bought on recommendation
Sun, Jan 15 2012, 9:32AM
It seems that the outbreak of consensus, though no-doubt welcome, has resulted in a decided slow-down in traffic here recently.
Still, as Parla is due back soon and will see the controversial Bach Cello clip, things could hot up somewhat. Should be interesting, to say the least.
In the meantime, here is a list of my latest purchases, bought on the recommendation of Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine reviews and articles. There are more than I would usually buy in a batch as I was stocking up in anticipation that a scheduled minor eye operation would leave me little else to do but listen to music. Pretty much as it turned out, typing this is not easy. But this feast of wonderful music more than compensated for my forced absence from reading, etc.
Anyway, here they are;
Ronald Brautigam's Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 24 and 25. (Bought after Parla suggested the latter to someone, and it was one I didn't have.)
Bach's Concertos and Sinfonia for oboe (Heinz Holliger, on BIS)
Josquin Masses: Be Beata Virgine and Ave Maris Stella, the latest from The Tallis Scholars - I have all the others from Peter Phillips and just love them all in their own way.
Kogan, Barshai and Rostropovich: Beethoven String Trios.
Les Arts Florissants' "Lamentazione.
The two latest discs from Naxos of Petrenko's Shostakovich Symphonies: 6, 12 and 10.
Poulenc's "Figure Humaine" from Nigel Short's Tenebrae.
- and the real surprise for some reason, the amazing Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues by Alexander Melnikov. I don't know what I was expecting, but these proved the most absorbing and led to almost instant second hearing. And there's a lot of music in there! (I haven't watched the accompanying dvd yet.)
Anyway, anyone else bought any of these recently, and have any comment on them? I love to read others' reactions to the music I enjoy.
Vic.
Sun, Jan 15 2012, 6:33PM
#2
RE: bought on recommendation
Ronald Brautigam's Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 24 and 25.
The fortepiano always makes a nice change. Why is there a lumberjack on the CD cover? (There are no sleeve notes on Spotify).
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 1:26AM
#3
RE: bought on recommendation
Good stuff, Vic! All of them have something good, interesting or even great to offer.
Brautigam's Mozart first volume is even better (it contains the superb E-flat No 9 and the splendid A major no. 12 along with the Rondo in A major).
Shostkovich's Preludes and Fugues are superb compositions. I prefer them with Nikolayeva. It's like an old wise grandmother who tells you some incredibly beautiful stories and fairy tales. Melinkov is too robust and a bit on the surface of these multifaceted works.
A tip for a very unique CD: try the 16 Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti on Fortepiano with the unparalleled, full of expertise of the period instruments late Joanna Leach, on the obscure and tiny label Athene. These jewels of Keyboard Music sound so fresh and show how Scarlatti can sound so uniquely beautiful from the original Harpsichord to the more modern Grand Piano.
Parla
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 9:12AM
#4
RE: bought on recommendation
Was tempted by Petrenko's Shostakovich 10, but decided no in the end. It would have to be an exceptionally good performance to compete. Most reviews seemed to suggest it was the best (in recent years) or exceptional (for the price). However I'm still open to persuasion.
Well, I'm not really in a position to say how it compares to other versions but I find it very powerful and affecting. The sound quality on my system is just amazing. And at Naxos pricing, seems a real gem to me.
Not having such a wide knowledge and experience as most here, I tend to place a lot of trust in reviews and to be honest, I'm rarely disappointed.
Perhaps I'm too easily pleased(?)
Vic.
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 9:18AM
#5
RE: bought on recommendation
Ronald Brautigam's Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 24 and 25.
The fortepiano always makes a nice change. Why is there a lumberjack on the CD cover? (There are no sleeve notes on Spotify).
It's a Bis-label joke. The booklet says that stage two in the production of a fortepiano is cutting the wood from a linden tree which is used in the hammer that strikes the strings. It spares us the other stages!
Vic.
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 9:26AM
#6
RE: bought on recommendation
A tip for a very unique CD: try the 16 Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti on Fortepiano with the unparalleled, full of expertise of the period instruments late Joanna Leach, on the obscure and tiny label Athene.
