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

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue, again

Why? because its just so difficult to remove from the player.

Russian Circles-Station

I am almost positive this is Trump's favorite band.

70 hits of the 70s - Tidal HiFi

Cd-1 

The Rolling Stones - vinyl

Why? cos its brill

Earlier in the car, great classic rock album...

The other one I listened to earlier in the car...

King Crimson - In the Wake of Poseidon 

Vintage 1970 Vinyl

Stevee_S posted:

Kevin-W posted:

Scandipoptastic UK first press vinyl.

Abba were (one of) my guilty music secrets back in the day. 

Me too. I used to enjoy prancing around the house in my underwear to ''Dancing Queen'' My beer guzzling, dirt bike riding buddies wouldn't have understood so I kept it a secret.

Recorded 20 years ago, July 1997:

Eoink posted:

Bert posted:

ToddHarris posted:

excellent Schubert recital from Bonney/Parsons...

Todd,

I recently discovered this album from 1994 and I fully agree!

Over the last years I have collected some 800 Lieder on my NAS from Dietrich Fischer-Diskau (the 21 CD box), Matthias Goerne (the 12 CD box), Elly Ameling, Peter Schreier, Christopher Gerhaher, Olaf Bär, Christoph Prégardien and Gundula Janowitz. I selected these after listening to dozens and dozens of performers on Spotify - I can't get enough of Schubert Lieder! 

From the sopranos, Elly Ameling is gorgous (her recordings from the '70's), Gundula Janowitz is a bit slow, formal but etheric in beauty (e.g. Der König in Thule D367). Compared to these two stars Barbara stands out very well: a lovely, pleasing high voice, easy-going and engaged. As American she has worked very hard on her German pronounciation, it is almost flawless!  - Florestan, I guess you are German: what do you think?

Barbara sings a very nice "Gretchen am Spinnrade" (D118) a lovely  "Du bist die Ruh' (D776)" and a beautiful "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" (D877-4).The piano sound is excellent.

Overall a very good Schubert recital. Recommended!

That's a fantastic collection, I have a great fondness for Fassbaender's recital with Johnson in his  Hyperion Schubert edition, both Tod und das Mädchen and Auf Dem Wasser zu Singen are    among my favourite Lieder performances.

Hi Eoink,

Following your recommendation I listened to Birgitte Fassbaender & Graham Johnson, i.e. the 1 minute tracks available on the Hyperion website. To be honest, Brigitte's mezzo-soprano is not my style, she sings too lyrical/opera-like with vibrato for my taste.

And the way Birgitte sings D367 "Der König in Thule" hurts my ears! I invite you to compare the performances of Birgitte, Elly and Gundula.

For the tracks you mention, my preference would be (all available on Spotify):

          D531 Der Tod und das Mädchen: Matthias Goerne (for Harmonia Mundi), or Dietrich Fischer-Diskau

          D774 Auf dem Wasser zu singen: Barbara Bonney, or again Matthias Goerne for HM

Interested in your views!

Ok, I'll admit that during at least one commute to work, I was seen singing along (with great gusto and at the top of my lungs) to Fernando.

Will also admit to a teenage crush on Agnetha. Doubt I was alone! 

Miles Davis Quintet - E.S.P. 1965. MFSL hybrid SACD. Miles' second 'Great Quintet''s first album-playing their own compositions. Good one. Nicely mastered.

1972 - Vinyl...

Gary Shaw posted:

To celebrate the fact that Aston Villa didn't lose today (they lay Monday) I declared this to be Tunbridge Wells Space Night. Kicking off with...

The Spacelords - Synapse

German space rock. A couple of their albums are on Bandcamp. To be played loud.

Followed that with 

The Moody Blues - To Our Children's Children's Children

Part four of the classic seven and their concept album about generation star travel. Quite amazing how they kept up such a strong series of albums...

I know sweet FA(no pun intended!) about football(american or english) so I'll stick to music and  that superb  BM track. Also,  great album...

Everytime I see a post on PT or SW,  I go into a fit. 

Bert posted:

Eoink posted:

Bert posted:

ToddHarris posted:

excellent Schubert recital from Bonney/Parsons...

