Monday 26 December 2011

THE BEST OF 2011 (CLASSICAL MUSIC RECORDINGS) as reported on The Straits Times




LISZT Années de Pélérinage (Years of Pilgrimage)
LOUIS LORTIE, Piano
Chandos 10662(2)


This double-CD album by French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie sets a new benchmark besides arriving propitiously in Franz Liszt’s bicentenary year. Collected over 40 years of the composer’s creative output, the 26 varied pieces contain some of his most poetic and virtuosic utterances, besides casting a glance into the future.





MAHLER Symphony No.2 “Resurrection”
Orchestra of the Music Makers / CHAN TZE LAW


Few people would have guessed that a group of young musicians (average age 21-22 years old) in Singapore could band together to play a Mahler symphony. It happened on 10 July 2010, and this live recording is the glorious result of that miraculous concert. You can hear it on Singapore Airlines KrisWorld, but it’s better to have a CD of your own.





NOCTURNAL FANTASIES
ALBERT TIU, Piano
Centaur 3093

There have been great interpreters of the piano music of Chopin and Skryabin over the decades, but nobody had thought of combining the two until now. Locally based Filipino pianist Albert Tiu possesses the intellectual nous and prodigious technique to do both composers justice, and the recorded sound is simply gorgeous.

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