Toscanini conducts Schubert, Schumann & Brahms

Advantages: Mutter's eloquence and sensitivity in older recording are enhanced here.
Disadvantages: None at all!

...As a fantastically talented eighteen-year-old, Anne-Sophie Mutter already awed me with her sensitive and thoughtful eloquence in her 1981 recording of the Brahms violin concerto (with Herbert von Karajan directing the Berlin Philharmonic). However, there’s an even deeper understanding in Mutter’s reading of the Brahms piece on this newer disc. This performance was taped live at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, New York City, in 1997. Kurt Masur conducts the New York Philharmonic in particularly inspired fashion. A difference of fifteen years separates the two recordings. In the time between, she married, had children, and then was widowed at a very young age. When Mutter returned to her instrument, she would bring a greater strength, emotional depth and insight to her playing, lending a maturity and assuredness to her... Read review

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Advantages: Two outstanding peices of chamber music for an unusual combination of instruments
Disadvantages: On the surface quite contrasting works, listener must be openminded

...procedures, deriving new and original ideas influenced by the chamber music of old masters such as Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann. Ligeti was influenced by the music of fellow Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, who once stated that "Every art has the right to strike its roots in the art of a previous age; it not only has the right to but it must stem from it". This makes the pairing of one of Ligeti's finest works with the Brahms Op.40 Trio a very appropriate one. Both outstanding chamber works in their own rights and certainly the two best pieces composed for this unusual combination invented by Brahms, a good recording is essential, but hard to find. There are not that many recordings in existence of these works due to the technical complexity for performers and even acclaimed recordings such as the CD by Perlman, Ashkenazy... Read review

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Advantages: Gorgeous music, played with much passion
Disadvantages: None really

...Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and many others. He regularly appears at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall and in addition to his solo engagements also enjoys a thriving chamber music career. Alban has a very cool website at http://www.albangerhardt.com/ Extracts from this CD can be found on his site at: http://www.albangerhardt.com/frames.pl?path=http://www.albangerhardt.com/en glish/audio.html Conductor Carlos Kalmar is Music Director of the Oregon Symphony in the USA and principal conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago - there is a useful website at www.grantparkmusicfestival.com which has a fuller biography of Mr Kalmar. He has conducted many major orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, to name just a few and like Alban... Read review

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