Classical ♫ Music only | Some you listen now or recently, some you love...

[Robin L]

View attachment 400940

Fearless playing of these scores and the sonics are superb. (SACD). I'm fond of the Bergen Phil. and their recordings seldom disappoint.

Feeling my Stravinsky library was a little sparse, I ordered 5 more Petruskas and boatload of other Stravinsky ballet scores last night. The conductors are Bernstein, Chailly, Ancerl, Monteux, and Abbado. Unfortunately, CDs of the much lauded Ozawa reading are as rare as hen's teeth and twice as expensive.

My favorite recording of The Rite of Spring, early digital with great sonics:

 

[Robin L]

Going down the rabbit hole of recordings of J. S. Bach's Das Wohltemperiete Klavier again. I know the first recording I heard was Wanda Landowska's weirdly Gothic set for RCA Victor, many moons ago. I've gone through many more since, including Davitt Moroney's relatively sane harpsichord account for Harmonia Mundi, Glenn Gould's notably eccentric set on his specially prepared piano (don't ask) for Columbia, Edwin Fischer's pioneering but scandalously messy account for HMV in the 1930's. There are many others I've heard, too many to number or account. But there's two sets, both from the "Russian School" I keep returning to, two sets with much in common. Sviatovslav Richter's set, originally for Europadisc, as far as I can tell, has been reissued by RCA, Melodiya, Alto and other labels. It fairly well known, as far as such recordings go. Samuel Feinberg's set should be much better known. It shares many of the good qualities of Richter's set. The sound isn't quite as good as Richter's, but it isn't bad. I find both sets much to be preferred to Glenn Gould's much better-known set.

Now that I've got Tidal, I'm going to explore other sets, like Angela Hewitt's. But meanwhile:

Did not expect this harpsichord rendering of the Well Tempered Clavier to be so perfect. Blandine Verlet on Astree.

Blandine Verlet - Bach: Le clavier bien tempéré, Livre I (Clavecin Hans Ruckers II 1624)

Listen to Bach: Le clavier bien tempéré, Livre I (Clavecin Hans Ruckers II 1624) on TIDAL

listen.tidal.com

 

[Tomino]

My favorite recording of The Rite of Spring, early digital with great sonics:

View attachment 400967

There's a 1999 Ozawa recording of Petrouchka with the Chicago Symphony on Qobuz if you don't mind streaming.

 

[dualazmak]

Going down the rabbit hole of recordings of J. S. Bach's Das Wohltemperiete Klavier again

Have you ever listened to the performance of Takahiro SONODA? I highly recommend this 4-CD album. If you would be seriously interested, please PM me since the CD would not be available at present and it would not be involved on any streaming service, I assume.

 

[Robin L]

Have you ever listened to the performance of Takahiro SONODA? I highly recommend this 4-CD album. If you would be seriously interested, please PM me since the CD would not be available at present and it would not be involved on any streaming service, I assume.
View attachment 401136

There's a piano version with his name on it via You Tube.

 

[Robin L]

Back in the 1990s I was recording the Berkely Symphony Orchestra for radio broadcasts. Kent Nagano was music director at the time. Nagano is known for championing 20th century music, Messiaen in particular. So, it came as a surprise to discover that he has been recording the music of Bruckner with suitable orchestras. I already have, and enjoy, his recordings of the original version of the 3rd symphony and a recording of the 6th symphony, both with the German State Orchestra. Just yesterday I listened to his recording of the 7th symphony with the Bavarian State Orchestra. It reminds me a lot of Ricardo Chailly's recording of the same work with the Radio-Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, more gentle and lyrical than heaven-storming. I was surprised at the generally negative critical reception it has received. In addition to being one of the better "lyrical" accounts, it has the best sound of all the recordings I've heard so far. Strongly recommended:

Kent Nagano - Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107

Listen to Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107 on TIDAL

listen.tidal.com

 

[Rednaxela]

 

[Robin L]

