Well, it just happens that I never had a chance to listen to Stravinsky's music live, until last Wednesday, that is... Part of their series " Meet the Music", that has been running in various forms since 1947 (!), this concert was a tribute to Stravinsky's visit to the SOH in 1961. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra played his Violin Concerto, another first for me, and the Firebird Suite. I was 7 rows from the stage and more or less bang pang in the middle of the row - perfect! Only comment is that being so close and levelled with the stage, you can't see the players at the back - winds and percussions are out of sight, but certainly there, specially in a piece like the Firebird! The German conductor, Matthias Pintscher, did a great job at articulating the various instrument types and still retaining the poetry of the music. He was joined by Isabelle Faust, also German, but living in Paris -smart lady - for the Violin Concerto, a very difficult piece for the solo violinist who plays for almost the entire length of the piece. Great tandem and a real interesting musical discovery. It made me revisit my Stravinsky record collection, which includes my recently acquired Anton Dorati as part of the Decca Sound boxset, but also another recording of the Rite of Spring on Decca, with Erich Leinsdorf with the London Phil. I really enjoyed that recording - I recently bought it in LA, and it was only the second time I had listened to it. Great recording, great interpretation too, much better than the Dorati I believe. Well, first apologies for not having fed this page in quite a while... and it is not like if I have not listened to new music for the last six months... In fact, I bought a substantial number of LPs in Paris and another big lot in LA in January. But then, I broke the piggy bank and bought this boxset... At 2.504 a CD though, it is probably the cheapest archive of music I ever bought. I have always been a fan of the Decca and Telarc records because of their sheer quality both musically and technically. Decca have used very early in the piece an upgraded version of Andre Charlin's "tete artificielle" - artificial head, called the "Decca Tree' a flexible contraption of usually 3 omnidirectional microphones, but sometimes supplemented by another two to augment the width of the soundstage in large orchestral formation, or more recently to recorder in 5.1. You can read more on this here: http://www.wesdooley.com/pdf/surround_sound_decca_tree-urtext.pdf I have had the time now to listen to 5 of these 50 CDs, and although they vary in degrees of quality, they all share this limpidity of sound and the Decca signature "ambience". So far, my favourites are: Stravinsky "Le Sacre du Printemps" directed by Antal Dorati with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. This is by far the best performance AND the best recording I ever heard of this famous piece. Both the pinpoint accuracy and the dynamics are incredible for a recording which is 30 years old. (CD15) Holst "The Planets" directed by Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic. (CD22) It shows Karajan at his best (I am not a great fan... apart from his discovery of Anne Sophie Mutter - but I am biased!), strong but articulate and at time subtle, bringing a totally new experience from my LP with Sir Adrian Boult conducting the London Philarmonic Orchestra on EMI, recorded in 1979 in association with KEF. And finally, J.S. Bach and his Goldberg Variations played by Andras Schiff, a limpid performance and very realistic too. I am listening to it as I type, and it feels like the piano is in room, not a small feast! The other two discs are certainly worth having, but fall short of the brilliance of the three above... I will keep you posted as I make my way through this admirable collection. Chuck Israels, the bass guitarist on this record sums it up: "More than any other recording that I have made with Bill Evans, this one has a quality of " Surprise! You're on Candid Camera" The ambience of this little jazz studio oozes thru the speakers into our living room and drags us into the intimacy of this live performance, one and the last of two recorded on the Riverside label by Bill Evans. It was recorded in May 1963. The 45RPM recording is way more realistic and accurate than any 33RPM could do, and it compensates greatly for the small inconvenience of having only two tracks per side of the 2-record set. Acoustic Sounds has been releasing these jazz jewels on 45RPM vinyls for over 20 years, well before the current so-called "revival". Rush to the website with your credit card at the ready before it solds out. My (or should I say, my daughter's...) copy is numbered 0741, probably out of 1000, so hurry up: this is one of the best performance of Bill Evans, one of a few live recording available on vinyl (I own the entire collection of "Bill Evans live in Paris" on CD, which is a private collection by INA, the French national audio and video archive), and of historical significance as the last recording of Bill Evans on the Riverside label. Enjoy! There is no need to present this classic originally released by CBS in 1959, now a Sony label and republished recently by Music on Vinyl, a Dutch (thanks, Mario...) label specialising in high quality vinyl reissues of jazz classics and more. This is actually a disc from my daughter's