What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XI)

So happy with the Jazzoounge offering these live recordings. Gives me a feel what it would have been to join a live concert of these guys....

On cd...

No nampsy pampsey jazz here, oh no. Love and Dancing.

On vinyl from the days of yore.

On cd...

This morning the recent recording of Lucia di Lammermoor with Damrau, and this evening one of the composer's best unknown works: Parisina. I've not heard all of Donizetti's serious operas but a fair few, and it strikes me that Lucia is either the best of the lot, or just sung so much more dramatically because singers are familiar with it. Probably a combination. In the end, this Parisina is a fine performance, more polished and better conducted than the Lucia here, but lacks a singer of Diana Damrau's personality and vocal quality. As Lucia, Damrau is the absolute star and she is magnificent, even if her approach stylistically isn't belcanto per se - she tends to act outside the vocal line, anticipating Verdi. The rest of the performance is pretty good, but rough around the edges - this jars on repeated hearings but overall this must be the best modern Lucia on record.  

EJ

Hi Bert,

very interesting website. Never heard of it before but they seem to have a large collection of very interesting concerts. Regarding the est concert above, I was only able to find mp3 files but from the screenshot above it looks like there are also wav files available. Did I miss anything?

Thanks.

alfred

Google tells me that by 1981, turtlenecks started to signify the contemporary, mature artist. Which is a pretty good description of this disc: a slightly whimsical performance that does respect the drama in one of Tchaikovsky's most serious and best works, but also the humor that's hidden in the variations. (For no-holds barred darkness, look for the Trio Wanderer).

EJ

Good start of the free Monday

From bandcamp

Hi Alfred,

yes it's all mp3 - but I have used the batch converter of dbpoweramp as I want everything in flac format. My NAS server is standard transcoding from flac to wav...

Thanks Bert. Understand now.

Streaming | FLAC ripped CD 1 of 2 

Hopkinson Smith ~ Bach: Sonatas and Partitas

Finally this delightful double CD arrived just the other day.

This is not THE four seasons, but an interesting piece of solo piano music, meaty piano music. From Bandcamp as well.

Listened to this dvd via my Muso (dvd on NAS) during my workout, great ...

Now listening to this - might need to listen a couple of times, but not yet my favorite

My first listen to this...Streaming in Flac

Just like NPR, Monday morning Mozart: