Last November, I had the privilege of listening to Krystian Zimerman play Chopin’s Piano Sonatas No. 2 and 3 in two consecutive evenings. You might wonder: why am I writing about it more than half a year later? That, precisely,

There’s always an argument when what is traditional harpsichord music gets recorded on a piano. For harpsichord lovers, the brittle crisp sound of the harpsichord, with its quick-fade sound, gets soupy on a piano. The ringing sound covers up the

No, we don’t mean that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a century old, it’s that this new recording is celebrating the centenary of his birth. Born on 28 May 1925 in Berlin, the lyric baritone and conductor who seemingly covered the entire

Both Edward Elgar (1857–1934) and Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) had only one successful string quartet. They were written some 8 years apart and both were in the key of E minor. Elgar had tried writing string quartets since 1888 (destroyed), in

What are the odds of hearing the entire cycle of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues performed live in one evening? That is precisely what pianist Hannes Minnaar presented for his Hong Kong debut. Inspired by Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Shostakovich employed

The second opera of Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, Die Walküre, is the most frequently performed of the cycle and contains some of the best-known music. Nevertheless, it demands directorial genius, musical finesse, as well as top-tier singers to bring

In a new Deutsche Grammophon recording, pianist Yuja Wang presents the two piano concertos of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) along with selections from his Preludes for piano. The concerts are with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons. When you consider

It’s almost ten years since French pianist Bertrand Chamayou recorded Ravel’s complete piano works, and now, in this the 150th anniversary year of Ravel’s birth, he has released an album which he calls “a modest contribution” to the “anniversary celebrations