Musicophilesblog
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As the title implies, I'll be writing mainly about Jazz and Classical music (defined roughly as Baroque to the 1920s), as those are the areas I'm most passionate about, but may occasionally venture into other genres as well. I regularly write about classical music and jazz, with a focus on album reviews.
Musicophilesblog
2y ago
First of all, sorry for my long absence, there was just too much going on in my day job. I even skipped my traditional section “reflections on the Gramophone awards”. The Chopin Nocturnes Which of the many works of Chopin are his true masterpiece? The Etudes, the Préludes, the Sonatas, Scherzi, or even the Mazurkas ..read more
Musicophilesblog
2y ago
Mozart’s string quartets I must admit that for years I somewhat ignored Mozart’s chamber music, or actually quite a bit of Mozart’s other works as well (more to come in future posts). Mozart really was for me my god in terms of operatic works, the entire DaPonte suite will always be my favourite operas ever ..read more
Musicophilesblog
2y ago
Robert Schumann I haven’t written very many entries on Schumann yet. That is not because I don’t like this composer. In fact, his symphonies, typically either played by Szell, Gardiner, or more recently, Nézet-Seguin (that I really need to review here), Dausgaard (that I even mentioned in my 25 Essential Classical albums), or Rattle, are ..read more
Musicophilesblog
2y ago
Bedřich Smetana I haven’t written much about the other famous Czech composer (that said, even Dvorak doesn’t have a post dedicated to one of his works yet on this blog, I should change that). As a kid I listened to The Moldau (or more correctly Vltava) from his Ma Vlast patriotic cycle A LOT. It ..read more
Musicophilesblog
3y ago
Stan Getz I haven’t written that much about Stan Getz on my blog, as I don’t listen to his albums very often. He’s probably best known for his latin jazz collaborations with Joao Gilberto, published under the simple titles of Getz/Gilberto (yes, the Girl from Ipanema, and she still goes walking) and Jazz Samba, both ..read more
Musicophilesblog
3y ago
Brahms’ Piano Concertos There is clearly no lack of excellent performances of the two Brahms piano concertos. There are many masterful recordings from the 1960s with the great piano legends, Curzon, Arrau, Fleischer, Richter, or Gilels, often with the fantastic George Szell, that have stood the test of time, as the romantic repertoire has seen ..read more
Musicophilesblog
3y ago
The “Sun Bear” Concerts Keith Jarrett has recorded A LOT of solo concerts. Attending one of the last of them in 2015 actually triggered me to start this blog. I’ve reviewed a number of them here already, and still have the ambition at some point to review them all. You’ll find the links to my ..read more
Musicophilesblog
3y ago
Benjamin Grosvenor I’m a big fan of this young British pianist (maybe not as extreme a fan as Gramophone who adore every single one of his albums). I’ve previously reviewed and praised his Chopin concertos (part of my top 5 albums of 2020), his Homages album, his Chopin/Liszt/Ravel album, which also appeared in my Top ..read more
Musicophilesblog
3y ago
Hard Bop In the earlier days of my blog, I had an entire series on the Hard Bop period of Jazz. I haven’t written a lot about it recently. I’m not sure why. Probably because I just haven’t listened to it as much recently. Without noticing, I saw my listening preferences subtly move towards even ..read more
Musicophilesblog
3y ago
Bach Harpsichord Concertos In more than 5 years of this blog, I’ve only formally reviewed one version of the Bach piano/harpsichord concertos, the very surprisingly disappointing (to my ears) recording with Andreas Staier. In that article I mentioned that I’m still looking for my favorite version of these beautiful works. So far I typically went ..read more