What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[Toccata]

One doesn't really look to 1960 Soviet era recordings for an audiogasm, but this sounds pretty decent overall--I can hear some obvious compression/gain-riding and spot mic'ing, but it's perfectly listenable. No, the bass drums don't shake my house the way Andris Nelsons' does, but Kondrashin's is perhaps the most brutally intense version I have heard. The Moscow Philharmonic play as if their lives depended on it.

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by cma29

Another disc...



Adam Schoenberg

American Symphony

Finding Rothko

Picture Studies

Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern







Quite the coup by this young guy (born 1980) to get a recording made by RR and engineered by Keith Johnson. The music is fine after a first hearing. Will keep exploring. Recording is as good as expected from these forces.

I really like this one.

[cma29]

Pulled this out from the back of the closet

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9
Karita Mattila (soprano), Violeta Urmana (mezzo), Thomas Moser (tenor), Eike Wilm Schulte (bass)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Swedish Radio Choir & Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, Claudio Abbado



The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia live concerts captured on DVD. I'm just listening to the music. Good set, but I have better cycles. The recorded sound is serviceable.

[Toccata]

Stunning playing and sound.

[Toccata]

This volume seems to be very hard to find, so I had to go for a Presto Classical CD-R, with audio files supplied by the label. Anyway, it sounds great and is a wonderful performance.

[cma29]

Just got this 2-disc set today...

Louis Couperin: Suites for Harpsichord
Christophe Rousset (harpsichord Ioannes Couchet du Musée des Instruments



This recording highlights a Flemish 1652 instrument from the Museum of Music in Paris. The sound Rousset gets from the harpsichord is sumptuous. From listening to the first disc, I really like this set.

With these recordings - which mark the launch of the Stradivari collection - discover the unique instruments lovingly preserved at the Philharmonie de Paris’s Museum of Music: the finest examples of the art of instrument-making which, like the iconic harpsichord crafted in 1652 by Ioannes Couchet, are given a new life thanks to the skill and commitment of its keen conservators.

When this ‘national treasure’ is entrusted into the hands of an expert like Christophe Rousset, the magic is evident. As the sumptuous sonority of Louis Couperin’s music is revealed, poetry meets fantasy.

[bart]

Originally Posted by cma29

Just got this 2-disc set today...

Louis Couperin: Suites for Harpsichord
Christophe Rousset (harpsichord Ioannes Couchet du Musée des Instruments



This recording highlights a Flemish 1652 instrument from the Museum of Music in Paris. The sound Rousset gets from the harpsichord is sumptuous. From listening to the first disc, I really like this set.

Carlos, I have already listened 3 times to this set.
It is a winner!

[Toccata]

This is a wonderful recital of works for 10-string guitar by contemporary Finnish composers. She plays two instruments--one is a "standard" 10 string guitar; the other is the one pictured on the cover--the extra bass strings do not have frets, which allows her to play quarter-tones. Only three pieces use that guitar, and only the Tiensuu makes extensive use of quarter tones. The other pieces are more accessible and quite impressionistic. She's an excellent player, too. I was surprised to find it wasn't an SACD since all of my other Alba discs are SACD, but it sounds very good.

[cma29]

Originally Posted by cma29

Just got this 2-disc set today...

Louis Couperin: Suites for Harpsichord
Christophe Rousset (harpsichord Ioannes Couchet du Musée des Instruments



This recording highlights a Flemish 1652 instrument from the Museum of Music in Paris. The sound Rousset gets from the harpsichord is sumptuous. From listening to the first disc, I really like this set.

Originally Posted by bart

Carlos, I have already listened 3 times to this set.
It is a winner!

[bart]

Originally Posted by Toccata

Stunning playing and sound.

Streaming it now via Qobuz(24/44.1).
It is good indeed.

This is a Qobuz review:

‘Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and yet cannot remain silent’, wrote Victor Hugo in 1864. Half a century later, his words had never felt more pertinent. Every composer writing during World War I found a unique way, through their music, to describe and protest against the horrors that were tearing civilization apart.
Created in the depth of morbidity, Debussy’s parting musical gift is a subtle, dignified and heroic celebration of youth and joie de vivre. A sense of patriotism in the war years links Debussy with the foremost Moravian composer of the day, Leoš Janáček. Ottorino Respighi was only in his thirties when the war broke out. His 1917 Sonata for violin and piano is a work of Romance written in the time of hate, a reminder that the past and the future remain beacons of hope in desperate times.
Commissioned for this recital programme to reflect on the centenary of The Great War from our own times, Kenneth Hesketh’s Inscrizione, derivata, subtitled ‘A lie to the Dying’, is a quasi-meditation on the dying man, his anxious thoughts and the spasms of his failing heart being weaved conspicuously into a narrative of disquieting melancholy.
Foyle-Štšura Duo Praised for ‘playing of compelling conviction’ (The Daily Telegraph) and ‘astonishing mutual feeling, understanding and responsiveness’ (Seen and Heard International), Foyle-Štšura Duo won the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe Duo Competition and the Salieri-Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in 2015. © Challenge Classics



I'm planning to visit the studios of Bert van der Wolf, the sound engineer of Challenge Classics and Turtle Records.
Should happen in a couple of months.