Here are the Pianomania Awards for Classical Recordings for 2014, which follows the Three Best and One Worst listings published in The Sunday Times on 28 December 2014.
BEST
RACHMANINOV Symphony
No.1
SHUI LAN (Conductor)
BIS 2012
The third CD in the Singapore
Symphony Orchestra’s recorded cycle of Rachmaninov’s symphonies is also its finest.
The Russian’s First Symphony, panned
when it was first performed, was also his most original. Here it receives a
performance which captures vehemence, paradoxical tenderness and vulnerability,
in all its youthful and raw glory.
LI-WEI QIN, Cello
Decca 8896661
Any new CD release by
Singapore-based Chinese-Australian cellist Li-Wei Qin is a cause for
celebration. His second recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto is imbued with an unshakeable sense of nobility,
essentially a 30-minute-long epic sigh. Coupled with William Walton’s
bittersweet Cello Concerto, this disc
is an essential listen.
AMERICAN PIANO
CONCERTOS
XIAYIN WANG, Piano
Royal Scottish
National Orchestra
Peter Oundjian (Conductor)
Chandos 5128
The classical music world loves
Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, but the Chinese pianist who really has it all is
Shanghai-born Xiayin Wang. Seldom have
the piano concertos of Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin been
essayed with such authority and ravishing lustre. Her playing suggests
legendary American pianists Earl Wild, Van Cliburn and John Browning all rolled
into one.
WORST
MUSIC OF THE NIGHT
André Rieu and his
Johann Strauss Orchestra
Polydor 0602537536818
Some people just adore Dutch
violinist André Rieu and his band, but this Richard Clayderman of the violin
has the skills of a reverse alchemist. He turns hit tunes like Yesterday, Music Of The Night and La Vie
En Rose from gold to base metal in arrangements that are dreadfully anodyne
and soppy beyond words. Best used as elevator music, with the volume turned way
down.
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