Re-listening to a disc from a couple of weeks ago. And yes, after swapping more tubes my system is officially "sounding better than ever."



On CD

Back around to Beethoven's 1st Symphony. I don't normally have much good to say about so called "historically informed performance" but there are exceptions that prove every rule. Like John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Their lively, transparent and nuanced Beethoven wouldn't be my first, or even second choice, but it is certainly well worth hearing.



On CD.

I have that 2 cd set as well, a favorite of these duet interpretations. My Dad loved to listen to it as well.

This is quite simply one of the greatest records ever made. YMMV. The brass sections from the Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago Symphonies, i.e. a bunch of the very best brass players on the planet, got together to jam on the antiphonal music of Gabrieli. As a bonus the sound, unlike most Columbia/CBS/Sony recordings from the 60s, is as spectacular as the music and the playing.



On CD.

I pretty much wore out my LP of this album, and if it is possible to wear out a CD, I'll wear this out too.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in the classical music thread.  For some reason I tend to go in spurts lately.  Tonight’s a vinyl night…and as I was  flipping through my collection…its impossible to pass over John Williams without playing him.  

Having been down with a health issue for several days, and being deprived of quality sound from the big rig, strength was gathered this morning, and the system was fired up for the first time in more than a week.  Walter Klien has now played all of Mozart's piano sonatas for me today.   I very much enjoy the way Klien played Mozart's plain and simple feel-good sonatas.

The recordings are two VoxBox 2-CD sets.  Recordings are from the late fifties and early sixties, but you'd never know it listening from the family room, one flight of stairs up from the listening room--huge, full, detailed concert grand piano sound. There is audible tape hiss in the listening room, but not one floor up!  Highly recommended recordings, and I'm certain, good for one's health too!

CA, what recordings of the concertos do you like?

I'll give Klara a listen today on the sonatas.  I like the idea of lovely.

Another Mozart piano concerto I really like: Clara Haskil and Ferenc Fricsay perform the dark and dramatic Concerto no. 20.



On CD

This is in the Fricsay/DG box, recorded in pretty good 50s mono.

Alfred Brendel was one of the most popular and frequently recorded pianists towards the end of the 20th century and I bought a lot of his stuff as I began accumulating classical recordings. I also heard him perform live a couple of times. But his intellectual, understated performances have not aged well with me as I became more familiar with other performers. Not that there is anything wrong with Brendel, just that others speaker to me more directly. However, there are a few recordings that I find really work, like Schubert's haunting late sonata in c minor, D 959.



16/44 FLAC download

The Emerson String Quartet was one of the early stars of the digital era, and kept that mojo going for over 40 years. I didn't come to appreciate string quartets and until relatively late, but the Emersons played a big role in removing that huge blind (deaf?) spot in my classical music life. The Emerson's sound is what I'd call more transparent and complimentary, rather than perfectly blended like e.g. the Tokyo or Alban Berg, but that, and their scintillating technique means no detail of Beethoven's revolutionary first Razumovsky quartet goes unannunciated.



16/44 FLAC rip from CD

Jeno Jando's Beethoven is on the lighter, more lyrical side and even though it is approaching 40 years old (!?!?!) I still consider it one of the best "modern" sonata cycles. And it is (or at least was) an incredible bargain as a download.



16/44 FLAC download

I was enjoying Beethoven's late, great sonata no. 31, op. 110.

Beethoven's Grosse Fuge is, by a wide margin, the most inscrutable major work by a major composer of which I am aware. In fact, next to inscrutable in the dictionary there could very well be the score. I had certainly heard about Die Grosse Fuge, but I had never heard it, and in fact to the best of my knowledge I had never heard any Beethoven String Quartets when, in my 20s, I bought my first set at the used record store. The first track I put on was Grosse Fuge and I listened for a couple of minutes in growing disbelief to sounds so hideous I couldn't imagine they were written by my hero, Ludwig van, and recorded by professional musicians. It turns out I was in pretty good company because pretty much everyone ever has had a similar reaction.

