Rafael’s Music Notes reviews Stephen Costello’s new A Te, O Cara recording with Constantine Orbelian and the Kaunas City Symphony: “Stephen Costello … is an intelligent, sensitive, highly musical singer who fastidiously pays attention to the text and the dynamic markings of the music he sings in this recording. His sound is luscious, his technique…
MusicWeb International has released their critics’ recordings of the year for 2018, and Robert Farr has nominated our new release of Giuseppe Verdi: Messa da Requiem in memory of Dmitri Hvorostovsky: “In a year that saw the death of two of the finest opera singers of their generation, Montserrat Caballé and, at the young age…
MusicWeb International critic Ralph Moore reviews Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker and Fabio Bidini’s recording of Brahms Hungarian Dances: “Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker certainly plays with great feeling and freedom here, unashamedly milking the opportunities for soulful rubato and rallentando just as the music demands; her accompanist is scrupulous in following her lead, so ensemble is tight. Like Joachim, she…
Rafael’s Music Notes recently released a series of reviews on some older Delos releases, and we’re pleased to share! Ambar: El Diablo Suelto “The entire album, even when the music is nice and slow and voluptuous, is energizing. Often toe-tapping cross-rhythms defy one to get up and dance (which I did a couple of times).…
MusicWeb International reviews the Verdi: Messa da Requiem Concert DVD: “…set in a magnificent venue with an excellent acoustic well caught by the engineers. … Yuri Temirkanov draws sensitive, yet, at appropriate moments, highly dramatic, playing from his orchestra. The variation between the opening, hushed Requiem aeternam and the vibrant Dies irae, is visceral in its emotion and feeling.…
Lawrence Brownlee—considered by many to be the greatest bel canto tenor of our time—celebrated his latest birthday on Saturday, 24 November. His two albums for Delos thus far have been universally acclaimed, and glowing reviews just keep popping up —witness the rave below, published on Nov 25: “Lawrence Brownlee, a full-blooded Bel Canto tenor with…
Rafael’s Music Notes declares Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker and Fabio Bidini’s new recording a “Hungarian Feast”: “German violinist Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker and Italian pianist Fabio Bidini compellingly make a case with their playing for the erasing of any and all national boundaries. The duo lovingly makes this minor miracle happen by playing this category-defying music with equal quantities of Hungarian szenvedély and szomorú spiced with a nice…
Stephen Costello is currently performing the role of Don José with The Dallas Opera, and North Texas arts outlet TheaterJones has a new review for his Delos debut recording, A Te, O Cara. “[Stephen Costello] has the ability to take the familiar and put his stamp on it. For example, at the album’s center is the…
Opera News names Herschel Garfein‘s Mortality Mansions: Songs of Love and Loss After 60 an October 2018 Critic’s Choice! Garfein handpicked eleven poems from the large output of Donald Hall, the 2006 poet laureate who died in June at eighty-nine, creating—as Hall puts it in the notes—a cycle that has ‘a wholeness I could never…
Voix des Arts names Stephen Costello’s upcoming Delos release, A Te, O Cara, their Best Vocal Recital Disc of 2018! The sounds that emerge from tenor Stephen Costello’s Delos recording A te, o cara provide bel canto lovers’ ears with copious reasons to rejoice, but it is heart—the hearts of the characters whose music is sung, the heart of the singer…
American Record Guide‘s November/December 2018 issue has a detailed new review for the Asia / America New Music Institute‘s new Transcendent recording: “Matthew Aucoin’s Two Whitman Songs (‘The Sleepers’ and ‘A Clear Midnight’) capture the magnificent and removed nature of Whitman’s poetry. There are so many shades of silver in this music; its gleaming darkness…
Michael Cookson of MusicWeb International has a new review for the Poulenc Trio’s new Trains of Thought recording: “Written especially for the Poulenc Trio, Viet Cuong’s Trains of Thought gives this album its name and is a world premiere recording. Californian born Cuong conceived the score as part of a multimedia work combining music and an animated…
Rafael’s Music Notes has the first review for Susanna Phillips, Shenyang, and Brian Zeger‘s new A Lost World recording: “…the Delos CD A Lost World is a welcome gift culled from the Schubert mother lode and a nice item to have in one’s collection of vocal rarities. … [Ganymede and Elysium] are sung here with delicacy and…
MusicWeb International has a new review for William Villaverde’s Cuban Memoirs recording of music by Andrés Alén: “I was attracted immediately by the directness of expression in Alén’s music, as well as William Villaverde’s committed and resoundingly positive performances. … This is a very fine disc of some enjoyable and rewarding music. If you the love…
Gramophone Magazine reviews Mark Abel’s new Time and Distance recording in their October 2018 issue: Mark Abel’s fourth CD on Delos is rich in those moments of inspiration when a composer first comes under the spell of poetry. His marriages of subtly charged music with an eclectic modernist twist to emotionally provocative, introspective texts work…
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