It is only relatively recently that Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel has stepped out of the shadow of her more famous sibling Felix. Nearly all of her five hundred or so compositions remained unpublished during her lifetime, despite their undeniable beauty, lyricism and passion. This volume of piano music spans almost her entire adult life, from youthful experiments to music written less than a year before her untimely death, giving the listener a whirlwind tour of a much-underrated composer.
'Tis the birthday season for Pierre Boulez! The Chicago Symphony Orchestra recently released an incredible disc of Pierre Boulez conducting the CSO, Roxana Constantinescu, Nicholas Phan and Kyle Ketelsen in Stravinsky's Pulcinella. I caught up with tenor (an up-and-coming superstar!) Nicholas Phan recently. After reading his great blog post about his experience recording and performing with the CS (read more)