Monthly Archive: August 2008
Engegårdkvartetten in String Quartets by HAYDN (Op. 76, No. 5), SOLBERG and GRIEG – Arvid Engegård, Atle Sponberg (violin) Jan-Erik Gustafsson (viola) Juliet Jopling (cello) – 2L
The enterprising label 2L has produced another winner here.
Kenny Barron – The Traveler – Sunnyside Communications
One of our greatest jazz pianists at the top of his game: very hard to beat!
WOLFGANG RIHM: String Quartets Nos. 1, 4, 5 and 8 – Doelen Quartet – Cybele
While still firmly in the 12-Tone camp, his music is more approachable than many twentieth-century works.
Billy Joel: “The Stranger,” 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition – Billy Joel, piano and vocals/ Richie Cannata, sax and keys/ Doug Stegmeyer, bass/ Liberty DeVitto, drums/ Howie Emerson, guitars – Sony Legacy 2CDs + DVD
The remastered CDs sound about as good as the previously-issued SACD.
“Tutti!” – Orchestral Sampler – Various orchestras and chorus in selections by VIVALDI, CHADWICK, STRAVINSKY, MOZART, PARAY, BRUCKNER, ARNOLD IBERT, R. STRAUSS, JANACECK, MUSSORGSKY-RAVEL & others – Reference Recordings
Reference Recordings’ very first SACD, with more to come.
Cast Away, Blu-ray (2000)
Tom Hanks deserved Best Actor Academy Award nomination as he wonderfully displays the emotions and struggles of his character.
Claire Martin: Perfect Alibi – Claire Martin, vocals, featuring: Paul Stacey, guitars, bass and keyboards/ Jeremy Stacey and Andrew Newmark, drums/ Andy Wallace, organ/ Anthony Kerr, vibes/ Luis Jardim, percussion/& many others – Linn
Many of the songs are delivered with a jazzy twist and her trademark smoky-sweet voice.
Now The Green Blade Riseth – Stockholm Cathedral Choir/Gustaf Sjokvist, conductor / Adolf Fredrik Children’s Choir/Gunnel Kyhle, leader/ Bengt Berg, organ – First Impression Music – K2 HD
Probably one of the best sounding Red Book CDs I’ve ever heard!
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 3 in D minor (original version of 1873) – Hamburg Philharmonic/Simone Young – Oehms Classics
With more conductors going back to Bruckner’s first concepts, we are finding that perhaps the composer had it right in the first place.
Michel Tirabosco, pan-flute – Flute de pan classique – Gallo Michel Tirabosco, pan-flute – Metissages – Gallo
An amazing virtuoso of the pan-flute who has been playing it professionally since age 14
David Sanchez – Cultural Survival – Concord Picante
David Sanchez’s finest recording to date: filled with absolute top-notch composing, ensemble playing, and soloing.
The Jeff Gauthier Quintet – House of Return – Cryptogramophone
Label founder and post-bop violinist produces an estimable disc.
Shirley Horn Trio – Live at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival – Monterey Jazz Festival Records
She only played the Monterey Jazz Festival once, and made the most of her performance.
Audio News for August 26, 2008
Imeem Now Top Streaming Music Site; New Hi-End Denon Compact Stereo; Perfectionist CD-only Player from Gryphon
Black Mask, Blu-ray (2008, Original release 1999)
Comes up ultimately lacking in the kind of relatively good direction and acting chops that Jet Li would exhibit in later (and much better) films.
Korn, Live At Montreux 2004, Blu-ray (2008)
A “Nu Metal” band that combine elements of heavy metal with a generous proportion of rap and hip-hop influences.
PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67; SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43; GRIEG: The Last Spring, Op. 34, No. 2 – Eleanor Roosevelt, narrator/ Boston Symphony Orchestra/Serge Koussevitzky – Naxos Historical
As a triptych devoted to the purity of the Boston Symphony’s orchestral tone, these inscriptions are never less than immaculate.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op.58 – Noel Mewton-Wood, piano / Utrecht Symphony Orchestra / Walter Goehr, conductor – Pristine Audio (download or CD-R)
Mewton-Wood’s playing in the Beethoven is fresh, youthful and spontaneous, and the orchestra can be heard to be encouraged by his virtuosity.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5 – London Symphony Orchestra /Rudolf Schwarz – Everest
Everest’s recording remains first-rate by today’s standards, and this remains an excellent example of the art of Bert Whyte.
STOKOWSKI = RAVEL: Fanfare from L’Eventail de Jeanne; FRANCK: Symphony in D minor; PROKOFIEV: Alexander Nevsky – Scenic Cantata – Sophia van Sante, mezzo/Groot Omroepkoor/ Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Leopold Stokowsk – MediciArtsiMediciAr
Having grown up with the 78 rpm version of the Franck Symphony with Stokowski (1936), his plastic approach to the relatively four-square writing has always beguiled me.
COPLAND: Piano Variations; Piano Sonata; Piano Fantasy – Robert Weirich, piano – Albany
COPLAND: Piano Variations; Piano Sonata; Piano Fantasy – Robert Weirich, piano – Troy 989, 72:09 [Distrib. by Albany] ****: Pianist and composer Robert Weirich, a respected member of the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, whose own pupils include Awadgin Pratt and Stanislaw Ioudenitch, turns his digital attention to the large keyboard works of Aaron Copland, 1930-1957, of which the 1930 Piano Variations still retains a Spartan, shocking power and abstract colorations that both mesmerize and confound us at once. In a parody of Beethoven’s Fifth, Copland uses a declamatory four-note motive that Copland subjects to a series of classical procedures, including some rude, octave displacements that may well have inspired Varese. The music well captures the ethos of 1930, its bleak economic and social prospects, on the verge of world calamity. The variations themselves employ improvisatory elements, jazz rhythms, the tune played against its own inversion, a veritable synopsis of techniques employed by the Second Viennese School and co-opted by the pupils of Nadia Boulanger. That Copland conceives of the piano as fundamentally a percussive instrument there can be no doubt. That Weirich can salvage some lyricism and palpable sweetness from the contrived clangor […]
Doug Hamilton Jazz Band – OA
Only a tentet, but what an intelligent and swinging band!
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
