What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[PHC1]

This fine recording of La Traviata comes from a production at the 2005 Salzburg Festival. With an all-star cast featuring Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, and Thomas Hampson, the performances generated an ecstatic reaction from the Salzburg audiences, and the recording captures the excitement of the experience.

The soloists, orchestra, and chorus perform with a vibrant energy that propels the drama with unusual urgency. Netrebko sings flawlessly with a sumptuous, velvety legato, and she is completely engaging as Violetta, beautifully capturing her high spirits, her inner strength, and her physical frailty. "Ah, fors'è lui" and "Addio del passato" are particularly moving.

Villazón is a fine foil for her, with a dark, burnished tenor and an impetuous, sometimes explosive temperament. Hampson's Germont is vocally superb, but he seems somewhat disengaged and doesn't bring the same level of emotional investment to his role as the romantic leads. Carlo Rizzi leads the Vienna Philharmonic with meticulous attention to the details of Verdi's scoring, giving the music a punchiness that tends to get smoothed out in many performances.

The orchestral balances are exceptionally fine, so that each scene is distinctively shaded and colored. DG Deutsche Grammophon's sound is wonderfully clear and present, capturing the positive elements of a live performance without the distractions or limitations that frequently mar live recordings.

[PierreB]

ANJA LECHNER AND VASSILIS TSABROPOULOS: CHANTS, HYMNS AND DANCES

[audioguy3107]

Merry Christmas!



Linn SACD 2 disc set.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Claudio Monteverdi - Vespro della Beata Vergine
La Capella Reial
Coro del Centro Musica Antica di Padova
Jordi Savall

Solisti: Montserrat Figueras, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Livio Picotti, Paolo Costa
Guy de Mey, Gian Paolo Fagotto, Gerd Turk
Pietro Spagnoli, Roberto Abondanza, Daniele Carnovich



At the risk of boring you guys, another great SACD-set from AliaVox.
Recorded in '88, but very well remastered. You get a perfect feel of the church ambience, voices are beautiful, harmonious, and so clear.
Savall understands this, you can sense that.

This fits a quiet Saturday morning perfectly...

[bart]

Originally Posted by AudioNut

And, now, For Post Number 4,001 in this thread. . .

I'm listening to . . . . Music for a Time of War

The Oregon Symphony - Carlos Kalmar, Conductor

A Pentatone SACD, recorded in 2011




SA-CD NET gives this recording a solid five stars on both performance and sound quality, and the reviews from other sources are uniformly good.

Performance: - Sonics:



As for myself, While the sound quality, dynamics, deep powerful bass, excellent orchestra, playing beautifully, Wide deep soundstage, great imaging etc. etc. etc.

But with all these great attributes, I'm not sure I really like the music. Maybe a couple more playings will win me over.

I bought the SACD because of a recommendation in this thread, so I will give it a chance to grow on me.

Originally Posted by bart

I'm always mesmerised by "The Unanswered Question".
The Britten and Vaughan Williams works are majestic and dramatic.
The Adams piece is another jewel.

Revisiting this SACD.
Impactful...

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Khachaturian - Prokofiev - Glazunov - Russian Violin Concertos
Russian National Orchestra, Yakov Kreizberg
Julia Fischer, violin




Fantastic album, with terrific performances of these masterpieces.
Great 5.0 sound.

Listening to this SACD again.
The Khachaturian piece is a lesser known gem.
Fabulous disc.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Musique and Sweet Poetrie - Jewels from Europe around 1600
Emma Kirkby & Jakob Lindberg



Well recorded album, with beautiful pieces. Recommended.

I have to admit I like this disc better than this afternoon's live performance of these 2 wonderful musicians.
First of all: the pieces here fit better with her voice, and secondly, she was 9 years younger.
Another point was the constant coughing and sniffling which was quite annoying with such intimate music.

This remains a wonderful SACD...

[PHC1]

It seems as though a young European prodigy comes along each year and is proclaimed to be the next big thing, but Johan Dalene has the chops to make it last, or so it seems from the evidence here. Just 19 when this recording was released, at the end of 2019, Dalene is both daring and thoughtful in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35.

He could have played it safe, as many young players do with their debut releases. Instead, he takes the concerto's outer movements at a skittery quick tempo, pushing himself to the edge but not beyond. Then for the more melodic passages in the opening movement, he takes time and lets the music breathe.

It's an impressive performance of a very familiar work, but the Violin Concerto, Op. 14, of Samuel Barber, is possibly even better. Some Barber works seem Romantic in style, but on closer examination, turn out to be quite modern in form, and this concerto is a complex example. It has the big tunes, but its use of the violin is atypical and constantly shifting; Barber said that the work was more a sonata than a concerto.

Dalene's lively, alert performance is complemented by fine work from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Blendulf in what is throughout a really impressive debut concerto recording.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Saint-Saëns - Complete Piano Trios
Altenberg Trio Wien
SACD




Nice chamber music works, pleasant 5.0 DSD sound.

These chamber music pieces are real gems!

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Robert Schumann - Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54
Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat, Op. 73 "Emperor"
Van Cliburn, piano
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conductor



The Beethoven is one of the top works of course.
But the Schumann piano concerto is also such a beautiful piece.
And Van Cliburn does justice to it.
Splendid 3-channel recording.

Like Kal always says: 3 channels is better than 2 (and 5 even more).
The piano sits nicely in the center channel, the orchestra spread evenly over the 3 channels.
Although they don't quite equal the best modern recordings, these Living Stereo albums are a treat!