PentaTone Archive
ELGAR & TCHAIKOVSKY: Cello Concerto; Variations on a Rococo Theme – Johannes Moser, cello/ Orch. de la Suisse Romande/ Andrew Manze – Pentatone
ELGAR & TCHAIKOVSKY: Cello Concerto; Variations on a Rococo Theme – Johannes Moser, cello/ Orch. de la Suisse Romande/ Andrew Manze – Pentatone multichannel SACD 5186 570, 64:46 (2/3/17) *****: A compelling pairing of two works by like-minded composers, delivered in stunning super-audio format. With a little imagination and modest time travel, it is possible to witness the following encounter. A man, elegantly dressed with cane and boater, enters a pub. His rigid posture of self-composure contrasts with the look of utter despondency on his face. Peering about, he spies a solitary figure in a shadowy corner. The beard looks familiar and upon approach, it turns out to be Peter Tchaikovsky, slumped over a pint of ale, his face a picture of forlorn melancholy. Sir Edward acknowledges the fellow sufferer and takes a seat. Soon the two composers are commiserating over their personal troubles, their shared feeling of grief and disillusionment. Edward, recently widowed, finds himself in artistic doldrums, unable to stir the sources of his once fertile creativity. His wider points of reference include the ruin of the Great War, which has cast every human value into doubt. Peter, for his part, has a litany of complaints: fractured relationships, […]
GIULIANI, CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO & VILLA-LOBOS: Guitar Concertos – Narciso Yepes, g./ London Sym. Orch./ English Ch. Orch./ Luis Antonio García Navarro – PentaTone
GIULIANI, CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO & VILLA-LOBOS: Guitar Concertos – Narciso Yepes, g./ London Sym. Orch./ English Ch. Orch./ Luis Antonio García Navarro – orig. quadrophonic recordings from 1977, remastered in 2014 – Pentatone SACD PTC 5186-202, 61:49 (4/14/15) ****: Beautifully restored and played four-channel guitar concertos by Yepes and the London Symphony. What a treat this disc is! Three lovely guitar concertos played by Narciso Yepes and The London Symphony Orchestra. The history of the recordings is interesting. Originally produced during the short quadraphonic boom in the early 1970s by DGG, there were many recordings done for open reel tape deck owners and some who braved the rather awful and unreliable quadraphonic vinyl discs. Later the tapes were just stored, without multichannel releases. In the present day, Pentatone has made a project of restoring the tapes, where possible finding some of the original engineers and producers to help restore them, then transferring them to DSD and SACD. The results are excellent. Even with my ear to the tweeters I don’t hear any tape hiss, yet the high frequencies of the strings and plucked guitar strings are very clean and bright. It’s a phenomenal restoration. Guitarist Narciso Yepes was one of the finest […]
BRAHMS: Violin Con. & Con. for Violin & Cello – Julia Fischer & others – PentaTone
Classic Yakov Kreizberg performances of Brahms from 2007 feature the truly-gifted Julia Fischer. BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77; Concerto in a minor for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 102 – Julia Fischer, violin/ Daniel Mueller-Schott, cello/ Netherlands Philharmonic Orch./ Yakov Kreizberg – PentaTone multichannel SACD PTC 5186 592, 72:59 (4/24/07) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: I am uncertain as to how this 2007 recording of the two great Brahms string concertos came my way at this late date, but the relatively young Julia Fischer (b. 1983) performs with a grand combination of velocity and lyric ardor. I had not known of cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott, but his playing on the “Ex Shapiro” Matteo Goffriller instrument from Venice, 1727 convinces me that he well suits the 1887 Double Concerto. So far as that late work is concerned, it made for a reconciliation piece between Brahms and Joseph Joachim, who had parted way in the course of Joachim’s divorce proceedings with mezzo-soprano Amalie Schneeweiss. The fact that Brahms incorporated motifs from Joachim’s favorite Viotti Concerto No. 22 in a minor, as well as Joachim’s patented F-A-E or F-E-A signature for “free but lonely” insured their renewed meeting of minds. Conductor Kreizberg […]
BEETHOVEN & BRUCH Violin Concertos – Accardo & Masur – Pentatone
