Classical Music for Aficionados

Our breezes are down to -4 c at the moment Len so it's lovely spring weather we are having here Len. 

@schubert     Well Len regarding Phillip he was pretty well liked up here not least for the fact that he was always aware that the Queen was first in everything. I see Nichola getting her two faced tribute in, she never hid her dislike of the Royals. I find that I can be a bit ambivalent about them in that I find that they can be good to promote the country but there are too many of them. It has gotten so bad now that the Queen is supporting some of them from her personal estates. 

I have just came upon Leonidas Kavakos new recording of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin on Idagio and am very impressed by them. I find him to have a totally original approach to them in that he uses decorations in the repeats which no other present day soloists do according to the ones I have heard in the last few years. His intonation is perfect with no portamentos to slide up to the correct note. I find his violin tone to be not so penetrating and sterile as a few I could mention. He starts of with the E major Partita and ends with the D minor partita so he knows how to get the ball rolling and end on a high. His rendition of the great Chaconne in D Minor is an awesome piece of recording a violin to give it's utmost tone and purity. If you are going to try any of them do watch the volume control as Sony's recording misses nothing. 

@rvpiano    I must look into that one RV.

@rvpiano   You are right the miracle indeed is Mozart but the sound is wonderful. This is the first I have listened to a complete opera in years, Mozart was indeed the greatest operatic composer of his age. My last Figaro was Herman Prey and we could be doing with his power and wit in this performance , the rest of the cast are very good by the way. The orchestra is very vividly recorded and three cheers for the forte piano and lute, a period performance but with a full blooded orchestra. Yes I have to say I have enjoyed this very much, Curenzis notwithstanding sometimes.
       I have one recommendation of my ow this time , It's Bach - Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Augustin Hadelich.  I have sampled the D Minor and E Major Suites. Don't expect a Fischer, Kavakos or Vengerov as his virtuosity takes a different route. He has a softer tone than the previous three wonders. The great Chaconne of the D minor suite is a wondrous affair as it is played in a distinctly romantic style full and very soft playing. At the beginning of the piece I was reminded of Nathan Millstein with superbly clean playing and his arpegios  and especially his double stopping superbly clean. Although not for everyone at least his intonation and tone are beyond reproach. 

My two pence, if you have Arrau Moravec and Pires I would say you have all bases covered.

Oh dear silly me !

@rvpiano     RV just to let you know I have listened to the recording of 
Pablo Fernandez cello recording. Rachmaninov's music never sounded better than on the cello as he had a great affinity with it . Yes all in all a great recording to while away the hours , literally. You are so right about the tone Ravishing it is.

Agree about Barshai you get the feeling of invasion and brutality.

@jim5559   Yes my friend the ship was on it's way to St. Petersburg filled with new cars but I'm betting that's not all it was filled with. I am really fearful for the people of Ukraine as that swine Putin is mad and bad enough to do anything , and do remember he was head of the KGB and other black operations so he knows every trick in the book.

That truly humbles one.

RV     Do you use Roon on your setup ?
I have my PC tuned with Roon playing Qobuz through it and It is a huge difference to Qobuz playing on it's own. Roon has been much improved lately and the sound quality is now very clean and dynamic. I would certainly recommend it.

@rvpiano      I have had both Qobuz and Idagio and I have noticed a difference between the two in that on CD quality 16/44 files there is not much difference. I do notice that Qobuz definitely has the edge in the higher resolution files with a blacker noise floor and a more dynamic presentation. The Idagio site on the other hand is far superior in the sheer diversity in it's classical library compared to Qobuz. If I look up something on Qobuz it will come up with a few different Artists and bands. If I look it up on Idagio there are a whole lot more to chose from and if your tastes are a bit eclectic then Idagio is certainly for you.

He's certainly miles better than the junk we have to put up with today's "composers" and I am not in the least bit apologetic for that comment.

jim5559     From where I stand I think Boris should open the gate and let those people come into this country instead of fudging about all over the place.

You're having a laugh aren't you !!

Beethoven Triple Concerto .
Three absolute Titans who are never going to be equalled in this piece .
I wore out a few LP's playing this piece every night and I never got sick of it. These three were equally matched in temperament with Richter incandescent on the piano holding everything together. Oh yes and Karajan for a change number 4 on the ratings.!!

If you want the greatest Handel Variations go for Arrau in the Phillips Brahms box or if you don't mind a poorer recording Julius Katchen who are vastly superior to Perahia.

As I write I have just discovered a blistering account on Idagio from Nikolay Tokarev from a Rhur Festival recording. Stirring stuff indeed but I still prefer Arrau, he just seems to get into it better especially the fugue his piano tone is unmatched by anyone.

Chopin loved and played and made his students play the works of JS Bach.

