What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. X)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 31 December 2013
On the cusp of 2014, we start a new thread...
Anyway, links:
Volume IX: https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...16#22826037054683416
Volume VIII: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...nt/12970396056050819
Volume VII: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...6878604287751/page/1
Volume VI: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...ent/1566878604097229
Volume V: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...ent/1566878605140495
Volume IV: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...ent/1566878605795042
Volume III: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...ent/1566878607309474
Volume II: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...ent/1566878606245043
Volume I: https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...ent/1566878607464290
On Vinyl
Ha! - I've just put this on too......must be the sunshine!
G
The sun is not shining here yet! but never mind this might help 
Original [mono] vinyl
the first piece I am hearing is great...
The Temper Trap
"Acoustic Sessions" (ep)
"Conditions"
"The Temper Trap"
back to back to back
(iTunes downloads)
love this band
After Jeff A post - CD.
top of the pile:
Shelby Lynne "Revelation Road" (deluxe edition)
(iTunes download)
Beatles - Sgt Peppers. What can you say about this album which hasn't already been said before? Ripped to FLAC
Beatles - Sgt Peppers. What can you say about this album which hasn't already been said before? Ripped to FLAC
How about: notwithstanding 'A Day In The Life', it's not as good as Abbey Road, The White Album, Let it Be, Rubber Soul or Revolver, so why all the hype?
Beatles - Sgt Peppers. What can you say about this album which hasn't already been said before? Ripped to FLAC
How about: notwithstanding 'A Day In The Life', it's not as good as Abbey Road, The White Album, Let it Be, Rubber Soul or Revolver, so why all the hype?
Hi Clive. To be honest, I'm not the biggest Beatles fan. I have the Red and Blue (greatest hits in effect) albums and this one. I should probably get to know their other albums a bit better, thanks for the recommendations. I must say though that I do like this album a lot. For me it has a synergy when taken as a whole. I haven't heard the albums you mention though so maybe when I do I'll feel the same about them 
.
Van Morrison "Born To Sing: No Plan B"
(iTunes download)
LP - full time hobby 2014 : )
not a duff track, nothing outstanding either,
just a very nice easy on the ear album : )
Debs
Paul Pena ^ New Train^
Prompted me to play this.
He wrote Jet Airliner which ended up on a Steve Miller album.
I'd never heard of him until Radio Paradise played his version of Jet Airliner, and now you post this.
Why? Because it's just perfect for a lazy Bank Holiday weekend Saturday lunchtime!
CD ripped to NS01 through NDS.
Suzanne Vega "Close Up, Vol 3: States Of Being"
(iTunes download)
Rush - A Farewell to Kings. My introduction to Rush many years ago and holds a lot of memories for me.
Rush - A Farewell to Kings. My introduction to Rush many years ago and holds a lot of memories for me.
Mine too, and it changed my life. That and Moving Pictures has got a lot to answer for!
Rush - A Farewell to Kings. My introduction to Rush many years ago and holds a lot of memories for me.
Mine too, and it changed my life. That and Moving Pictures has got a lot to answer for!
Some fantastic Neo Prog, looking forward to the new album next month
Brititte Engerer (harpsichord):
Franz Schubert:
Wanderer-Fantaisie op. 15, D.760
Franz Liszt: Transcriptions of Lieder by Schubert:
Auf dem Wasser zu singen
Frühlingsglaube
Der Doppelgänger
Aufenthalt
Litaney
Gretchen am Spinnrade
Ständchen
This is from a digital transfer of the original LP's by Studio Art et son, Paris. The sonics are not the best but not the worst either. The playing is very nice though.
Music just fascinates me. It can make you stay up all night or get you up in the early hours of the morning. Newsflash: It is not about the instrument or rules in my opinion. It is the intrinsic value that speaks to my soul. If it were anything less, then quite simply we, or should I say, I, wouldn't need it. Ultimately though, if something catches me then I am hooked but this is only the start. I have to dig deeper and my understanding and relationship grows as a result. It becomes a lifetime of work and the hard part is to find all the time.
Working my way through the Engerer album I was reminded how much I love Schubert and how much I love Liszt and how much I love music from about the 1700's through to the early 20th century. Sadly, it is very foreign in our own time where somehow I think we have mostly lost the plot and our minds.