Parla
Thanks for the tips Parla. The Scarlatti sounds particularly tempting. I'll track it down.
(Now for a rather trickier post ... I'll leave you to guess where!)
Welcome back, by the way.
Vic.
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 12:55PM
#7
RE: bought on recommendation
Vic, I had not heard the Poulenc before and played it on Spotify yesterday. It's a very interesting work which I found impressive on first hearing and will certainly repay further exploration. A pretty decent recording, too.
Parla, thanks for that Scarlatti recommendation. About 30 years ago I started listening to a lot of Scarlatti, but it was something of a (comparatively) youthful phase, I suspect. I certainly can't remember much in detail, so will revisit as the saying goes.
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 6:42PM
#8
RE: bought on recommendation
Well, I'm not really in a position to say how it compares to other versions but I find it very powerful and affecting. The sound quality on my system is just amazing. And at Naxos pricing, seems a real gem to me.
The performance is the best I've heard since Svetlanov's. Sound is echt-Naxos, recorded at a high level and fairly close which gives an aggressive upper mid-range that would splinter crystal at 50 paces. It all depends on your system. On mine, all that Mahlerian fff high woodwind reproduces uncomfortably. The Petrenko 8th, also a fine performance, is recorded similarly.
Mon, Jan 16 2012, 7:39PM
#9
RE: bought on recommendation
Although Naxos are a fine venture they really need to up their game if they are ever going to be taken really seriously. I have a few Naxos CDs but have been disappointed by many more. Poor recording, second rate editing, dodgy patches etc mainly in orchestral music. Instrumental and chamber seem to be better but any recording company in the 21st century should sound near perfect. Naxos are too hit and miss. They are praised far too often with what are just charitable comments.
Tue, Jan 17 2012, 12:11AM
#10
RE: bought on recommendation
With Naxos you get what you pay. You cannot get first class performances (all the time), with the highest quality of recordings and at budget price. Most of the time, something will be missing in the thread.
However, the enormous range of this label's production of all kind of music is truly amazing, covering almost every aspect of classical music. So, compromises from the potential customers is required.
Parla
Tue, Jan 17 2012, 8:55AM
#11
RE: bought on recommendation
With Naxos you get what you pay. You cannot get first class performances (all the time), with the highest quality of recordings and at budget price. Most of the time, something will be missing in the thread.
However, the enormous range of this label's production of all kind of music is truly amazing, covering almost every aspect of classical music. So, compromises from the potential customers is required.
Parla
I agree. But on sound quality alone, I find Naxos no better or worse than most other labels. If some of their recordings are as good as the best of (most) others, it suggests compromises are made in other areas than recording quality.
Vic.
Tue, Jan 17 2012, 12:13PM
#12
RE: bought on recommendation
To close the Naxos thing (hopefully):
As an avid collector, I have a great fraction of the enormous catalogue of the label. There are some which are less than ideal recordings, not often but not too seldom. The quality of their good recordings lies on the very general aspects of the matter. Details are not always better served, like ambience, the "attack" on the dynamics, balance of the different musical forces, purity of the tone (at every level of the performance) and some more.
However, it is a label to fully commend for its general output of production and how well it serves Classical Music.
Parla
Tue, Jan 17 2012, 9:58PM
#13
RE: bought on recommendation
What we may be discussing here is the Naxos 'house sound', for want of a better term. Decca and Argo certainly had their identifiable sound back in lp days as did DG for their Karajan BPO recordings of the 60s and early 70s. In the cd era there has been a kind of Chandos traditional sound, at least until recently - glittery, a little reverberant, slightly bass-light. Of course, much of this can depend on recording venues and orchestras - witness the old Supraphon sound from Supraphon studios and Prague castle, with that lengthy reverberation decay.
Naxos tends to favour an analytical, close recording, little stage depth and an emphatic mid-range. It reproduces well on my portable equipment, not so well at home. As Vic points out, this is a general statement rather than a rule, one that applies to the Lloyd Jones Bax cycle, the Daniel Walton discs and the current Petrenko Shostakovich symphony recordings but not to, for instance, the Naxos recording of Respighi's Sinfonia Drammatica, given a nice wallowy, 3D sound stage.
