I know, I know — the market for music recordings is in flux if not chaos, and there are growing indications that downloads are finally starting to hit the head of a “tipping point” among the non-teen-and-college-age demographic. And yes, a growing share of my own acquisitions are file downloads. But for the most part I remain an unreconstructed consumer knuckledragger who orders finished product online, bids on scarce audio gratification in disc formaat on eBay, and frequents the handful of well-stocked “record stores” left in Manhattan.

 

And there’s nothing I like better than a bargain.

On a recent trip to J&R, New York City’s best-stocked retail venue for classical DVDs and CDs, I bought a small stack of new and recent Naxos discs, along with a few other budget discs. A decade ago, I would have said that Naxos was still largely hit-or-miss on the artistry front. Today, there are still a few artistic misfires, but Klaus Heymann and his intrepid A&R team are not only picking up established artists left and right but uncovering formidable talent that deserves a broader audience along with adventurous repertoire. EMI and, to a lesser extent, Sony BMG have been plumbing their back catalogs, though too often the latter continues to recycle masters that have had previous incarnation on CD. And Universal has been issuing medium- and big-box releases that rival Brilliant Classics in price.

Here are a sampling of the best of these recent acquisitions:

 

Hindemith: Clarinet Quintet / Clarinet Sonata / Clarinet Quartet / Three Easy Pieces for Cello and Piano

Spectrum Concerts Berlin — Annette von Hehn, violin / Elisabeth Glass, violin / Hartmut Rohde, viola / Frank Dodge, cello / Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer, clarinet / Ya-Fei Chuang, piano

Naxos 8.572213 (CD)

I’ve been a fan of Paul Hndemith’s music since high school, and did a pretty decent job of butchering his Clarinet Sonata and Quintet as a college student. Recordings of his chamber works outside of the solo sonatas have been few and far between. The spiky, brash Quintet dates from 1955, and the remaining pieces, from 1938 and 1939, are in a remarkably consistent style — though the performances never come across as boring or pedantic. Clarinetist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer and cellist Frank Dodge play with extrovert humor and flair, and the ensemble playing is solid. At budget price, thsi disc is an absolute steal not just for Hindemith fans but chamber music aficinados.

Performance: 9
Sound: 9

 

William Schuman: Symphony No.6 / Prayer in Time of War / New England Triptych: Three Pieces for Orchestra

Gerard Schwarz / Seattle Symphony

Naxos 8.559625 (CD)

Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony made a slew of recordings of American orchestral music for Delos that were impressive not only for top-notch artistry but the stunning sonics supervised by the late, lamented purist audiophile producer John Eargle. Naxos has picked up where Delos left off; New England Triptych originally appeared on Delos, and the two other works were recorded in recent years. Symphony No.6 is at turns brooding and exuberant, and not as accessable as the composer’s better-known Third and Fifth Symphonies. New England Triptych is Schuman’s most popular orchestra work (after his colorful arrangement of Ives’ Variations on America), and Prayer in a Time of War, written in the middle of America’s involvement in World War II, deserves far wider notice. Hopefully this fine recording will give the work its due.

Performance: 9
Sound: 10

 

Florian Leopold Gassmann: Opera Overtures

La notte critica / Gli uccellatori / Filosofia ed amore / La casa di campagna / La contessina / Il viaggiatore ridicolo / Il filosofo innamorato / L’amore artigiano / Un pazzo ne fa cento / Le pesatrici

Sylvia Alimena / Eclipse Chamber Orchestra

Naxos 8.570421 (CD)

Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729-1774) is a name I’d seen once or twice in articles on opera history. He was born a few years before Haydn, and he had achieved success as a composer in both Italy and Vienna when his life was cut short by a fatal fall from a carriage. The ten overtures — actually three-movement sinfonias — delightfully straddle the stylistic idiom of Handel and Haydn, and show off Gassmann’s knack for memorable tunes. The disc also showcases the superb playing of the Washington, DC-based Eclipse Chamber Orchestra. Conductor Sylvia Alimena secures solid ensemble playing — and lets the fine players cut loose in the rousing allegros and cantabile slow movements. This is of the most unexpectedly entertaining discs I’ve gotten my hands on in quite a while.