It took me decades before I finally warmed up to Beethoven's Late Quartets, and even longer before I made friends with the Great Fugue. It was the recording by the Cleveland Quartet that finally did it for me.



16/44 FLAC rip from CD

Today I can say I listen to it, occasionally, and appreciate it. But it would be a stretch to say I like it.

Listening to Richter has sent me on a deep drive into Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata. Maurizio Pollini's recording is almost 50 years old now but is considered a "modern" classic, and was my first serious exposure to this masterpiece. It might not probe the emotional depths that other pianists do, but it does bring Beethoven's intricate piano writing into brilliantly sharp focus.



On CD

This is an interesting album. The music is a little bit minimalist, a little bit modern and a little bit ambient. But very evocative of snowy forests and twilight. A good choice for chilling out (get it...)



24/192 FLAC download

Wilhelm Kempff was the German pianist in the middle of the 20th century, and his Beethoven Sonatas were considered authoritative, at least in and around Germany. And I think in this case I whole heartedly agree. They are dignified, thoughtful and understated and tend to emphasize the more playful and humorous aspect of the music, esp. in the earlier works. Some complain that the late sonatas are too understated, and I can see the point. But I find Kempff's clear eyed, unsentimental interpretations very effective, and nowhere more so than in his Hammerklavier. He doesn't have the power of Richter or the virtuoso fireworks of Pollini or the meltingly beautiful slow movement of Solomon. He plays the final fugue like it is Bach, not Liszt… or Prokofiev. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.



On CD

Kempff recorded the sonatas up to 4 times. Most of them before and during WWII on 78s. The one to which I just listened, in 50s mono for DG, a mythical sonata cycle recorded live in Japan in the early 60s (which I have never seen) and the "standard" one recorded for DG in stereo.

Even more than the preludes Bach wrote for the Well Tempered Clavier, the 24 Preludes Op.28 by Chopin showed what was possible in just a minute or two of keyboard music. I would call them musical haikus. Pretty much everyone records them, and almost none of them are less than good. But, for me, Ivan Moravec plays them perfectly.



On CD

Domenico Scarlatti wrote 555 keyboard sonatas, most of which take only a couple of minutes to play. You might be tempted to call them "preludes" (see Chopin above) but in fact they have a fairly rigorous formal structure. However, like most great music, the technical elegance is well hidden from the listener and they just sound really interesting. Esp. when played by Angela Hewitt and recorded by Hyperion.



16/44 FLAC download

More Vaughan Williams. The string quartets and Phantasy Quintet. Lovely music in that gentle, English style that is easy to recognize but hard to define.



On CD

The Maggini Quartet's "British box" is pretty niche even in the string quartet niche. But it has a lot of really good music.

Smetana's Ma Vlast is considered the first piece of explicitly nationalistic western art music, and would be very important for that reason alone. The second movement, Vltava, aka The Moldau, is hugely popular, absolutely beautiful, and one of the first pieces I'll play for people who "don't think they like classical music." I find the other movements much more variable. YMMV.



On CD

Zdeněk Mácal's performance with the Milwaukee Symphony is very good, although not my favorite. But the Telarc recording is outstanding.

Its been a while since I played any Julian Bream, which is an oversight on my part.



On CD.

Smetana's piano music is on my todo list, but I've got a bunch of Dvorak and Tchaikovsky that I need to work on first.

I've changed the computer and software I use to play files and I've been reveling in the improved sound. One of my favorite albums is Eternal Heaven, a collection of arias from Handel Operas. And it sound heavenly.



24/96 FLAC download

The live Los Angeles Philharmonic recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is an excellent performance and a spectacular recording. Perhaps the widest dynamic range of any recording I have. You really need to crank the volume up to hear the delicate woodwind pianissimos which means the brassy climaxes will rattle your windows and possibly annoy your neighbors.



24/96 FLAC download

Been listening to a lot more classical again on my long extended weekend off.  Enjoying this album streaming through Roon.