Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 3 - re-listened yesterday to Lisitsa and Argerich. Will continue with the others today. They all sound great - take your pick.
Wonderful new Gidon Kremer Rachmaninov Piano trios record out today (Trifonov on piano) - go seek it out !
I've just started to stick my toe into the water on the Callas material from Warner-- I'm not going the megabox route, instead I'm selectively buying the SACD versions put out by Warner Japan. I started with the Puccini aria recital and am thinking of moving on to the Coloratura and Lyric Arias album. Any further suggestions? From online research, it looks like Norma and Carmen are the two best choices from there, with Carmen a stereo recording in good sound.....
From the Public Library. Released 2016. I am not familiar with Elgar's Symphonies, but my reaction is favorable. Big & Germanic.
I have no specific suggestions, but in general, if I were to buy individual CDs, I'd shoot for the remastered versions with the very best sound, just like you are doing. I say this because I find the sound quality of the older recordings slightly interferes with my enjoyment with the Callas CDs that I have. The tone of her voice requires the best mastering you can get.
That's my thinking in going with SACDs. Even if the gain there is marginal, it may be really helpful in rounding out her voice.
Now on the turntable, record 1 from "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme" performed by The Consort Of Musicke on L'Oiseau-Lyre. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia... The Chansonnier Cordiforme (1470s) or Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu is a cordiform (heart-shaped) music manuscript, Collection Henri de Rothschild MS 2973, held in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The manuscript was commissioned in Savoy between 1460 and 1477 by canon Jean de Montchenu, later Bishop of Agen (1477) and Bishop of Vivier (1478-1497). An edition was prepared by Geneviève Thibault de Chambure in 1952. The chansonnier comprises 43 songs by Dufay, Binchois, Ockeghem, Busnoys and others.
I found it searching Google Images for "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme". There are many of them, all very beautiful. You had to have nerves of steel to be an artist back then - no fixing mistakes with Photoshop.
The addition "with the very best sound" is essential in my view; not all remasters are better than earlier versions, on the contrary.
Speaking of Maria Callas, now listening to "Verdi - Aida" performed by the Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Milano led by Tullio Serafin from the EMI Complete Studio Recordings box.
To go back to a discussion that got removed from the main thread, what are people's thoughts on streaming, especially in terms of catalog? At least for me that's by far the most important aspect of a streaming service - I'm okay with 320k MP3 quality in return for being able to listen to essentially any recording my heart desires - and if I really like it I'll go out and buy a physical copy. So far I've been using Spotify and I like it - it helps that I share an account with a few others, so the actual cost is about $4 a month. They have most Sony and Universal recordings, and also the Naxos Library. I use Google Play Music's free locker service for albums I own that aren't otherwise available for streaming - usually private orchestral issues and other rare discs. In practice I use this for all my listening at work and in the car, and only use physical media at home. What are other services people use? Anything that has a better library than Spotify? I got a little frustrated yesterday that the Charles Munch box is only partly on Spotify, and the concerto album he recorded with Brailowsky wasn't there.
I've been really blown away lately by Concerto Italiano's version of The Four Seasons. Anybody have recommendations like this, where a group just completely infuses a piece with amazing energy and emotion, even going to the point of near-reinterpretation?
I struggle with streaming in general mainly from a technical aspect. I don't have any way to play any computer based audio through my stereo systems and I really am not at all interested in making it happen anyway. I despise computers in general and my earlier attempts to make PC based audio work for me were basically a failure so I have given up (for now). It was just too much money and work for what ended up being inferior sound quality wise to what I get from my CD player or turntable. That said, I still use YouTube and other on-line resources to search out music I haven't heard before to check it out to see if I like it before purchasing it in physical form. The Naxos service is amazing but I don't have a subscription to that anymore. I found I just wasn't using it enough to be worth it. Since, as I mentioned, I don't have any way to play back computer based audio over my stereo, it was just a resource to "try stuff out" and I couldn't justify it. Some day, that may all change. When I retire, my wife and I will likely downsize considerably to allow us to travel more and my massive physical library may need to be downsized as well. I may end up with no alternative at that point in time.
SteelyTom, if I may speak as a Maria Callas fanatic: Norma and Carmen, of course. Great. And if you find recordings of La Sonnambula, Tosca, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Cenerentola, and Manon Lescaut in SACD, by La Divina, get them, by all means. Essential opera, to me.
Don't see DVDs on the other thread maybe I could drop this treasure in here, sounds nice through through my Hi-Fi.
Great. Something else I have to watch, now... {sigh} I'm actually very curious, royzak2000. I love that cast (Lott-Von Otter), but I'm so old-school that my favorite Rosenkavalier will always be the Schwarzkopf-Ludwig-Von Karajan version. I will certainly try to see this production on DVD. Thanks for mentioning it!
In the TV room I stream through my Apple TV. It’s about $70 and it’s easy. Elsewhere I just connect my phone or iPad to the stereo through the headphone jack using one of these: Amazon.com: UGREEN 3.5mm to 2RCA Audio Auxiliary Stereo Y Splitter Cable (3ft): Electronics Total cost for that one is $6.99 plus shipping.
First listen to CD 2 from "Prokofiev - Cinderella Suites Nos. 1-3/Scythian Suite/'On the Dnieper'" performed by the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra led by Theodore Kuchar on Naxos. New music to me; I like it.
Fair enough. Between my PC in my office and my smartphone on the go/in the car, and my PC at home, I'm with a PC or analogous device most of the time, and that informs my streaming habits. I can use my phone to play Spotify through a Chromecast to my AVR, but I really only use it for pop music my girlfriend wants to hear. If I'm sitting down just to listen, I listen to (usually high-res) physical media. I will admit a bit of a crisis of faith, though, in that I'm finding that most of the time the fidelity of Spotify is entirely acceptable to me, even though my fairly decent PC speakers (Audioengine A2s). And I don't need a collection taking up this much space. But I really like physical media, and surround audio, so for now I'm sticking with it. Incidentally, I can't do YouTube for music except for older live recordings, where the fidelity was never that great and the person uploading probably is using a decent copy. The difference in fidelity between Youtube and Spotify is generally much more audible than the difference between Spotify and CD, at least for me.