Accardo and Masur combine for splendid work in pillars of the violin concerto repertory. BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61; BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1 in g, Op. 26 – Salvatore Accardo, violin/ Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/ Kurt Masur – Pentatone RQR multichannel (4.0) SACD PTC 5186 237, 71:22 (10/21/16) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: Italian virtuoso violinist Salvatore Accardo (b. 1941) still reigns as a recognized “heir” to Niccolo Paganni, especially given his recorded survey of the six Paganini concertos with Charles Dutoit. Accardo and Kurt Masur recorded the present (Philips) coupling of the Beethoven Concerto and the First Bruch Concerto in 1977-1978, the latter a particularly happy rendition since conductor Masur (1927-2015) had immersed himself in much of Bruch’s symphonic repertory, besides. The Beethoven Concerto receives a gentle, lyric, Apollinian approach, to my mind much in the tradition of splendid rendition Oistrakh and Cluytens made for EMI. Nothing of the expansive, first movement Allegro ma non troppo feels rushed: the phrase arches evolve lustrously, with seamless attention to the rhythmic pulse over which the violin weaves its beguiling tapestry, sempre perdendosi, forgetting itself. When Masur requires a more monolithic effect, the Gewandhaus certainly swells to the occasion, but without […]
BEETHOVEN: Two Sonatas – Grumiaux, v./Arrau, p. – Pentatone
Beethoven as he was meant to be played. BEETHOVEN: Violin Sonatas No. 1 in D, Opus 12:1; No. 5 in F, Opus 24, “Spring” – Arthur Grumiaux, violin/ Claudio Arrau, p. – Pentatone multichannel (4.0) SACD PTC 5186 235, 45:22 (8/26/16) [Distr. by Naxos] *****: They don’t get much better than this—Beethoven violin sonatas, that is. Grumiaux is one of those special cases whose CDs I return to often. That meltingly creamy tone, whether in chamber music, Beethoven sonatas, or Bach Sonatas and Partitas, bends the will of the composer’s tonal suggestions, whatever they may have been, to the mind and technique of a very special performer. Indeed, Grumiaux’s sensitive touch graces any work of art that he saw fit to engage, and for those whom beauty of sound is something special, if not mandatory, this release will send you to the stars. Alongside an equally dedicated and perspicacious partner like Claudio Arrau, it only gets better. Sometimes recordings that pair such talented and decidedly insightful performers like those here result in surly and surely misguided outcomes (one only needs to listen to the recording of the Beethoven Triple Concerto on EMI with Karajan, Rostropovich, and Richter to understand this), […]
DVORAK: Slavonic Rhapsodies; Symphonic Variations – Prague Philharmonic/ Jacub Hrusa – Pentatone
DVORAK: Slavonic Rhapsodies; Symphonic Variations – Prague Philharmonic/ Jacub Hrusa – Pentatone multichannel SACD PTC5186554, 60:28 [Distr. by Naxos] (10/7/16) ***1/2: Lesser known Dvorak lovingly played and very nicely recorded. For the third of his three-album series for Pentatone, the young and increasingly popular Jakub Hrusa conducts the Prague Philharmonic in an all-Dvorak program of appealing orchestral works comprising the Symphonic Variations Op. 78 coupled with the lesser known Slavonic Rhapsodies Op. 45, not to be confused with the well known Slavonic Dances. It’s nice to get a release of Dvorak’s non symphonic works, which are very popular, but there was more to the great Czech composer, and people who listen to this disc will agree. This is a lovely recording, with very nice instrumental positioning in the front channel, while the rears provide ambiance. Massed strings are very clean, and the SACD format renders the strings in a natural stress-free sound. The brass are also quite realistic. The low end is solid in this 5.0 recording. Hrusa has been a strong advocate of Dvorak, and he’s filling out the catalog nicely. Although these works are not the most familiar of Dvorak’s output, this is a most welcome recording and […]
BIZET: Carmen Suites 1 & 2; L’Arlesienne Suites 1 & 2 – London Sym. Orch./ Neville Marriner – Pentatone
Pentatone restores Sir Neville Marriner’s intensely effective 1978 Bizet suites. BIZET: Carmen Suites 1 & 2; L’Arlesienne Suites 1 & 2 – London Sym. Orch./ Neville Marriner – Pentatone multichannel SACD PTC 5186 234, 65:10 (4.0 channels) [Distr. by Naxos] (7/8/16) ****: Composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875), tragically and ironically, died suddenly in June 1875, only three months after the unsuccessful première of his opera Carmen at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, 3 March 1875. The opera’s première in Vienna in October that same year scored a global triumph, a Pyrrhic victory for a composer who thought this most revered opera a dismal failure. A fellow student of Bizet, Ernest Guirand, collated the suites from selected arias and scenes he had arranged for a version of the opera in Vienna. Neville Marriner, for this 1978 recording, includes the Seguidilla, which would otherwise consist of originally instrumental pieces. On this album they are combined with the Arlésienne suites No. 1 and 2, Bizet’s other hugely popular set of orchestral suites, which are taken (1879) from the incidental music he had composed for L’Arlésienne, a tragedy by French novelist Alphonse Daudet. The suites from both scores, having become thoroughly familiar, it suffices to applaud […]