Performance: 10
Sound: 10

 

Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst: Choral Folk Song Arrangements

Vaughan Williams: Bushes and Briars / Loch Lomond / John Dory / Greensleeves / Ward, the Pirate / Ca’ the Yowes / The Unquiet Grave / The Seeds of Love / Early in the Spring / The Turtle Dove / An Acre of Land / Five English Folk Songs
Gustav Holst: The Homecoming / Hymn to Manas / Three of Eight Canons for equal voices / Six Choral Folk Songs

Christopher Bishop / London Madrigal Singers (RVW)
Baccholian Singers of London (GH)

EMI 50999 2 16155 2 8 (CD)

This budget-priced entry in EMI’s British Composers series couples a full LP of Vaughan Williams folk settings for mixed voices with the second side of music by Holst for male voices, sung by the very fine Baccholian Singers of London, a superb octet many of whose names will be familiar to lovers of vocal music. The liner notes don’t specify the members of the London Madrigal Singers, though I’m almost certain one of the tenors is Ian Partridge. I will admit a strong personal preference for The Deller Consort’s landmark recordings of Vaughan Williams’ mixed-voice repertoire where the works overlap with the present disc, but given performances that are at once stylish, dramatic and thoroughly enjoyable, there’s no reason not to have both. The big surprise, however, are the male voice arrangements by Holst —  often daring, rigorously contrapuntal, and extraordinarily evocative of the texts.

Performances: 9
Sound: 7

 

Martha Argerich — The Collection 2: The Concerto Recordings

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No.3 (Claudio Abbado / Berlin Philharmonic)
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major (Claudio Abbado / Berlin Philharmonic)
Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1 (Claudio Abbado / London Symphony Orchestra)
Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1 (Claudio Abbado / London Symphony Orchestra)
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major (Claudio Abbado / London Symphony Orchestra)
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 (Charles Dutoit / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)
Mendelssohn: Double [Violin and Piano] Concerto (Gidon Kremer / Orpheus Chamber Orchestra)
Schumann: Piano Concerto (Mstislav Rostropovich / National Symphony Orchestra [Washington, DC])
Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 (Mstislav Rostropovich / National Symphony Orchestra [Washington, DC])
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No.1 (Guy Touvron / Jörg Faerber / Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn)
Haydn: Piano Concerto No.11 (Jörg Faerber / Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.1 (Giuseppe Sinopoli / Philharmonia Orchestra)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2 (Giuseppe Sinopoli / Philharmonia Orchestra)
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 (Claudio Abbado / Berlin Philharmonic)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2 (Claudio Abbado / Gustav Mahler Kammerorchester)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3 (Claudio Abbado / Gustav Mahler Kammerorchester)

Deutsche Grammophon 477 0124 (7 CDs)

I run hot and cold with Argerich, particularly in concert — but her recordings are almost uniformly provocative and interesting. Most of her well-known concerto recordings were made for Deutsche Grammophon, and this set brings together all of her concerto recordings for the label made from 1967 to 2004. The clamshell box contains seven CDs and over nine hours of music. I already had about half of the recordings sitting on my shelf, but the set was still a steal for the items I had not heard — or heard in a long time. I’d last heard her concerto collaboration with Rostropovich sometime in the early 1980s, and although even digital remastering can’t correct the “forest of mikes” syndrome that undermined the sonics of too many DG recordings of the 1970s, the artistry is absolutely first rank — and the contrast between the Chopin and Schumann particularly striking. I’d not heard the Argerich-Sinopoli Beethoven, and the impetuosity and playfulness of these early Beethoven concertos comes through in a big way. Likewise, Argerich and Faerber seem surprisingly attuned in the Haydn, and bring plenty of bite to teh Shostakovich while keeping its unruly structure under tight control.

I was also pleased with the somewhat sparsely annotated but well-illustrated booklet that accompanies the set. Universal has gone from “screen” printing to higher-resolution digital printing, and the photographs (and the “mini-LP-sleeve” covers containing each CD) look terrific. Even if you have half of these recordings, you’ll find this set a welcome bargian.

performances: 7-10
sound: 6-10