Does anyone know the work of American / Dutch pianist Andrew von Oeyen. He is quite well represented on Idagio at the moment with his latest recording on their front pages. It is a recording of Bach and Beethoven with the star being the Appassionata sonata. he has a stunning technique which is put to good use here. He takes the tempo at a fair lick and the result is spellbinding. He also has other recordings on Idagio with a favourite for me of Liszt , with the B Minor Sonata being for me the star again with fast tempos favoured but with due care taken to the slow intervals. On said slow sections he has a beautiful tender side and lovely limpid touch. On the same recording he does the Rigoletto Paraphrase with gorgeous octave glissandos and stunning Chordal playing. I just wish he had room for the Three Petrarch Sonnets as his technique is really suited them.

@jim5559     Miss Fliter is a very fine pianist Ideally suited to Chopin and I have been watching her since her days as a BBC adoptee and some lovely Wigmore Hall recitals she has given.

I Love Ein Heldenleben, it has some gorgeous tunes in it as you would expect from Strauss. I love the beautiful finishing duo with the violin and French Horn, it's so tender.

@rok2id6     Regarding the Liszt Sonata I fully concur with the Arrau version but make sure it is his 60s analogue version and not his 80's digital version because by then he had slowed down considerably. Also another one to look out for is Krystian Zimmerman who is a blistering performance but I personally like the older Arrau version for it's passion and technical prowess.

My dear friend Len , so good to see you in print again ( I thought you were in the huff with us. Right enough I haven't been contributing either and it's been too hot for headphones as well. Thank goodness it's piddling with rain here now as I can get back to my beloved Bach and I am as happy as a wee pig in s**t just now listening to Maria Jiao Pires playing the masters' Partita No 1 in B Flat Major. What a wonderful pianist she is,  playing as if she's spinning gold.
I hope you are keeping ok Len." Lang may yer lum reek." Jim.

I'm so glad you liked Pires playing the Bach Len, she really is a wonderful pianist. Len I can see why you like Tureck so much measured ,crystalline and so so accurate , not a note or inflection out of place anywhere. I am going to keep that Goldberg close for a long time to come. 
Has anyone heard Zimmerman's new traversal of the Beethoven piano Concertos. Absolute magic and a wonderful accompaniment from Sir Simon Rattle , all the slow movements are measured and a luminous quality pervades the whole set . Zimmerman as usual is superlative in his accuracy and phrasing and his playing is astonishing. The main movements are brisk and his runs are super even with not a note clipped or out of place. The recordings are full and enjoyable if maybe a bit on the  side but you do hear everything that's going on.

So can I.

You don't hear a lot from Midori nowadays Len but she does have a wonderful tone though doesn't she.

I am so glad you are enjoying Pires, she sure has a special way with Chopin.

And the same to you my friend. Hope you can land on Scotias fair shores.

And that is why there will never be anyone from our age to equal him because todays people do not want to work hard other than the special instrumentalists we have today. Todays' composers spend days if not months "composing" a five minute piece of tripe and expect to be exalted to the highest levels for it. It's even so bad now that prior to a concert by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra we are "treated to a piece by a leading female computer games composer" yawn. Heaven help us, there is no future for new classical music. 

@schubert         Yes Len sad to say I have to agree with you regarding the young of today , I was recently in the company of a couple who have a daughter at Glasgow university and was appalled to find out she was studying 12th century stained glass windows. What on earth good will that be to her when there are probably less than 20 places left who have got stained glass left from that period.
I too give a donation each year to the RSNO to hopefully keep them floating a wee bit .  

@rok2id         His Mahler 4 is superb , that is my go to reference nowadays. Superb recording too, very detailed.

I have listened to Lisiecki and I have to say that although he is convincing in some of the Nocturnes it is when he gets into the later ones that both Arrau and Moravec have nothing to fear, belatedly of course.
Arrau especially gives a wonderful burnished tone helped on of course by Phillips splendid recording. The only one who could be on the same side of the fence tone wise as Arrau was Horowitz but of course in a completely different way, both were breath taking. There was no one to beat those two.

Have any of you listened to Vikingur Ollafson's new Mozart recording, it is playing of stupendous quality. It is the type of playing that makes you say it's only Mozart then you start saying listen to those runs they are super fast and crystalline and then you start saying they are not only fast and super clear they don't slow down the impetus of the piece one jot. No this is one truly great pianist.  

@edcyn928        Yes I wholeheartedly agree about these young pianists needing more time to mature but so do all pianists and not just the young. i do think Perahia a much better pianist than  Brendel was but that is only me. I spent a life time going to the Edinburgh Festival every year only to get jaded with Brendel with his mannerisms and finger slips and he certainly never ever had the technique that Olaffson has but I have never heard Schubert played live better than Brendel, but I for sure will stick with Olaffson. 

