Scelsi: Chamber Works – ad hoc ensemble, Ensemble 2e2m… (Editions RZ)
“Just” – Billy Hart Quartet (ECM)
Smetana: Symphonic Poems – Popelka, Prague RSO (Supraphon)
Füting: distant: violin. Sound – various artists including Miranda Cuckson (New Focus)
Dohnányi: Variations on a Nursery Rhyme – Pennario, Felix Slatkin (Capitol – Scribendum)
“Three of a Perfect Pair” – King Crimson (Editions EG)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (1887 version) – Poschner, RSO Wien (Capriccio)
Verdi: Rigoletto – Scotto, Bergonzi, Kubelík (DG)
Category Archives: Blog
This section contains news, updates and oress releases about our company.
Playlist for the week of February 24
Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 2 [plys Berg, Milhaud] – Claude Helffer (DG)
“Crystal Sky” – Julie Lyon with Jack DeSalvo, Chris Forbes, Larry Hutter, Tom Cabrera (Unseen Rain, via BandCamp)
Weinberg: Quartets Nos. 1, 7 & 8 – Arcadia Qt (Chandos)
Crahms: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 arranged for piano four-hands – Matthies & Cohn (Naxos)
“The Mistress” [Abraham Cowley’s Poems Set by Blow, Purcell & Others] – The Consort of Musicke (Columns)
“Donaueschiger Musiktage 1990” (col legno)
“Black Myth” – San Ra and His Intergalactic Research Orchestra (MPS)
Cardew: The Great Learning – Scratch Orchestra (DG avant garde)
Weekly playlist for February 3
Busoni: Violin Sonata No. 2 – Joseph Szigeti, Clara Haskil (Music & Arts)
Schoenberg: Piano Music – Paul Jacobs (Nonesuch)
“Bedtime for Democracy” – Dead Kennedys (Alternative Tentacles)
Bach & Vivaldi: Violin Concertos – David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern, Eugene Ormandy, The Philadelphia Orchestra (Columbia)
Amy: L’Espace du souffle – Jean Deroyer, Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra (OPMC)
“Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music” – Esquivel (RCA)
L. Andriessen, R. Escher, Rijnvos “Dutch Twentieth Century Premieres at the Holland Festival” (Globe)
“A Russell Oberlin Recital” (Decca US, reissued on DG)
Weekly playlist for January 13 (a day late)
Berlioz: La damnation de Faust – Margiano, Quasthoff, Cole, Haitink, Netherlands RPO (Challenge)
“Chewing Hides the Sound” – Snakefinger (Ralph)
Hindemith: Pittsburgh Symphony – Kegel, Berlin Symphony (Berlin)
Rossini: Semiramide – Studer, Ramey, Marin, LSO (DG)
“The Countryside is Great” – Emerson Kitamaru (EM Records)
Jolivet: Suite Française – Jolivet, ens (EMI)
Koenig, Pongrácz, Riehm: Electronic Music (DG avant garde)
“Ricci Plays Sarasate” (Decca US)
Michael Rabin “at the height of his powers”
Remastered by Urlicht AudioVisual’s Gene Gaudette – strong critical praise shared with Parnassus Records’ Leslie Gerber:
“Last September I included in this column Parnassus’s ‘Michael Rabin on The Bell Telephone Hour’, promising a forthcoming second volume, which has now appeared and like the first includes some dazzling tracks. Both volumes are mandatory purchases for violin buffs. But more important still for fans… is a coupling of two full-length concertos that he never had the chance to take into the studio, Paul Creston’s Second (which Rabin commissioned) and, most treasurable, the Beethoven Concerto. … Both recordings only go to illustrate Rabin’s level of musical and technical superiority while at the height of his powers. Gene Gaudette’s remastering is excellent and so are Leslie Gerber’s notes.”
– Rob Cowan, Gramophone
Read the full review here.
Playlist for the week of Dec. 9. 2024
Wagner: Rienzi – Studer, Kollo, Sawallisch (Orfeo)
Scelsi: Bot-Ba – Marianne Schröder (hat ART)
Bertoia: Swinging Bars & Vulcans Play – Bertoia (Somnmbient)
Piston: Symphony No. 4, Schuman: Symphony No. 6 – Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra (Columbia)
“Today and Now” – Coleman Hawkins Quartet (Impulse!)
“Red Exposure” – Chrome (Dossier)
Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, Volume 7 – Belder (Brilliant)
Respighi: Lauda per la Natività del Signore – von Otter, Ely, Mikaela Choir (Proprius)
Playlist for the week of Nov. 24, 2024
“English Music for Strings” – Collins, New Symphony Orchestra (Decca)
“Glass World of Annea Lockwood” (Room40, digital reissue)
Elgar: Violin Concerto – Frang (Warner)
“Beat” – King Crimson (EG)
Nono: Seguente (edition RZ)
Monk: Atlas (ECM)
Poulenc: Aubade, Les Biches (Tacchino, Prêtre) – EMI
“Liberation Music Orchestra” – Chalie Haden (Impulse!)
