What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[AudioNut]

Listening to. . . W. A. Mozart - Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 2 & 5

Julia Fischer - Violin
Netherlands Chamber Orchestra - Yakov Kreizberg, Conductor

This one I also love. Probably my favorite Mozart Violin Concerto recording. Incredibly beautiful playing and superb sound. Julia Fischer seems to become one with her instrument and the playing is extremely personal and played with great sensitivity and feeling.

Yakov Kreizberg is another conductor/musician who died "way too young", at age 51 from cancer on March 15, 2011 in Monaco. He was becoming one of the truly great conductors and it shows on this recording.

I read a couple of reviews (on Amazon) of the multi-channel layer on this disc, claiming it to be a disaster, but the stereo layer is near perfection, and SACD-Net gives the disc its highest rating.

A Pentatone SACD, recorded in 2006

[cma29]

Originally Posted by AudioNut

Love it . .one of my top 10 . . Linn really does a marvelous job in recording and the Scottish Chamber was really superb under Sir Charles Mackerras (RIP - 2010)

Julian - Definitely agree. You have pretty good taste for being from the deep south

[cma29]

Originally Posted by AudioNut

Listening to. . . W. A. Mozart - Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 2 & 5

Julia Fischer - Violin
Netherlands Chamber Orchestra - Yakov Kreizberg, Conductor

This one I also love. Probably my favorite Mozart Violin Concerto recording. Incredibly beautiful playing and superb sound. Julia Fischer seems to become one with her instrument and the playing is extremely personal and played with great sensitivity and feeling.

Yakov Kreizberg is another conductor/musician who died "way too young", at age 51 from cancer on March 15, 2011 in Monaco. He was becoming one of the truly great conductors and it shows on this recording.

I read a couple of reviews (on Amazon) of the multi-channel layer on this disc, claiming it to be a disaster, but the stereo layer is near perfection, and SACD-Net gives the disc its highest rating.

A Pentatone SACD, recorded in 2006

I saw Julia Fischer live play the Beethoven violin concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and she was wearing that very same red dress on the Mozart disc cover photo.

After the concert she was signing CDs in the gift shop. Wow, she was amazing and just beautiful.

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by AudioNut

When I looked up the cover art, I noticed that Pentatone has issued these performances on SACD. Although, not being a surround-sound person, I probably don't understand what benefit accrues from having a "quadro" multi-channel recording of a solo piano - I guess hall ambience (?). Somebody please tell me.

Proper room ambiance. One of my first revelations with multichannel was with a solo cello recording (Britten Suites/Wispelwey) when I was still comparing stereo and mch tracks. (If there is a mch option, I no longer bother with the stereo tracks.)

I was going back and forth, listening to the ambiance and the body tones of the cello when, by chance, I switched from mch to stereo just as Wispelwey lifted his bow at the end of a track. What I heard was the soundstage get sucked from around me and artificially recede from back to some point behind the speakers. All of a sudden I became aware of my previously subconscious perception of the recorded space and how it was being distorted by emanating only from the front. Since then, I no longer question whether it is one instrument or many; multichannel all the way.

[bart]

You can read more about it in the thread "What Classical Concert Did You Attend?".

http://www.audioaficionado.org/class...tml#post577342

[bart]

Mahler - Symphony no. 4
Budapest Festival Orchestra, cond. by Iván Fischer



Superb!
I was hesitating to buy this as I do have the excellent Reiner Living Stereo on SACD, but this beats the Reiner.
Fantastic 5.0 sound too.

[cma29]

Late night tunes...

Beethoven:
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55 'Eroica'
Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60
Giovanni Antonini, Kammerorchester Basel



Who are these guys? That was my first thought when I saw the recommendation for this disc. Listening to it you can see why Gramophone in its 2011 Classical Music Guide selected Antonini's recording as its top recommendations for the Eroica. That's saying something.

This is an intense period reading that "glows white in the furnace" as the review says. I really like this disc and I recommend it to all Beethoven lovers. Antonini along with Harnoncourt, Savall, Zinman and Immerseel are my top picks for my beloved Eroica.

The Sony SACD recording (one their last DSD efforts) is splendid.

[AudioNut]

Listening to . . . Bach - Goldberg Variations - Murray Perahia piano - A Sony SACD - and a very good one, but hard to find on SACD. (Currently offered for $607.72, new on Amazon.)

Surely wish my investments were doing as well as my SACD's!

Recorded in 2000, this disc won the Gramophone Award for best instrumental recording in 2001.

Perahia was/is an excellent pianist and this is definitely a recording. I vote for it, even over the highly revered Glenn Gould's 1955 debut recording of these same Goldberg Variations, although I do greatly admire the Zenph remastered SACD also pictured below.





Bach: The Goldberg Variations 1955 Performance - Zenph Re-performance

[Antonmb]

Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1 And 4
The Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska on BIS, a beautiful recording and performance
a hi-res download from Linn (the Linn music store is becoming addictive)


image-3826200570.jpg

[cma29]

Originally Posted by cma29

Changing gears and waiting for the babysitter before my wife and I go out to celebrate our anniversary, listening to....

Boyce: Symphonies Nos. 1-8, Op. 2, The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock



William Boyce was an English composer from the 18th century. These eight Symphonys (his own spelling) aren't symphonies in the modern sense, but a collection of overtures for theater pieces and court odes. The music is delightful and the performances are crisp. Top-shelf Archiv redbook CD sound.

Playing this disc again, some my favorite baroque pieces. Very nice, indeed.