MOZART: Piano Concertos No. 12 & No. 17 – Alfred Brendel, p./ Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/ Neville Marriner – Pentatone RQR
If there is any justice in the world, this will continue through the whole series. MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414; No. 17 in G, K. 453 – Alfred Brendel, p./ Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/ Neville Marriner – Pentatone multichannel (4.0) SACD PTC 5816 236, 55:47 [Distr. by Naxos] *****: Anyone who knows the series of piano concertos of Mozart with Brendel and Marriner knows of its importance and significance. Few pairings of conductor and pianist have so successfully navigated Mozart’s supreme masterpieces with such panache and style, and when these were released both critical opinion and public acclaim merged as if one voice to proclaim them the most sensational recorded issuances of these works ever accomplished. They were not entirely complete—and this is a shame. But the greats and almost-greats were, making them mandatory acquisitions. This release, one in Pentatone’s series dedicated to reissues of recordings originally made in four-channel surround sound for quadraphonics, is a real beauty, and self-recommending, one of two the company has released so far. One hopes for a complete traversal of all the Phillips Brendel Mozart concertos, but I have no idea if this is in the offing […]
JENNIFER HIGDON: Cold Mountain (comp. opera) – Soloists /Santa Fe Opera Orch. & The Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers/ Miguel Harth-Bedoya – Pentatone (2 SACDs)
The birth of a truly distinguished American opera. JENNIFER HIGDON: Cold Mountain (comp. opera) – Jay Hunter Morris (Teague)/ Robert Pomakov (Owens)/ Adrian Kramer (Owens’ Son)/ Nathan Gunn (W.P. Inman)/ Kevin Burdette (A Blind Man)/ Isabel Leonard (Ada Monroe)/ Emily Fons (Ruby Thewes) The Santa Fe Opera Orch. & Members of The Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers/ Miguel Harth-Bedoya – Pentatone multichannel SACD PTC5186583 (2 discs), TT: 145:40 [Distr. by Naxos] *****: Like most novels of sufficient length and depth, it is virtually impossible to react while maintaining the consistency and formative narrative that makes the work succeed—or not. But when doing so for an opera, one does at least have a chance providing the music is up to the task. Opera, after all, is able to amplify and illumine specific static moments of a work in a way that even the most verbose text is unable to accomplish, emotionally speaking. This stylized formula, tried and true after so many years, and when in the hands of a genius composer, is often able to give birth to new and varied aspects of characterizations and hidden layers of meaning not present even in the original. No one, for example, […]
“Russian Dances” – TCHAIKOVSKY, SHOSTAKOVICH, GLAZUNOV, STRAVINSKY – Suisse Romande – Pentatone
“RUSSIAN DANCES” = TCHAIKOVSKY: Suite from Swan Lake; GLAZUNOV 2 Concert Waltzes; SHOSTAKOVICH: The Golden Age; STRAVINSKY: Circus Polka – Kazuki Yamada/ Orch. de la Suisse Romande – Pentatone multichannel (5.0) SACD PTC 5186 557, 70:54 (3/11/16) ***: Nice sonics and playing but the program is a bit mundane. “Russian Dances” is a pleasant diversion from Pentatone, but it isn’t particularly compelling for serious music lovers. Most of our readers will have much of this music in their collections performed by other musicians. The performances here are fine, and the 5.0 SACD sounds good, as do all the Pentatones I’ve reviewed. On the other hand, the compositions on the disc are pretty much war horses and not the kind of music most of us would seek out. I thought the highlight of the disc was the Shostakovich ballet suite The Golden Age, likely because I was less familiar with it and it wasn’t a waltz, which, along with a Stravinsky polka pervades the program. The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of Kabuki Yamada play the included music well, but again, there’s not much compelling here. The recorded sound is well-engineered, but this is not among the top tier […]
Audio News for August 9, 2016