Johann Michael Bach, Johann Christoph Bach: Choral and Keyboard Works (Ricercar, from the “Masters of the German Baroque” big box)
#classicalmusic
#weekly #classical #playlist for 15 July 2024
Schoenberg: Serenade Op. 24, Variations Op. 31, Bach Transcriptions – Robert Craft, 20th Century Chamber Ensemble, Philharmonia Orchestra (Naxos)
Qobuz • Apple Music • Amazon
‘Masters of Chopin’ – Ignaz Friedman, Ignace Tigerman, Severin Eisenberger (arbiter)
Apple Music
Telemann: ‘The Grand Concertos for Mixed Instruments, Volume 2’ – Michael Schneider, La Stagione Frankfurt (cpo)
Qobuz • Apple Music • Amazon
‘God’s Favorite Dog’ (Touch and Go, ripped and restored from vinyl!)
Louis Andriessen: Il Principe, Il Duce (Donemus Composers’ Voice, ripped and restored from vinyl!)
‘Xenakis in het Orgelpark’ (Orgelparkrecords)
Qobuz • Apple Music • Amazon
[partial and late] Playlist for the week:
Stockhausen: Hymnen (Stockhausen-Verlag)
‘Maryla Jonas Plays Piano Miniatures’ (Columbia Masterworks, from the Sony comlete Jonas box)
Beethoven: String Quartet Op. 131 – Busch Quartet (EMI)
‘Slow Beethoven’ – Lara St John, Miranda Cuckson, Milan Milisavljević, Jeffrey Zeigler, The TANK Center for Sonic Arts (Round Sound via Bandcamp)
Messiaen: Des Canyons aux Etoiles – Marja Bon, Leeuw, Schönberg Ensemble, ASKO Ensemble (Auvidis-Montaigne)
‘Technically Acceptable’ – Ethan Iverson (Blue Note)
‘Xenakis in Orgelpark’ (Orgelpark)
Zappa ‘Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions’ – Ensemble Modern (RCA)
In answer to several inquiries…
UPDATE, 24 October 2024 – some additions.
For reasons unknown, several people have recently asked me about favorite conductors/recordings/performers/miscellany. As an individual approaching official “senior” age and nearly half a century of serious listening, record collecting, and now occasional music-making, I am taking the liberty of naming several favorites in each category, in reverse alphabetical order.
COMPOSERS:
Iannis Xenakis • Richard Wagner • Giacinto Scelsi • Gustav Mahler • György Ligeti • Carlo Gesualdo • Morton Feldman • Johannes Brahms • Johann Sebastian Bach
Guilty pleasures: Ottorino Respighi • Fritz Kreisler
DEAD CONDUCTORS:
Klaus Tennstedt • Eugene Ormandy • Wyn Morris • Willem Mengelberg • Carlos Kleiber • Bernard Haitink • Wilhelm Furtwängler • Fritz Busch • Pierre Boulez
LIVING CONDUCTORS:
Sybille Werner • Osmo Vänskä • Leonard Slatkin • Alexander Sladkovsky • José Serebrier • Susanna Mälkki • Barbara Hannigan
DEAD INSTRUMENTALISTS:
Harry Sparnaay • Michael Rabin • William Primrose • Fritz Kreisler • Josef Hofmann • Bronisław Huberman • Glenn Gould • Emanuel Feuermann • Jacqueline du Pré • György Cziffra
LIVING INSTRUMENTALISTS:
Wynton Marsalis • Igor Levit • JACK Quartet • Steven Isserlis • Marc-André Hamelin • Elmira Darvarova* • Miranda Cuckson* • Claire Chase • Pierre-Laurent Aimard
DEAD SINGERS:
Tatiana Troyanos • Georges Thill • Oda Slobodskaya • Elisabeth Söderström • Birgit Nilsson • John McCormack • Lauritz Melchior • Alexander Kipnis • Kirsten Flagstad • Jussi Björling • Cathy Berberian
LIVING SINGERS:
Anne Sophie von Otter • Nathalie Stutzmann • Ian Partridge • Barbara Hannigan • Gerald Finley • Piotr Bezcała
THE DOZEN RECORDINGS THAT ARE CONTINUALLY AT THE TOP OF MY PORTABLE AND HOME AUDIO PLAYERS:
Xenakis: Jonchaies, Shaar, Lichens, Antikhthon – Tamayo, Luxembourg Philharmonic (Timpani)
Wagner: Götterdämmerung – Dalayman, Cleveman, Elder, Hallé Orchestra (Halle CD)
Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps – Boulez, The Cleveland Orchestra (DG CD)
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben – Mengelberg, Philharmonic-Symphony (my own dub from Victor Z prssings)
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 – Tennstedt, LPO (LPO Live CD)
Ligeti “Clear and Cloudy” – various artists (DG)
Gabrieli – National Brass Ensemble (Oberlin Music SACD)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 – Furtwängler, Berlin Philharmonic (Berliner Philharmonikar SACD set)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 – Furtwängler, Berlin Philharmonic (Tahra CD)
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 & 13 – Gould (CBS Masterworks HD download)
Bach/Malloch: The Art of Fugueing – Foss, Sheffield Ensemble (Townhall CD)
Bach: Toccatas BWV910-916 – Rannou (alpha CD)
Bach: Goldberg Variations – Frisch (alpha CD)
* Full disclosure: some of their recordings are on my record label.