Andrey Gugnin (piano) Hyperion CDA684712 83 mins This album of Russian ballet transcriptions sparkles like a glass bauble hanging amidst the fairy lights. Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky wrote so colourful

Georges Bizet is probably not the first name to come to mind when we think of French composers of piano music. Indeed, few of us would think of Bizet as a piano composer at all, such is the towering s

Kammerorchester Basel/Giovanni Antonini Alpha ALPHA1092 76:29 mins The most familiar of the symphonies here, if only because it has a nickname, is No. 55, whose ‘Schoolmaster’ title arises out of the

Cappella Amsterdam; Noord Nederlands Orkest/ Daniel Reuss Pentatone PTC5187489 72:42 mins ‘He always was and still is ahead of everybody.’ The words of Stravinsky’s musical assistant and colleague, Ro

ONE OF THE coolest and most badass-sounding things a guitarist can do is double a long, complex bass line an octave higher. This was my approach for the song “Dean Town,” which I recorded with Vulfpec

National Symphony Orchestra/ Gianandrea Noseda NSO NSO0022 75:12 mins Mahler’s mad-cap Seventh is the toughest of his symphonies to conceptualise and to execute. Lacking any explicit programme, two of