I love her Len and have done for decades, her hands were tiny but that most certainly never deterred her. None other than Horowitz marvelled at her dexterity, in fact I have somewhere in my house a picture that shows her Horowitz and Arrau backstage at a concert she had given. In fact when they came to congratulate her on her performance she threw her arms around Arrau and then kneeled in front of Horwitz and kissed his hands and he then pulled her to her feet and he then kissed her fingers and said she was a marvel.
I think she was a marvel too not only for her Mozart but her Iberian music also especially her Albeniz which can be ferociously difficult but her little hands coped admirably. That soundbite was superb. 

I have to say I have not heard a bad recording of Olaffson yet, how I wish I could say that about a few others I could care to mention.

Len ,    I haven't listened to that kind of stuff for years but I listened to your clips plus many associated clips and found that my fingers were playing the notes of those tunes and yes there was a tear in my eye also.

Last night I listened to Pavel Kolestnikov play Bach's Goldberg Variations and have to say it wasn't half bad.The performance was from the Proms and on the BBC Radio 3 catch-up player. The sound from the Albert Hall was not ideal because of that bloody fountain trickling away all evening. On the other hand Kolestnikov's playing was at times fascinating and exciting and absolutely sublime. He had an improvisatory style which was fascinating and sometimes so fast that one thought his fingers would run away with him but he never made any slips.I have listened to the Goldbergs' all my life and have never heard such a florid account but in the main I really enjoyed the performance. It is such a shame that there is no way to send recordings to each other as I can and do record a lot of these BBC one offs and therefor I have a great collection of recordings which very few people have access to.

@twoleftears          The recording is different from the commercial one in that the Albert Hall one is more improvisatory and has much more second repeat decorations. So all in all it satisfies two camps, the traditional and the improvisatory. I am glad I now have the two. 

The state of this country is an absolute disaster Len.
I see auld Lizzie was up in Edinburgh today for the state opening of parliament, here's hoping she and me shall still be around for the dissolution of the whole sorry mess.

@schubert  
Yes Len she is a really good fiddler now since her days as a new generation artist at the Beeb. I think I told you before that she was educated in the same town I live in and I used to see her and her mum shopping on a Saturday morning in the High Street. A couple of years ago James McMillan (the composer) opened a music festival in Cumnock his birth place about 10 miles from me and Nichola was there and I heard her play the Bach Chaconne and very impressive it was. It sure was great being about ten feet from a very beautiful Strad.
re. Annie Fisher's Beethoven ,very exciting on a par with Richter, just a pity about recording quality which could be variable.

Absolutely stunning Len, I love those colours. 

I think Western Classical music is falling in on itself and being dumbed down day by day. Every time I hear New Music I despair, Discordant, single lines with no harmony attached, written from a keyboard attached to a computer and then it goes through the Sibelius program to sort out themes and harmony then. The whole thing is bereft of any soul and then has to be played by orchestras who hate every note but who won't get funding if they don't play it.
I happen to go to RSNO concerts and some of the BBC Orchestras in Glasgow and they always have to play this garbage at the start of these concerts. When they are finished and the orchestra stands to accept the applause !!  there is a mass invasion of people coming to take their seats much to the amusement of the orchestra. I may upset some people now so if you are easily offended please don't read any further.
The BBC now have an unwritten law that new music gets played more frequently written by women and black people and all the better if it's both. I have never heard so much drivel in all my life , a lot of these people write computer games music. It shows how clever they are if they can get Sibelius to write it the more enharmonically the better.
After it gets an airing on the BBC then an ex BBC newsreader expounds it on air saying how virtuosic and clever it was, clowns wouldn't know good music if it jumped up and bit them on the backside.
I really am depressed about the state of classical music these days. I am glad I am the age I am as I won't have to see the eventual disintegration of it. Jim. 

Len I am sorry to say it is a very different matter over in Scotland.We have very good conductors like Dausgard and Sondergard but they are held to task by rules from left wing gits with not one ounce of musical sense to them.
Jim.

@Schubert      Yes Len that was a lovely rendition by that young man. your comment on one of the hardest instruments reminds me of a comment the French Horn virtuoso Denis Brain once made. He said that playing the horn was like driving a truck down a frosty hill with no brakes !!!

Well at least she was good humoured about , I bet the piano tuner got it in the neck though !!

Amen to that. Charaid.

Yes I also love the Prazak Quartet in the Haydn Quartets. Wonderful interpretations and a salutary lesson in how a recording should be made. I think it is one of the cleanest recordings I have listened to in a long while.

Just listening to Daniil Triffonov's new Bach recording on Qobuz , my his fingers can fly. It's very impressive and thought provoking, but doesn't plumb the depths if you know what i mean . That said it's very enjoyable.