DEG Second Quartet Home Entertainment Report – Here are details from the second quarter 2016 Home Entertainment Report compiled by the Digital Entertainment Group for their members: Consumer spending on home entertainment products were up 6% from the year earlier. More than eight million UHD TVs have now been sold. Overall physical sales of Blu-ray discs grew only 3%, while in the same quarter last year it grew 35%. More than 45 UHD titles are now available on HD Blu-ray discs with sales of some 288,000. Electronic sell-thru or digital HD grew nearly 9%, driven by theatrical content. VOD platforms were up more than 7% for the quarter, and 95% of all U.S. homes have at least one HDTV. Blu-ray playback devices are in more than 85 million U.S. households. Award-winning Farmer Plays Classical Music to his Pigs – Farmer Paul Howland, in Beccles, Suffolk, says his herd’s favorite radio station is Classic FM. He said “It calms them down…so they’re generally happier.” On Sir Neville Marriner – He is the most-recorded conductor in the classical world. His standards and measures are unequalled, yet he speaks to the notion of British finery and wispy subtlety. One of his many recordings was recently […]
TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite; Capriccio Italien; Polonaise & Waltz from “Eugene Onegin,” ‒ London Philharmonic Orch./ Leopold Stokowski ‒ PentaTone
TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a; Capriccio Italien, Op. 45; Polonaise and Waltz from “Eugene Onegin,” Op. 24 ‒ London Philharmonic Orch./ Leopold Stokowski ‒ PentaTone Classics multichannel SACD PTC 5186 299, 47:18 (3/11/16) ***: Mostly for Stokie fans, but the Capriccio Italien is impressive, and so is the recycled four-channel sound. I’ve never been a huge fan of Stokowski, though I confess he could often bring wholly new insights to a familiar piece of music—even when he wasn’t tinkering with the scoring and positioning of the musicians. I recall a performance of a Mahler symphony (the Second, I think) that I heard with the ninety-some-year-old maestro at the helm of the Philadelphia Orchestra: it was a remarkably fresh interpretation that any young firebrand conductor could have learned from. And while my shelves were never replete with Stokowski recordings, I fondly recall the Beethoven Ninth he set down for Decca’s Phase 4 series. Like the multi-mike Phase 4 recording technique itself, the interpretation was quite a bit bigger than life, plus Stokie couldn’t resist upgrading Ludwig’s creation, interpolating some extra swoops from the horn section into the ascending sextuplet figures that conclude the work. So it is with Tchaikovsky’s beloved Nutcracker […]
********* MULTICHANNEL DISCS OF THE MONTH *********WAGNER: The Ring Cycle (complete) – Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester/ Marek Janowski – Pentatone (13 SACDs)
Celebrating contemporary aesthetics and presenting superior engineering and performance, Pentatone’s Ring Cycle proves to be the ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk of recording releases. * WAGNER: Der Ring des Nibelungen (complete) – Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester/ Marek Janowski – Pentatone Music (13 multi-channel SACDs) B01D5OXYWS (5/13/16) TT: 13:48:08 *****: If Wagner’s Ring Cycle is an ultimate realization of Gesamtkunstwerk (total art), then Pentatone’s self-described “Epic Ring” set must be called a Gesamtkunstwerk of recording releases. Perhaps this is to be expected, or at least hoped for, if one is to invest in a mammoth multi-hour tetralogy composed during three 19th-Century decades. Pentatone delivers, achieving classical recording’s elusive goal of presenting a contemporary experience. Recording in five-channel surround sound, Pentatone’s goal is “to offer an unrivaled classical music experience through superior audio technology.” Achievement cannot be understated. From the opening of the Das Rheingold Prelude, listeners are pulled into a new Wagnerian experience introducing layered and sustained sound as never heard before. Conducted by Marek Janowski in Berlin, the operas were recorded in performances with the orchestra on the stage instead of in the pit. Pentatone captures this symphonic experience, convincing us that Wagner’s orchestration is the soul of the work. Pentatone’s 13-disc collection contains a massive […]
SCHUBERT: Arpeggione Sonata in a minor, D. 821; String Quintet in C Major, D. 956 – Matt Haimovitz, cello/ Itamar Golan, p./ Miro String Quartet – Pentatone
Two classic collaborations from cellist Matt Haimovitz enjoy sonic glory in these restorations from Pentatone. SCHUBERT: Arpeggione Sonata in a minor, D. 821; String Quintet in C Major, D. 956 – Matt Haimovitz, cello/ Itamar Golan, p./ Miro String Quartet – Pentatone multichannel SACD PTC 5186 549, 76:55 (6/10/16) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: From the opening piano chords in Schubert’s 1824 Arpeggione Sonata – the obsolete instrument’s having been supplanted by the modern cello – we find ourselves enthralled by Itamar’s seductive keyboard and the sympathetic sonority of the Matt Haimovitz instrument, a 1710 Matteo Gofriller cello. The original recording (30 October 2001) enjoys the remastered sonics that project the glories of Schubert’s lyric genius to full advantage. The music blends a Bohemian ethos into a three-part song that asks of the solo part flurries of bravura filigree interspersed with broken chords, both arco and pizzicato. The first movement, Allegro moderato, projects a resigned, autumnal nostalgia that we must attribute to the composer’s awareness of his fateful mortality. The Adagio presents a quiet, intimate lied of rarified beauty, a sentiment that transforms into a slow, darkly-hued waltz marked by plangent, low tones in the cello. The tempo becomes virtually funereal […]
DVORAK: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 – Andrés Orozco – Estrada/ Houston Sym. – Pentatone
DVORAK: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 – Andrés Orozco – Estrada / Houston Sym. – Pentatone multichannel SACD PTC 5186578 (01/03/16) TT: 76:34 [Distr. by Naxos] ***1/2: Highly listenable performances of late symphonies by the Czech master. Pentatone gives us two lovely Dvorak symphonies on one disc in this new release, which will be part of a series of discs with the Houston Symphony. As most of our readers know, Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, the last five of which are called his “Mature Symphonies”. Included in this SACD album are Dvorak’s Symphonies nos. 7 and 8, each of which, though different in character, represent the composer at his peak of creativity and energy. Symphony No. 7 gives us a feeling of restlessness. The treatment Dvorak’s homeland had received at the hands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which ruled it, irritated the composer. The lightness of Symphony No. 8, written in his farmhouse in the Czech countryside, is quite a contrast to the 7th. Dvorak’s rural surroundings may have influenced the music’s mood, just as his works written in Iowa, like his New World Symphony, were greatly affected by his external environment. The Houston Symphony led by its Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada, […]
Editorial for June 2016
Our free June drawing is for the 13 SACD Complete Ring Cycle of Wagner in the new recording set issue by PentaTone with leading soloists, the Berlin Radio Sym. Orch. & Chorus, cond. by Mark Janowski and with a 250-p. booklet. Here’s a page on the album, just released last month. All you need to do to enter the drawing is to click on the Register To Win button on the home page and fill out all the fields. The winner of our May drawing will be listed below. It is Cynthia Willingham of Greenwood, MS. She will be sent the 64-CD Limited Edition Leonard Bernstein set from Deutsche Grammophon – our May free drawing. EDITORIAL AUDIOPHILE AUDITION began as a local program in San Francisco and then in 1985 as a weekly national radio series hosted by John Sunier, and aired for 13½ years on up to 200 public radio and commercial stations. In September 1998 its web site for program listings was expanded to this free Internet publication. June 2016 is our 207th issue! All disc reviews are added thru the month as written and received, often daily, amounting to nearly 100 a month. The Home Page lists the […]
Audio News for May 31, 2016
Oppo Introduces Its First Speakers – The compact Sonica Wi-Fi speaker comes equipped with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and AirPlay capabilities, and there are compatible smartphones and tablet apps making it easy to manage multiple speakers on the same network. Drivers, amps and chassis have all been designed for a deep, pure and engaging sound that can be further optimized with built-in presets using the Sonica app. It is capable of decoding audio files up to 192/24 and supports FLAC, WAV and Apple Lossless. The companion app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store, while the Android version is available from Google. Retail price is $299. New Superior Classical Music Platform – Primephonics’ lossless audio and meticulous metadata offers a perfect solution for classical music listeners and audiophiles. The vast catalog of the Netherlands-based company has expanded to include Sony Classical titles. The music downloads range from WAV to FLAC or DSD – with no compressed files or degraded sound, and later this year a high-quality streaming service will also be offered. The primary problem with iTunes and other services is that they really fall apart when needing to classify classical music. Dirk Jan Vink is Managing Director or […]
