What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol.VIII)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 29 December 2011
With 2012 almost upon us, it's time to start a fresh thread. I've gone back to an earlier thread title because often the "why" is the most interesting part of the post.
Anyway, links:
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
#5 from Günter Wand's partially completed Berlin Philharmonic cycle. Like the other symphonies, this is a doctored live performance with any trace of an audience removed and sounding quite good. The performance is... heavy handed, monumental, episodic. Conductors like Sinopoli and Thielemann have shown that this symphony really opens up in a more lyrical setting. Wand is decidedly old school, building a bare-bones protestant church instead of one of Bruckner's spendid cathedrals of sound.
Cheers,
EJ
And they don't have the nerve to touch 1029, an amazingly beautiful sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord that has no business being transcribed...
Cheers,
EJ
EJ, but music is meant to be played and heard? Every great composer transcribed even there own music to different settings/instruments regularily and this includes J.S. Bach himself doing this?
Just a thought....
Doug
Hi Doug, perfectly OK with transcriptions and for all we know, most of the Bach that we know and love are transcriptions as we often don't know exactly which instrument(s) he had in mind. It's just that BVW 1027 - 2029 are so fused with the gamba, most transcriptions of them sounds like something's lacking.
As ever, strictly my purely biased, personal opinion 
EJ
On CD:-
On 24bit DVD which came with the Vinyl
Does not seem to have the immediacy of the vinyl on my Acram D79/Denon 2311/KefQ55s
A thoroughly enjoyable account of these sonatas, which I think are Prokofiev's best works. On my personal list as one of the best classical CDs of this year.
Cheers,
EJ
On CD:-
and on HDCD:-
Is there anyway of knowing if a CD is HDCD without putting it in a CDP?
A century back from Bach - music is living again; freedom came back...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APqXhc2qJmQ
A renaissance-based French chanson 'A La Fin Cette Bergere' really outstanding delivered by Lefillatre's voice and Le Poeme Harmonique.
Sound: usual Alpha-crew masterwork.
Highly recommended.
Johnny Cash: the best of...new to me and i like it a lot!
What is his best CD?
Frist listen up to an xmas pressie.
Johnny Cash: the best of...new to me and i like it a lot!
What is his best CD?
Depends what period of Johnny's career, early, middle, or late. Which tracks do you like from the CD you have posted?
Graham.
Willy de Ville: the best of...come a little bit closer...
Johnny Cash: the best of...new to me and i like it a lot!
What is his best CD?
Well I have this on vinyl. My favourite, Large catalogue, second up would be
Johnny Cash: the best of...new to me and i like it a lot!
What is his best CD?
Depends what period of Johnny's career, early, middle, or late. Which tracks do you like from the CD you have posted?
Graham.
Ring of fire
If i were a carpenter
A boy named sue
Siouxsie and the banshees: Kaleidoscope
Slowdive: Just for a day. What a great album...
Dead can Dance: Dead can Dance (the last album for this night)
This is Richter's 'White album'.
Another early Philips digital with excellent sonics.
One of my oldest CDs, still my fav performance of Swan Lake.
Cheers,
EJ
This is Richter's 'White album'.
Another early Philips digital with excellent sonics.
Kuma, the critical press has always had a two-faced opinion of this; on the one hand, a reminder of an unforgettable event with Schreier in his prime (he would record another Winterreise with Schiff, less 'in the moment' but technically as good -but Schiff is obviously very different than Richter). On the other hand, so obviously spliced together from two (or more?) performance it's jarring and hurting the intensity. What do you think?
Cheers,
EJ
Solti's Walküre - nothing I can say to the vast body of reviews and opinions out there. The singers are on the whole spectacular, with James King the standout as a true heldentenor Siegmund (a singer type that seems to be extinct). I think Solti just misses the poignancy of the encounter between Siegmund and Brünhilde (listen to Haitink - with singers nowhere near Solti's - to hear how moving it can be) but he picks up in the last scenes. Hotter still was an imposing Wotan, and his final scenes are the highlight of this recording IMO. The recording quality (listening to the 1998 transfer) remains breathtaking.
I like Solti's (or is that Culshaw's?) technicolor conducting throughout the Ring, but I agree with others that it stays a bit on the superficial side, with all eddies and undercurrents in the score magnified for effect. Other recordings show that aspect better, but in terms of immediate impact, Solti remains top. He also arguably has the best Wotan (tie with Morris for Haitink and Levine), Siegmund and Brünhilde.
Cheers,
EJ