Anomalies Pleasant and Surprising

Berio may have been the postwar generation’s most sentimental if not most wistful composer. Unlike many of his peers, he acknowledged music’s history and would freely adapt, orchestrate and reinterpret the music of others, as well as his own.

An Eclectic Piano Ramble

This handful of discs features the piano in all sorts of forms and genres. We examine works intended to be played at the keyboard and inside the piano, others that alter the piano’s tuning, and those that require a synthesized instrument.

An Assortment of Recommendations

…the editor suggested that instead of reviewing a new acquisition, I write something about CD’s I have known and loved. I agreed to the proposal and hence the list below.

Scardanelli’s Motley, Part 2

Leos Janácek’s two string quartets are among the century’s most enduringly astonishing.

Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff

I am generally not the adventurous sort, tending to abide by Voltaire’s alleged remark that “marriage is the only adventure for the cowardly.”