KREISLER: Music for Violin and Piano – Shlomo Mintz, v./ Cliford Benson, p. – PentaTone
A charming hour of Fritz Kreisler favorites, performed by a gifted violinist who relished the composer’s renaissance. KREISLER: Music for Violin and Piano – Polichinelle; La Gitana; ALBENIZ: Tango; Rondino on a theme by BEETHOVEN; Caprice viennois, Op. 2; WEBER: Larghetto; Zigeuner-Capriccio; WIENIAWSKI: Caprice in E-flat Major; Liebesleid; Tambourin chinois; DVORAK: Slavonic Dance, Op. 72, No. 2; Recitativo and Scherzo, Op. 6; GLAZUNOV: Serenade espagnole; GRANADOS: Danse espagnole; La Precieuse; Syncopation; Liebesfreud – Shlomo Mintz, violin/ Cliford Benson, p. – PentaTone PTC 5186 228 multichannel (4.0) RQR SACD, 53:54 [Distr. by Naxos] ****: Originally released by DGG in stereo in 1981, this remastered Kreisler recital combines the violinist’s own compositions with the more notable transcriptions he made from other composers’ works. In all, we have Shlomo Mintz in 17 compositions, ably assisted by Clifford Benson. At the time, Mintz had boasted of a “Kreisler renaissance” he felt loomed on the horizon. For the most part, the pungent miking captures Mintz in suave form, with an occasional piece – like the Zigeuner-Capriccio – that allows Benson to display some fascinating touches and plastic bravura. Mintz himself adds the requisite vibrato and gypsy sizzle to those pieces whose innate sentiment – […]
DEBUSSY: Violin Sonata in g; Cello Sonata in d; Flute, Viola, and Harp Sonata; Syrinx for Solo Flute – Boston Sym. Ch. Players – Pentatone
An outstanding release wonderfully brought back to life. DEBUSSY: Violin Sonata in g; Cello Sonata in d; Flute, Viola, and Harp Sonata; Syrinx for Solo Flute – Boston Sym. Ch. Players – Pentatone multichannel SACD (4.0) PTC 5186 226, 46:11 [Distr. by Naxos] *****: For those of you who don’t remember, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, one of the greatest groups of its time, consisted of (for this disc) Joseph Silverstein, violin; Jules Eskin, cello; Michael Tilson Thomas, piano; Doriot Anthony Dwyer, flute; Burton Fine, viola; and Ann Hobson, harp. Especially interesting is the fact of all the trouble Tilson Thomas was supposedly having with the symphony members—who were not liking him much, according to some sources—yet the recordings he made with them during the start of his career, were nothing less than sensational, several now considered staples of the recorded legacy and even desert island discs. This translated into his work with the Chamber Players too. Tilson Thomas, an outstanding pianist, hooked up with the folks on this recording to make a go at repertory that was always second nature to the BSO. Its moniker “The Aristocrat of Orchestras” indicated a certain suavity and high natured tonal luster that […]
BACH: The Cello Suites (complete, Anna Magdalena manuscript) – Matt Haimovitz, cello – Pentatone (2 discs)
An excellent recording in stunning audio of the Anna Magdalena manuscript. BACH: The Cello Suites (complete, Anna Magdalena manuscript) – Matt Haimovitz, cello – Pentatone (Oxingale Series) multichannel SACD PTC 5186 555 (2 discs), 133:90 [Distr. by Naxos] ****: Haimovitz gives thoughtful and well-considered performances of these seminal works in resonant sound that captures his baroque cello and cello piccolo (Suite 6) in terrific sonics. I won’t harp yet again on the felicities of recording solo and small ensembles in surround sound—often more than the largest Mahler symphony, these sorts of settings benefit from the finest sound, allowing the most subtle of expressions to come across as if one was sitting directly in the presence of these artists in the most intimate of listening spaces. There are some benefits to these readings. For one, Haimovitz insists on using the original version of these pieces as found in the manuscript of second wife Anna Magdalena, a faithful copy of the original—as far as we know—and one of only two sources for this music, the score having long been lost. Haimovitz, who was raised with the Casals recordings as his standard and bible, first attempted the Suites on record in the late […]
STRAVINSKY: Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring); Le Roi des Etoiles – Men’s Chorus of the New England Conserv./ Boston Sym. Orch./ Michael Tilson Thomas – Pentatone
A classic returns, though the results will surprise you.
“Schubert Lieder – Orchestrated by Max Reger & Anton Webern” – Christian Elsner, tenor/ Berlin Radio-Sym. Orch./ Marek Janowski – Pentatone
They won’t supplant the originals, but they do have a charm all their own.
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