Todd,

I recently discovered this album from 1994 and I fully agree!

Over the last years I have collected some 800 Lieder on my NAS from Dietrich Fischer-Diskau (the 21 CD box), Matthias Goerne (the 12 CD box), Elly Ameling, Peter Schreier, Christopher Gerhaher, Olaf Bär, Christoph Prégardien and Gundula Janowitz. I selected these after listening to dozens and dozens of performers on Spotify - I can't get enough of Schubert Lieder! 

From the sopranos, Elly Ameling is gorgous (her recordings from the '70's), Gundula Janowitz is a bit slow, formal but etheric in beauty (e.g. Der König in Thule D367). Compared to these two stars Barbara stands out very well: a lovely, pleasing high voice, easy-going and engaged. As American she has worked very hard on her German pronounciation, it is almost flawless!  - Florestan, I guess you are German: what do you think?

Barbara sings a very nice "Gretchen am Spinnrade" (D118) a lovely  "Du bist die Ruh' (D776)" and a beautiful "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" (D877-4).The piano sound is excellent.

Overall a very good Schubert recital. Recommended!

That's a fantastic collection, I have a great fondness for Fassbaender's recital with Johnson in his  Hyperion Schubert edition, both Tod und das Mädchen and Auf Dem Wasser zu Singen are    among my favourite Lieder performances.

Hi Eoink,

Following your recommendation I listened to Birgitte Fassbaender & Graham Johnson, i.e. the 1 minute tracks available on the Hyperion website. To be honest, Brigitte's mezzo-soprano is not my style, she sings too lyrical/opera-like with vibrato for my taste.

And the way Birgitte sings D367 "Der König in Thule" hurts my ears! I invite you to compare the performances of Birgitte, Elly and Gundula.

For the tracks you mention, my preference would be (all available on Spotify):

          D531 Der Tod und das Mädchen: Matthias Goerne (for Harmonia Mundi), or Dietrich Fischer-Diskau

          D774 Auf dem Wasser zu singen: Barbara Bonney, or again Matthias Goerne for HM

Interested in your views!

Bert,

I am glad to see your music posts again.  It is always a pleasure to discuss our common loves whether Bach or in this case Schubert Lieder.  A lifetime of joy to be found just with these two topics alone.

I agree with all your choices with vocalists but I hope I can remain in your good books and not tarnish myself by bringing up the Liszt transcriptions.  This is my guilty pleasure and I am convinced they can exist side by side (each with its own purpose).  Being a pianist I find such comfort and joy whenever I spend hours and hours playing through these.  I don't happen to know any good singers who could come over and we could do the original scores.  So for this I have to thank good old Liszt for bringing these various works of art into my home.  Tears can flow from either format at least in my opinion as the music itself is so special.  So much in it that it is inexhaustible and it just keeps giving.

So today due to your influence I am turning to Schubert Lieder under the influence of Franz Liszt.  I have many choices and this is an entirely random pick and will continue to work my way through many of them over the next weeks.

Brigitte Engerer (piano):

Franz Schubert: Impromptu Op. 90, D.899 | Melodie hongroise D.817 | Wanderer-Fantasie Op. 15, D.760

Franz Schubert / Franz Liszt (transcriptions): Der Doppelgänger | Die Stadt | Am Meer | Aufenthalt | Ständchen | Frühlingsglaube | Litanei | Der Müller und der Bach | Der Wanderer 

As luck would have it Engerer's small selection is rather nice.  Beginning with Der Doppelgänger (one of my all-time favourites) and ending with Der Wanderer (another all-time favourite) is just a perfect sandwich.

I should tell you though that I always start with the proper versions with piano/voice in preparation.  If (and when) I find a recording that sends shivers down my spine then i know I am ready to tackle any individual lied on my own, face to face, and this is always a daunting experience.  But it is what I learn from the piano/vocal that helps me to some degree understand what is at the heart of each lied.  Honestly, Liszt is just a master at amplifying or shining a bright light at the heart of the emotion in every one.