Schubert Lieder ranks up there with the other great works in history that are an essential gift to mankind. They are brutally honest and so this might scare those who avoid emotion like it is some disease. I would like to say I understood lieder as a young person just as I would like to believe I understood Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Schumann or any other great composer. This was not the case. Like a fine wine - it is very immature at birth and takes time. The truth is that Der Doppelgänger was not on my list of notable pieces of music two or three decades ago.
Today, it is undoubtably one of the most profound pieces I am lucky enough to be acquainted with. To sit at the piano in the dead of night and play this (or any lieder or any great music) is really a wonderful experience and treasure to have. Below is an absolutely brilliant resource from Dr. Nick Redfern. OK, not for everyone but it is just a small part of what I value in the arsenal of tools I use to grow closer to music. To have a resource like this available is astounding and rare. When I have practiced the piece for months / years and then something you remember that was said suddenly becomes clear and you then, and only then start to grow (the aha moments). You understand why a marking was put in or a certain note or chord was placed and the meaning becomes clearer. It informs my playing and my emotional connection to the music. It might also explain why I might shed a tear in a concert and the guy next to me is counting ceiling tiles.
This exercise is not for the faint hearted. There might only be a few or even none here who would turn down the lights and take the time to experience this. I do not want to also give the impression that anyone should think that the original is the only intended way or better or the piano transcription is better or worse etc. As I said in the beginning, music is music. I can learn from and enjoy any reproduction so long as it is done well and shares the same conviction. You either get it (even eventually after long struggles or doubt) or you don't or will never. If you do not get the same chill down your spine from whichever version then you are looking for things in the music that are unnatural and foreign. It is only about the spirit of the music in the end. Franz Liszt has given me the opportunity to experience this in my own home. For the lieder, I have only recordings or a rare live recital a handful of times in my life.
None of the examples are chosen because I though anything of them initially. There are dozens and dozens of other choses and you should seek them out as well. They are just randomly chosen for example and illustration (although as it turns out these are all exceptional examples).
My hope is that someone at least feels some of the greatness in this music and starts to understand the connection between the notes and implied meaning.
Liszt's piano transcription of Schubert's Der Doppelgänger from Schwanengesang S. 560 (1838)
Heine's text (English translation):
"Still is the night, it quiets the streets down,
In that window my love would appear;
She's long since gone away from this town,
But this house where she lived still remains here.
A man stands here too, staring up into space,
And wrings his hands with the strength of his pain:
It chills me, when I behold his pale face
For the moon shows me my own features again!
You spirit double, you specter with my face
Why do you mock my love-pain so
That tortured me here, here in this place
So many nights, so long ago?"
The Theory Introduction (essential in my opinion)!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...ge&v=4SGVokUSpJU
Der Doppelgänger - Original (Schubert - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...ge&v=fKVnL9JvuO8
Der Doppelgänger - Original (Schubert - Alexander Kipnis (to offer an olive branch to George whom I learn so much from and to say I too love old recordings):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...ge&v=xhBWKeJZ_1g
The Liszt Piano Transcription (to follow the transcription score - Oxana Yablonskaya):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...ge&v=nMiXvv6YArQ
The Liszt Piano Transcription (for the atmosphere like it should be in a home - Valentina Lisitsa -thank you Franz Liszt) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...ge&v=xsuuWkGmLFI
Pete Yorn "Back & Forth"
(cd rip to iTunes)
What's the vinyl pressing like Debs? I bought their last LP and it was not very good.
The music was lovely though.
Their previous vinyl included a CD, and funny enuff i found the CD louded and horrible and couldn't get to actually enjoy the music until playing the vinyl which has a HUGELY better SQ, my pressing of 'Blood Speaks' is fair to middling.
The new Smoke Fairies album on vinyl is again really quite good in SQ, and again my copy is pressed 'fairly' well although i can hear some very slight crackle here and there, although the last time i played it i didn't seem to notice it. Maybe it needs a KM's RCM 
IMO it's well worth buying at the £12.77 price on Amazon
That price will start going up soon.
Debs