The Pavel Haas Quartet Smetana disc is great! Pavel Haas Quartet Smetana: String Quartets No. 1 & 2 Supraphon, 2015 This is my first Pavel Haas Quartet disc, but I like it so much that I want to try all of their previous recordings. On this recording at least, their sound is full, robust and lively. Tonight I will listen to the 1955 Hollywood Quartet version.
It's duet madrigals for soprano and contralto. The composers are Monteverdi, Marcello, Handel, and Lotti plus a sonata by D. Scarlatti as an interlude. Supremely recorded disc. Almost reference quality, really.
A beautifully recorded and staggeringly well played recital on LP. Richter draws almost organ sonorities from the instrument.
I have the LP but I have not played it for a while. IIRC the sound is nice, much better than your average DG recording. About the music, I don't know. As much as I wanted to get to enjoy it, I couldn't. And I have no problem with modern music per se, it's just that these particular pieces did not do much for me. Maybe I 'll give it another listen one of these days.
Now listening to "Bruch/Dvorak - Violin Concertos" performed by Julia Fischer with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich led by David Zinman on Decca.
An odd match on this live recording from the Musikverein on 2/6-7/93, but both performances are strong & sound is excellent. Producer: Michael Hass. Engineer: John Pellowe.
Now listening to "Tchaikovsky/Bruch - Violin Concertos" performed by Nicola Benedetti with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra led by Jakub Hrusa on Decca.
That's a gem collection! Sun-treader is powerful, Piston's Second is OK though suprisingly old-fashioned considering it's from forties. Ives just is one of my favourites (as a composer; not just this individual work). It's somehow just that young Tilson Thomas had a chance to record such shorter works as Places and Sun-treader as well as lesser known Piston symphony; part of a process of growing up. Without such recordings he wouldn't have made (10 years later) as good Ives symphonies as he did. (I mean the Amsterdam and Chicago recordings.) I don't know what DG tech dept. has done to the digitalized recordings - usually you folks tend to criticise DG's "The Originals" but I find that OK. But then again, I'm listening to it (the rip, actually) with Sennheiser Symphony & the internal audio circuitry of the computer...
Now listening to "Sibelius/Lindberg - Violin Concertos" performed by Lisa Batiashvili with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra led by Sakari Oramo on Sony.
Actually quite good. The Linfberg concerto should be recorded more often (though it's still relatively new).
Now listening to "Poeme" performed by Julia Fischer with the Orchestre Philharmonique De Monte-Carlo led by Yakov Kreizberg on Decca.
Now listening to CD 4 from the "Edwin Fischer - Piano Playing from the Heart" EMI Icon box set. Bach - Das Wohltemperierte Clavier Book I (P&F 20-24) & Book II (P&F 1-10a)
I recall Robin mentioning that this set was good, so when I saw the original CD issue of it yesterday, I had to grab it, especially because it appears both the Sanctuary and Brilliant Classics issues of this set are now OOP. Now enjoying CD 01 from the above set.
One would hope that they are good at playing their namesake's music...they are! Excellent sound, too.
Ole Blue Eyes would have said, "Dig those crazy chords". I like all things Ives myself. I listened to that CD a few times and realized how great it is. It is now out of storage.