I'm experiencing some frustrations with Tidal. I suspect that others searching for certain titles on streaming platforms are experiencing the same issues. I was looking for the Blandine Verlet recordings of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier this morning, probably the best harpsichord version I've heard, maybe the best version overall. In any case, when searching "Well Tempered Clavier" it doesn't show up at all. Looking up "Well Tempered Clavier Blandine Verlet" only a couple of prelude/fugue combinations show up. Only by looking up "Blandine Verlet" do the albums show up at all. Ran into a similar problem with Annie Fischer's studio recording of Beethoven's third piano concerto. It was buried, unmarked, in an anonymous looking collection including the entirety of the original issue, with two rondos of Mozart's, along with a recording from DGG of Beethoven's Triple Concerto, also directed by Ferenc Fricsay. But there's no way to tell what's in the album by looking at the menu. Sorry about the kvetching, but it seems like Tidal is making searching for music a lot harder that it should be. It's easier finding these things on You Tube.

 

[Pretorious]

I'm experiencing some frustrations with Tidal. I suspect that others searching for certain titles on streaming platforms are experiencing the same issues. I was looking for the Blandine Verlet recordings of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier this morning, probably the best harpsichord version I've heard, maybe the best version overall. In any case, when searching "Well Tempered Clavier" it doesn't show up at all. Looking up "Well Tempered Clavier Blandine Verlet" only a couple of prelude/fugue combinations show up. Only by looking up "Blandine Verlet" do the albums show up at all. Ran into a similar problem with Annie Fischer's studio recording of Beethoven's third piano concerto. It was buried, unmarked, in an anonymous looking collection including the entirety of the original issue, with two rondos of Mozart's, along with a recording from DGG of Beethoven's Triple Concerto, also directed by Ferenc Fricsay. But there's no way to tell what's in the album by looking at the menu. Sorry about the kvetching, but it seems like Tidal is making searching for music a lot harder that it should be. It's easier finding these things on You Tube.

This sounds like an issue with how the search is programmed. If "Well Tempered Clavier" is ever in French, German, Italian for a release the search is never smart enough to give you the results you want. When I see this complaint this is my experience. Worst still if "Well Tempered" is hyphenated. Some searches won't give you the result you want if you include it, others if you don't. Others still will only give you the exact result of what you searched for, hyphen or no. Some searches don't take into account the diacritical marks, others do. It's a mess.

Some searches are just bad, or they rely on bad metadata that you don't know it's searching when you enter what you're looking for. Who knows how the search is cached, too.

Anecdotally, my wife is going through this now after she chose to hyphenate her name once we were married. She's been constantly running into issues with online forms and applications that will not take the hyphen in her name and throw an ambiguous error that doesn't even indicate the "special" characters she entered. It's frustrating. So it's a prevalent problem across all systems.

 

[olieb]

This sounds like an issue with how the search is programmed. If "Well Tempered Clavier" is ever in French, German, Italian for a release the search is never smart enough to give you the results you want. When I see this complaint this is my experience. Worst still if "Well Tempered" is hyphenated. Some searches won't give you the result you want if you include it, others if you don't. Others still will only give you the exact result of what you searched for, hyphen or no. Some searches don't take into account the diacritical marks, others do. It's a mess.

I do not think this to be a problem of translation.
I can only judge from my experience with Apple Music. "Well Tempered Clavier" search does not show the Verlet recordings either, but instead a long list of "better known" (aka more market conforming?) recordings, many only remotely connected to the Well Tempered Clavier and many well known recordings show up several time.
It is mostly the same list when searching for "Le Clavier Bien Temperé", again the Verlet recordings are not in the list.
The search for classical music is broken in Apple Music, and sadly it is no different in "Apple Classical Music".
In my frustration I checked other streaming services but found no significant differences. Search is quite ignorant of categories like "Composer" or "Work" and mostly the search relies on "Song titles" which gives bad results and absurd sorting in many cases. The other category that is used is "Artist" and this is all over the place for classical music. It might be the name of the ensemble or a soloist or the conductor ...
And then there seemingly is a ranking of recordings that probably following intransparent "market rules", which prevent lesser known recordings from becoming better known. And of course classical music is a marginal sector to begin with. Therefore the ignorance towards the categories of classical music.
Together this results in a lot of frustration unless you know exactly what you are looking for.
EDIT: Add with her Name"Verlet" in the search Apple Music finds the recordings of course in English and in French. I a just listening, very nice indeed, thanks!