Case in point is when I first discovered the power of Der Doppelgänger.  I will have the find a youtube video of it.  I'm not sure if it was Dieskau or possibly someone else but it truly was life changing for me.  And this is the point - I may have forgotten who it was but I haven't forgotten the emotional impact and for me this is all that matters.  When it comes to me replicating this for my own pleasure I have the keys and these will never be lost.

My Editio Musica Budapest score of Schwanengesang and Winterreise is actually one of my most treasured possessions and the time I have toiled over the pages.  The only problem is that many of them are quite difficult to play.  Returning to the Schubert original is very much more straightforward.

Der Doppelgänger:

51VDItZb0gL.jpg

Litanie:

51VDItZb0gL.jpg

Jeroen20 posted:

Kurt Elling - Dedicated to you.

I really like the song 'First Song' from Laurence Hopgood's album 'When the Heart Dances', which is included in what was given as a free download from the Naim Label a few years ago n a collection called 'Best of British'. In fact it's because of that song that that collected album still appears as my number one most played on the n-stream app. I note that the album you show here also features Mr Hopgood. I'll have to explore further.

A nice start of the Sunday.....

ted_p posted:

Meat Loaf

Bat Out Of Hell - Wave 24bit 192kHz

The album that i rate as the second greatest album of all time.

I did a post a year-and-a-half ago about top five rock operas (here) and rated BOOH my number four album in that category. Glad to see you rate it so high on your personal list. The impassioned vocals are stunning, yet I can never get over the flat, wall-of-sound sonics that I think really dampened the album's legacy despite being among the best-selling albums of all time. Seems everyone had a copy of this when I was a teen. Unfortunately you rarely hear a thing about it today and it's become a lost gem.

Tony2011 posted:

Everytime I see a post on PT or SW,  I go into a fit. 

Sorry, Tony...

Cafe Zimmerman (Celine Frisch) - Golberg variations.

In general I prefer a piano when listening to the Goldberg variations. But there are always exceptions, such as this one where Celine Frisch plays the harpsichord very beautiful. This CD also includes some kanons by Bach which are new to me.

Moving to something else a bit older. Great recordings....

Bert Schurink posted:

Moving to something else a bit older. Great recordings....

 

Picture doesn't show let's hope this one does while the original picture of Mercury Living Presence is the correct one...

Bert Schurink posted:

Bert Schurink posted:

Moving to something else a bit older. Great recordings....

 

Picture doesn't show let's hope this one does while the original picture of Mercury Living Presence is the correct one...

 

I hate this trouble with pictures. Hope we will soon have a different solution for the forum. So for those interested. I am listening to Paul Paray with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, to overtures etc of Wagner recorded by Mercury Living Presence...

Filipe posted:

Schubert: String Quintet/Rostropovich/Melos Quartet

This is probably one of the best recording of this work ever made.  With all the changes especially the cleaning and SL speaker cable it sounds amazing. Hard to imagine it sounding better remastered for CD.

The Stereophile dot com review says

"No prosaic formal classification can begin to describe the universal embrace of life and death that is Schubert's final, posthumously published String Quintet in C major, D.956. Written in his final year, as his health was rapidly deteriorating from syphilis (and, perhaps, the mercury that was likely administered as a "cure"), the quintet melds characteristically Viennese gemütlichkeit with far darker forebodings. Although that darkness is expressed musically rather than through words—Schubert's contemporaneous, bone-chilling song, Der Doppelgänger, is far more explicit in this regard—the rumblings of physical and emotional pain that punctuate the quintet's frequently high-spirited surface reflect a soul, deeply aware of his impending mortality and the transcendence of pain that death can deliver.

Transcendence, in fact, is key to understanding the quintet's breathtakingly beautiful second movement. Often called the most sublime adagio ever composed, it begins with a theme so serenely beautiful, so seemingly suspended beyond time and place, as to express the ultimate peace that death brings. What make the adagio even more astounding are the outbursts of pain and foreboding that eventually rip through its silken fabric and shake us to the quick before returning us to the sublime."

Phil 

Thanks for the post. Been listening to this recording on Tidal and liking it!