What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[bart]

Schubert - Winterreise
Joyce DiDonato
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Qobuz 24/96




2 splendid musicians... but I have to admit I prefer a male singer for this work.
Sorry ladies, I do love you!

[bart]

Brahms - Symphony No. 2 - Academic Festival Overture
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Herbert Blomstedt
Qobuz 24/96




I quite liked this live album.
Splendid performance and sound.
Blomstedt was 92 when he conducted this...


Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig continue their complete Brahms symphonies project with a recording of the composer’s Second Symphony in D Major, alongside his Academic Festival Overture. Although idyllic and pastoral at first sight, Brahms himself remarked that he had “never written anything so sad”. Blomstedt and the orchestra bring out all the different moods and colours of this exceptional work, while the Academic Festival Overture provides a jubilant, glorious conclusion.

Blomstedt’s work as a conductor is inseparably linked to his religious and human ethos, and his interpretations combine great faithfulness to the score and analytical precision with a soulfulness that awakens the music to pulsating life. In the more than sixty years of his career, he has acquired the unrestricted respect of the musical world. © Pentatone

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Barbara Hannigan
Ludwig Orchestra - Crazy Girl Crazy
Qobuz 24/192




Got the Klara Award for best classical album 2017.
Works from Berio (where conductor and also solo soprano Hannigan delivers a tour de force vocally!), Berg and Gershwin.
This goes into my favourites (Qobuz).

Review:

Whether singing, conducting, dancing or acting, the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan is a source of fascination. Alpha Classics is proud to enter her world today and to present in 2017 her very first album as singer and conductor: with the Amsterdambased orchestra Ludwig, of which she is associate artist, Barbara Hannigan has devised a programme including Berg’s Lulu Suite and Gershwin’s Girl Crazy in a Suite newly arranged by the multiaward-winning American composer Bill Elliott. To complement these two pieces, she has recorded Berio’s spectacular Sequenza III for solo voice. An outstanding soprano, a distinguished interpreter of the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, an all-round artist who creates a sensation on concert platforms and in opera houses throughout the world, Barbara Hannigan has enriched her palette over the past few years by devoting a portion of her activities to conducting.
© Alpha Classics

Time to listen again to this fabulous, albeit adventurous, album.
A true tour de force by Hannigan!

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Highly enjoying this:

Beethoven - Symphony No. 2
Schubert - Symphony No. 8 'Unvollendete'
Brahms - Symphony No. 3 - Poco allegretto
Intercontinental Ensemble TRAVELING LIGHT
trptk label
Qobuz 24/96




I was at an audition yesterday, and I heard the Studio Master of the Brahms piece.
Ben, the co-owner of the shop also is co-owner of the label.
Fantastic recording as usual from trptk!
I'll buy the 5.0 DXD mix when our system will be ready for it.

Why I like this album especially.
You all know I adore the transparency of the Kuijken approach (less singers, less instruments), where one can appreciate better the melody lines in the work.
One might say the extreme example of this is the String Quartet which is orchestral music reduced to the bare minimum and as thus an art in itself.
Here we get a nonet with 9 great international musicians, with Belgian violinist Ernst Spyckerelle who did the arrangements.
Schubert's 8th will probably be my favourite version of all times, it is that good!

Heartily recommended.

The label has switched from Tidal to Qobuz, because the latter is so much better in sound quality said Ben, but as said, I will download the DXD Studio Master, because this 24/96 stream tastes good, but I want the full monty!

One of my favourite albums of last years.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Dear classical aficionados, this grand lady is celebrating her 90th this very day.
She's still alive and kicking.
Our classical radio Klara is honouring her, with recent interviews - she's alive and kicking, wow so sharp! - and music, lots of music.
It mostly comes from this box set:




I really appreciate her voice.

She tells in an interview she's happy she doesn't have to take care of her voice anymore - although she still sounds powerful! - and that she can now go for a stroll when it is snowing, without worrying whether the cold would harm her vocal chords which would disturb yet another recital tomorrow.
She really lead a life dedicated to singing.
More than 50 years of performing.
Bravo and happy birthday Mrs Ludwig!

I will not have time to listen to the whole set today, but I've been going through it the last days, to honour this grande dame of opera and Lieder, who died last Saturday.

[Antonmb]

Johan Halvorsen: Orchestral Works, Volume 4
Melina Mandozzi violin
Ilze Klava viola
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Melina Mandozzi leader
Neeme Järvi conducting
Chandos (2012), via Qobuz

Very nice recording.
IMG_0801.jpg

[audioguy3107]

[bart]

Originally Posted by eljr

Some lute music from a formerly unknown composer, Ferdinand Fischer, masterfully recorded by Northstar.



Hubert Hoffmann
Ferdinand Fischer: From Heaven on Earth - Lute Music from Kremsmunster Abbey

Type
SACD
Label
Challenge Classics
UPC
0608917274028
Catalog number
CC 72740
Release date
04 November 2016

Streaming this again (Qobuz 24/44.1).
Because it's such a fine album.

[bart]

I've been playing this set in the practice the last 2 days:

Telemann - Paris Quartets
Barthold Kuijken - Sigiswald Kuijken
Wieland Kuijken - Gustav Leonhardt
via Qobuz

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Bach - Cello Suites
Bruno Cocset
via Qobuz




Closely miked, these performances on 4 different 'period instruments' really draw you into the music.
I am a Cocset fan.

First 5 this evening, sixth will be for tomorrow.
Yes, still a fan.