 

[jcarys]

I'm enjoying the last recording of Maurizio Pollini and his son Daniele - titled just "Schubert" on DG. After going through the various Gramophone winners this year, it was nice to move back to a simpler, relaxing performance instead of the intense, complex pieces. I don't really know anything about Daniele, so I'll have to a bit more research about his career.

 

[Robin L]

I do not think this to be a problem of translation.
I can only judge from my experience with Apple Music. "Well Tempered Clavier" search does not show the Verlet recordings either, but instead a long list of "better known" (aka more market conforming?) recordings, many only remotely connected to the Well Tempered Clavier and many well known recordings show up several time.
It is mostly the same list when searching for "Le Clavier Bien Temperé", again the Verlet recordings are not in the list.
The search for classical music is broken in Apple Music, and sadly it is no different in "Apple Classical Music".
In my frustration I checked other streaming services but found no significant differences. Search is quite ignorant of categories like "Composer" or "Work" and mostly the search relies on "Song titles" which gives bad results and absurd sorting in many cases. The other category that is used is "Artist" and this is all over the place for classical music. It might be the name of the ensemble or a soloist or the conductor ...
And then there seemingly is a ranking of recordings that probably following intransparent "market rules", which prevent lesser known recordings from becoming better known. And of course classical music is a marginal sector to begin with. Therefore the ignorance towards the categories of classical music.
Together this results in a lot of frustration unless you know exactly what you are looking for.

Here's a good example - Osmo Vanska's cycle of Beethoven Symphonies with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra has received good reviews, is quite recent. But when scrolling the "Beethoven Symphonies" at Tidal, it does not appear. Only by typing in "Beethoven Symphonies Osmo Vanska" does one find these recordings. At the same time, the Bernstein NYPO recordings and Karajan's 1960's cycle appear repeatedly, often with the same covers on display. I suspect the issue might have something to do with the influence of major recording distributors.

 

[olieb]

Here's a good example - Osmo Vanska's cycle of Beethoven Symphonies with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra has received good reviews, is quite recent. But when scrolling the "Beethoven Symphonies" at Tidal, it does not appear. Only by typing in "Beethoven Symphonies Osmo Vanska" does one find these recordings. At the same time, the Bernstein NYPO recordings and Karajan's 1960's cycle appears repeatedly, often with the same covers on display. I suspect the issue might have something to do with the influence of major recording distributors.

I agree, but some search results are even worse. Bernstein's and Karajan's cycles are a leas that. Recordings of the works searched. But in Well Tempered Clavier I found results like "Top Ten of J-S. Bach" or "Christmas Music" and so on. Compilations that have very little to do with the search item. But still these show up an whereas a complete recording of the work (by Verlet and probably many others too) does not!
EDIT: To me that looks just like pushing for the mainstream. The market is speaking.

 

[Robin L]

I think this example is even worse - Gustav Leonhardt's recording of the Well Tempered Clavier doesn't show up in the list of recordings the WTC. It's buried deep, one has to look it up as Gustav Leonhardt The Well Tempered Clavier. Only one of the pairs shows up, but that leads to the entirety including the Goldberg Variations and Art of Fugue. These are from the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi label. I know there were earlier recordings of the Goldberg Variations and The Art of Fugue from the Bach Guild, listed in Tidal but in a big collection so it also is hard to find. Again, you have to know what you're looking for to find it. Chances are, you won't stumble into it, which is unfortunate.

 

[Mayan]

 

[Andolink]

Two delightful recordings:

Concertos by J. G. Graun
&
String Quartets by F. X. Richter

 

[Lukasjr]

 

[Rednaxela]

Magnificent @Lukasjr!

 

[Rednaxela]

 

[Rednaxela]