collection - she is a keen jazz enthusiast, happily listening to Charlie Mingus, Miles Davis and Bill Evans as well as more classic jazz players. On this record, Blue Rondo a la Turk and Take Five have taken a life of their own, and I would surprised if I were to find somebody not knowing them. BTW, I am planning to give you snippets of each disc reviewed at a later stage, once I have mastered the software driving the USB output of my new phono stage. The drums and the bass guitar are the absolute stars of this recording. During some of the solos, it was like having the drummer in the room (without the neighbours calling the police...) I have recently upgraded my system, (see hardware page for details in an upcoming post...) and got myself a Blu Ray DVD and CD player from Samsung, my Pioneer DVD/SACD having reached its used by date by simply refusing to play any disc. So, I needed new software to go with the new player and heard that this memorable concert was finally available in Blu Ray. Got the last copy at my favourite retailer and off I went to listen to it - and that was before upgrading my preamp... well, I almost threw my turntable away!!! This is the very first time that I listen to "Private Investigations" and find it better by a notch or two at least than my beloved vinyl version. The video part obviously shows the passage of time, but is still a fabulous document if you are a 16mm enthusiast...but interestingly enough, the sound track is pure bliss. The bass extension in particular is just out of this world - and I thought my speakers could not reach those very low frequencies... G.I.G.O as Ivor Tiefenbrun would say - garbage in, garbage out... since then, I have upgraded the preamp with an external phono stage. I will have to do the comparison again and come back to you, but I am sure i am in for more surprises along the way. The legend has it that Alan Parsons was so taken by the Beatles album "The Sergents Pepper" that he applied for a job at Abbey Studios and got it and subsequently worked with Paul McCartney for quite a while. This album is a collection of so-called "cinemascope' music published in 1983 et pressed from a DMM master. Rediscovering this music recently, and perfectly presented by the Red Ortofon cartrige, it is a delight for all senses as one gets physically involved in the richness of the harmonies and the textures of the vocals. Often classified as "easy listening" or "background music", I certainly regard this record as a highlight of my musical education and one to be savoured like a good meal or a nice glass of wine, or both... I am not aware of a reedition on LP, but I am happy to be proven wrong! I have had this record in my collection for many a year and I have listened to it hundreds of time, So, why talking about it today? Well, I just received the February issue of Hi-Fi News (remember, I live in Australia...) to discover among other interesting things, that this record was being re-issued by Pure Pleasure Records. A Columbia record originally, it is a very rich, melifluous recording of a very high standard, specially if you keep in mind that it was recorded live in 1973! My own copy (see photo above0 is still in very good condition and sounds fantastic. I actually have rediscovered it since I had my new Ortofon RED cartridge! I am listening to "Face 3" now as a matter of fact! "This is Ella on the cusp of semi-retirement, but still in full command of her remarkable powers and at only 56 already a global treasure" As discussed on my main page, this new part of my blog is a way of celebrating our first anniversary. I am no musical critic, so do not expect an in-depth analysis of the piece, or the interpretation, or a comparison between several versions. I just want to share with you the music I enjoy listening to. No need to say, it will usually be records or CDs that are best reproduced thru my own HiFi system, for extra enjoyment! Shostakovich Symphoniy No. 5 - Mercury Records - SR90060 - Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting the Minneapolis Symphony I thought I would start with a composer that I have only recently discovered, listening to my favourite radio station in my car: ABC Classic FM. (BTW, you can listen to it on the Net; here is the link:http://www.abc.net.au/classic/audio/streaming.htm) I find Shostakovich quite a diverse musician, with a lot of humour and sarcasm, given the fact he was living and composing soon after the Communist revolution in Russia, and certainly didn't have the freedom to compose anything that was not following the line of the Party. But to his credit, he manages to write some beautiful music. His 5th Symphony is certainly a good example of his talent. This version was recorded in 1961 in Minneapolis and reissued in 2006 by Speakers Corner Records: www.speakerscornerrecords.com The recording is one of the first stereo recordings by Mercury, so much so, that there was a mono version available at the time! It has a very good tonal balance and wide dynamic range. Very good for such an oldie! Some of the credit goes to Speakers Corner Records obviously for cleaning the master tapes and recutting a metal master. Use your favourite search engine to find videos of their processes on YouTube. |
AuthorBorn in France, well travelled, relocated to Sydney in 1997. Archives
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