As far as music bought on recommendation is concerned, Santa showed up at our house (not without prior coaching) with a nice selection of dvds and blu-rays:
Glyndebourne Billy Budd - good, one of the better Britten productions, an excellent Billy and Vere. But I'm still waiting for a breakout Britten performance, one that does his imagination justice and competes with the composer's recordings.
Monteverdi Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in patria - excellent musically and visually.
Glyndebourne Fairy Queen - superb, in every way, produced, staged and played with that last ounce of zest and sense of discovery missing from the Budd.
Met Andrea Chenier - so-so sound, Pavarotti nowhere near his best, Guleghina a joy and Pons at his usual high standard. OK, not great.
Met Fleming/Andrew Davis Capriccio - such a pleasure after that glutinous, wrong-headed Robert Carsen Paris production of a few years back. A great cast and a conductor who knows how to do Strauss.
Glyndebourne L'Incoronazione di Poppea with De Niese and Haim. Haven't watched it yet, Santa (reincarnated as my better 1/2) having called for an opera break until next week. Hopefully Carsen has made a better fist of this than his Capriccio. Regardless, I love the work and could watch De Niese singing scales for three hours.
Wed, Jan 18 2012, 9:42AM
#14
RE: bought on recommendation
What we may be discussing here is the Naxos 'house sound', for want of a better term.
...
Glyndebourne L'Incoronazione di Poppea with De Niese and Haim. Haven't watched it yet, ... Regardless, I love the work and could watch De Niese singing scales for three hours.
I agree with both Parla and Tagalie here but I also think sound quality is taken much more seriously across the board now, with a few labels driving up the standard which others have to follow. (Example: Philip Hobbs at Linn deserves a lot of credit here.) The result seems to be that the equipment it is played on becomes a more significant factor. I used to find (and I'm going back over decades here) that as equipment was up-graded it exposed the limitations of recordings, now it's the other way round. Of course, the variables are: my equipment changes, the recordings themselves - or my hearing,. As the end result is more enjoyment from the music, I'm not bothered which it is.
On De Niese, I fully agree. I will invest in Poppea when I've recovered from her Giulio Cesare. It had me reaching for the old sherry bottle and my wife reminding me that I am at a difficult age. (Gosh, this difficult age is lasting a long time!)
Vic.
Thu, Jan 19 2012, 1:11AM
#15
RE: bought on recommendation
- and the real surprise for some reason, the amazing Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues by Alexander Melnikov. I don't know what I was expecting, but these proved the most absorbing and led to almost instant second hearing. And there's a lot of music in there! (I haven't watched the accompanying dvd yet.)
Your post prompt me to spin an unripped cd: good and relaxed reading w/ a sound rich, if a bit distant: good complement (perhaps not a match?) to Nikolayeva's readings (I got the earlier now on Regis). But what I mess they made spreading the 24 pieces into 2 cds and one side of a dvd! No doubt: there's a lot of music there (as always w/ Shosta): just imagine if he agreed to write the Book II as some then suggested ...
As to new buys, here go some I recently ordered:
1. Bruckner's 5th: Horenstein (BBC Leg): high hopes on this: I got many readings of this splendid symphony but I can only listen to Jochum & RCO (Philips): the pizzicatto symphony is considered to not be an easy task....
2. Elgar's 2nd: Boult (Lyrita): trying a better approach to this work as I like the first very much (a gramo rec);
3. Beethoven's 9th: Fricsay & BPO (DG): this is my favourite 9th: first dg recording in stereo and a superb reading, imo, compared only to Furtwangler's Lucerne record (Tahra): just buying another edition looking for some sonic improvement;
4. Chopin: Scherzi & Etudes & Mazurkas: Moravec (Supraphon): when it comes to Chopin's piano works, Moravec is a safe bet, isn't it?
Was tempted by Petrenko's Shostakovich 10, but decided no in the end. It would have to be an exceptionally good performance to compete. Most reviews seemed to suggest it was the best (in recent years) or exceptional (for the price). However I'm still open to persuasion.