philharmonic. [ORF]

  • The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra performs symphonies by Josef Elsner and Beethoven, plus Weber's second clarinet concerto with soloist Lorenzo Coppola. [RTBF]

  • For the year's last subscription concert before Christmas, Bernard Haitink leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Haydn's oratorio Die Schöpfung. [BR-Klassik | Video: ARTE Live Web]

  • Baritone Christian Gerhaher joins the Berlin Philharmonic for a concert recorded last September, with music by Lutoslawski and Mahler, during the Berlin Music Festival. [France Musique]

  • Martha Argerich and friends perform chamber music by Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Chopin, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Debussy. [RTBF]

  • From Vienna, pianist Alice Sara Ott plays music by Liszt, plus Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, recorded in the Vienna Konzerthaus. [ORF]

  • Watch pianist David Grimal and Les Dissonances perform music by Schubert ("Unfinished" Symphony) and Gérard Grisey (Vortex temporum). [Cité de la Musique Live]

  • The Trio Wanderer performs music by Schumann, Brahms, and Beethoven, recorded at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi as part of the Festival de Wallonie. [RTBF]

  • Philippe Pierlot conducts the Ricercar Consort in music by Dietrich Becker, Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, and Johann Christoph Bach, recorded last July in the Église Saint-Loup in Namur. [ORF]

  • Music by Bartók and Beethoven performed by the Quatuor Voce in the Auditorium du Musée d'Orsay. [France Musique]

  • Lionel Bringuier conducts the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, in music of Ravel and Bartók, plus Schumann's A minor piano concerto by Robert Schumann, with Martin Helmchen as soloist, recorded in Zurich last September. [RTBF]

  • Stéphane Deneve conducts the SWR Vocal Ensemble and Radio Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart in music by Fauré, Koechlin, Poulenc, and Lili Boulanger, with soprano Christina Landshamer, baritone Michael Nagy, and organist Olivier Latry. [France Musique]

  • From a concert recorded in September 2012 at the Maison de la Culture de Tournai, the Zemlinsky Quartet performs music by Zemlinsky, Shostakovich, and Dvořák. [RTBF]

  • Mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman joins Amarcord Wien for a tribute to Richard Wagner, recorded last month in Graz, with mjusic by Wagner, Webern, and Verdi. [ORF]

  • A recital by pianist Alexei Volodin, with music by Rachmaninoff and Chopin, recorded at the Conservatoire de Bruxelles. [RTBF]

  • Watch Alexander Sladkovsky lead the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, with soloist Denis Matsuev, in an all-Prokofiev program and an all-Brahms program. [Medici.tv]

  • Violonist Svetlin Roussev joins the Orchestre Philhamonique de Radio France and conductor Lionel Bringuier interprètent in music by Paul Dukas, Jean Sibelius, and Musorgsky, recorded at the Grandes écuries de Chantilly. [France Musique]

  • Ilan Volkov leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra in music by Liszt, Bartók (the second violin concerto, with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as soloist), and Brahms, recorded last May in Glasgow. [ORF

  • Brad Lubman leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in a program of new music, including John Zorn's Orchestra Variations and music by Philippe Manoury and Jorge E. López. [BR-Klassik]

  • For the 50th anniversary of the new Maison de la Radio, soprano Nicole Cabell, the Maîtrise de Radio France, the Chœur de Radio France, and the Orchestre National de France, conducted by Sofie Jeanin, Thomas Lang, and Jean-Claude Casadesus play music by Poulenc, Stravinsky, and Agnès Obel. [France Musique]

  • Pair that with the concert dedicating the new Maison de la Radio, on December 20, 1963, with contralto Johanna Peters, baritone Louis Quilico, the Orchestre and Choeur de la RTF, conducted by Charles Munch, with music by Beethoven and Milhaud. [France Musique]

  • Listen to historical recordings of pianist Eugene Istomin, with Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Budapest Quartet, recording at Radio France and the Library of Congress. [RTBF]

  • Katia Ricciarelli and José Carraras star in a classic recording from 1977 of Verdi's La Battaglia di Legnano, with Lamberto Gardelli conducting the ORF-Chor and ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien. [ORF]

No comments: