Monthly Archive: July 2008
JINDRICH FELD: Chamber Music – String Quartet No. 5, String Quintet, String Quartet No. 6 – Prague City Quartet / Smetana Quartet with Jan Talich Snr. (viola) / Prazak Quartet – Praga Digitals
Feld co-founded Praga Digitals with his friend of nearly 50 years, Pierre Barbier, in 1992.
Geof Bradfield – Urban Nomad – Origin Records
No sophomore slump here
MIB – Men In Black, Blu-ray (1997/2008)
MIB is so much better a combo of sci-fi, action and comedy than attempts such as Mars Attacks.
Violinist Gerhard Taschner = DVORAK: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53; KHACHATURIAN: Violin Concerto in D Minor – Gerhard Taschner, violin/Berlin Philharmonic/Lovro von Matacic (Dvorak)/NWDR Sinfonieorchester, Hamburg/ Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt – Tahra
Trained by Hubay, Bak, and Huberman, Taschner eventually became concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwaengler.
* PURCELL: Fantasias for the Viols, 1680 – Hespèrion XX – Jordi Savall etc. – Alia Vox
******* MULTICHANNEL DISC OF THE MONTH *******
Multichannel SACD remastered from earlier Naive CD
Audio News for July 25, 2008
The Alphabet Soup of Audio Codecs
Wayne Horvitz and Sweeter Than the Day – A Walk in the Dark
A great band laboring mostly in obscurity
HINDEMITH: Symphony in E-Flat (1940) – London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Sir Adrian Boult – Everest Records
This is extremely sombre and serious music – quite unlike my favorites of his orchestral works.
MONTEVERDI: L’Orfeo (complete opera) – Laurie Monahan (La Musica)/ Frank Kelly (Orfeo)/ Roberta Anderson (Euridice)/ Music from Aston Magna/ Daniel Stepner, conductor – Centaur
A homegrown production of this masterpiece that is almost fully competitive
ELODIE LAUTEN: The Death of Don Juan – Randi Larowitz, soprano/ Elodie Lauten, Fairlight CMI, harpsichord, trine, alto and contralto/ Bill Raynor, electric guitar/ Arthur Russell, cello and tenor/ Steven Sauber, bass and speaker – Unseen Worlds Records
A post-minimalist classic resurfaces—but is it really worth the fuss?
Ron Kalina, harmonica, and Jim Self, tuba – The Odd Couple – Basset Hound Records
The performers never let the limitations of their chosen instruments slow them down in the least.
Mark Prince – Fraction of Infinity – Contour Records
An estimable debut by a drummer/composer/bandleader showing great promise.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Piano Concerto in D Major; Young Apollo; Diversion Op. 21 – Steven Osborne, piano/BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ivan Volkov – Hyperion
All three of these works were written during the same period: from 1938 to 1940.
BERNHARD LANG: I Hate Mozart (complete opera) – Klangforum Wien/Johannes Kalitzke – Col Legno (+DVD)
The question remains to the end: is this opera, music-comedy, or music-theater?
MOZART: The Four Flute Quartets – Michala Petri, recorders/ Carolin Widmann, violin/ Ula Ulijona, viola/ Marta Sudraba, cello – OUR Recordings
Michala Petri and three associates give us a dazzling Flute Quartets substituting the recorder!
Joel Harrison – Passing Train – Intuition Records
A brave experiment that goes mostly right
The Mummy, Blu-ray (1999/2008)
The CGI special effects were ground-breaking at the time of the film’s initial release and they still hold up well today.
Autumn Hearts (2007)
One look at the acting credits and you will probably be certain this dramatic film will not be a waste of your time.
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 6, Op. 54 – London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Sir Adrian Boult – Everest
Comparing the 1996 (out-of-print) reissue with this one via headphones, I could hear no appreciable difference between them.
Tears of Beauty = Chamber works of ATTERBERG, HURD, FINZI, PART, SHOSTAKOVICH, JOHNSTONE Etc. – Soloists/None Profit Music Chamber Orch. – Warner Bros. Spain
An unusual and esoteric collection of very fine music
MOZART: Serenades Nos. 11 in E-flat Major (K.375) & 12 in C minor (K.388) – Everest Woodwind Octet/Newell Jenkins – Everest Records
In comparison with exactly the same selections in the out-of-print 1996 Omega CD reissue series, I found they sounded about the same.
JOHN ADAMS: Grand Pianola Music; Shaker Loops; The Chairman Dances; Short Ride in a Fast Machine – Solisti New York/ Ransom Wilson/ London Chamber Orchestra/ Christopher Warren-Green, conductor/ City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/ Simon Rattle – EMI
An excellent introduction to the provocative John Adams