I saw that in a thrift store a few months ago, looked really nice. I was tempted because it looked so good but decided to leave it for someone who would get more from it than me. Hope you're enjoying it!
On the turntable: $1 at the thrift store. Julian Bream / George Malcolm – Sonatas For Lute And Harpsichord RCA Victor Red Seal – LSC-3100
Mitsuko Ushida, one of my faves, playing Mozart K271 with Jeffrey Tate conducting the English Chamber Orchestra. Bought new about 2014, contains 8 concertos on 8 discs. Does anyone else feel amazed and blessed to have all this excellent music at our fingertips? One hundred years ago, this selection and this audio fidelity would have been impossible. Two hundred years ago, it was unimaginable. ❤️
Listening to "Legenda Aurea - Laudes Des Saints Au Trecento Italien" performed by La Reverdie on Arcana.
Any good complete piano recordings for Debussy/Ravel other than Gieseking? I love Gieseking's play, but poor recording quality frustrates me... Any good suggestions? It would be good if the playing style is similar to Gieseking's.
In my humble opinion, the complete solo piano recordings by Jean Efflam Bavouzet on Chandos are the absolute hands down best. I would also rate Gordon Fergus Thompson who has a slightly slower tempi but whose playing really shines with Debussy at a very agreeable price point. Pascal Roge also did a nice job of the piano works. Hope this helps.
For my birthday this year I got Bavouzet's complete Debussy on Chandos and his complete Ravel on MDG - both are excellent to my ears, although I haven't finished traversing the sets yet. The Ravel is recorded on a 1901 Steinway D, which is a nice touch. Someone has uploaded his recording of Gaspard de la Nuit to YouTube, which helped sell me on it:
Starting the day with a string quartet, CD2 from this set: Luigi Cherubini - String Quartet #2 - Hausmusik London This might be my favourite one from the set. Pavlo Beznosiuk takes 1st violin on this one (he alternates with Monica Huggett throught the cycle).
Yes, his Ravel is excellent. He has also covered the Beethoven Sonatas, which, while also very good; I prefer Paul Lewis. Of course though, for Beethoven I invariably return to Sviatoslav Richter in Prague and Carnegie Hall.
This morning first up. Another CD from Decca mono. This sounds so good over the headphones-performance and recording. Jean Martinon. Nice music.
His Haydn Sonatas are top notch, I will be picking up the full set when the cycle is complete. He uses a bright Yamaha piano for those, which is not to everyone's tastes, but for me it captures a lot of the tonal qualities of a fortepiano (the instrument for which the sonatas were originally composed*) without the disadvantages. * some early ones may be for harpischord or clavichord The disc of Haydn Piano Concertos (collecting the only three that are definitely by Haydn) with Gábor Takács-Nagy and the Manchester Camerata is also very enjoyable. I sampled the Mozart Piano Concertos he also did with the Camerata, and while I enjoyed the piano performance, I felt the winds weren't prominent enough in the orchestra, and that's a sticking point for me with Mozart. I'll stick with Bilson/Gardiner for those.
Anyway, next up in Listenin' to Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Conversation, the second disc of this set for a first listen: Maurice Ravel - Le Tombeau de Couperin and other works - Jean-Efflam Bavouzet Too many pieces to list, so here's the back cover:
Just ordered, $3 with a coupon for a damaged shipment: I have the third concerto with Janis/Dorati, but none of the others. The Richter and Michelangeli on numbers two and four are apparently very good indeed. It's also the full version of symphony two, I only have a cut version at the moment.
Mendelssohn is one of my favorite composers and "Midsummer" is one of my favorite works by him, but i always struggled with a satifying recording of this piece. Just recently thought i acquired what to my taste seems to be the perfect one. I did a throughout comparision of all of the main recorded versions without dialogue (i can't stand those melodrama dialogues!) and Thomas Dausgaard release on BIS took the first place. Mendelssohn never did a suite of this piece, so every suite of it that is available is "unofficial" and its oder, length and overall conception varies depending on the conductor. But in my opinion Dausgaard is the only one that manages to make the suite really work as a coherent peace. When you listen to it, it sounds like it was composed to be perfomed that way. Every other version i listened to sounds like a combination of cutouts of a bigger work, and like something is still missing. The Dausgaard's recording also includes two very well placed Mendelssohn's overtures, which improves the entire album experience even more. So, Dausgaard gets the first place, but the second place goes to Adam Fischer with the Hungarian State Orchestra (very good too!) and the third place goes to Otto Klemperer with the Philharmonia Orchestra. These are the versions with no dialogue that i consider worth mentioning. There are some other very good versions with little dialogue, but even if little, the dialogue still bothers me very much. Of those versions with little dialogue, my favorites are the John Eliot Gardiner one with the LSO and the Claudio Abbado one with Berliner Philharmoniker. And as far as complete versions with full dialogue, and don't mess with them. Cheers.
