Long live the tube! This newest release in the "transistor-free" series by Tacet is another musical jewel. The music that Tonmeister Andreas Spreer with his nostalgic, exquisite recording technique, using nothing but tube microphones and tube amplifiers, has conjured onto the disc boasts a naturalness, warmth and vividness we thought had disappeared forever and had almost forgotten. Here a violin still sounds like a violin.
Leonard Bernstein - A Total Embrace - The Composer
Sony Masterworks
CD
$21.98Sep 09, 2003
Track listings include: "Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco " "Stravinsky: Suite from "The Firebird" (1919 version) Finale Disc 2: "Mozart: Symphony No. 39 in E- flat Major, KV 543 "Copland: El salon Mexico" Disc 3: "Haydn: Missa in tempore belli in c major (Mass in Time of War) Hob. XXII: 9" "Sousa: Semper fidelis" "Barber: Adagio for Strings."
Czerny: Grand Concerto in E-Flat Major & Other Works / Tuck, Bonynge, English Chamber Orchestra
Naxos
CD
$19.99Oct 11, 2019
Carl Czerny penned an astonishing amount of music, including the numerous potpourris, fantasies, teaching pieces and studies for which he became known. This recording features the delightfully entertaining Concertino in C major, Op. 210/213, as well as the highly enjoyable Rondino, a work based on an enchanting theme taken from Daniel Auber’s opera comique Le Macon. A pupil and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Czerny was just 21 when he wrote the pastoral Second Grand Concerto in E flat major. Begun only twelve days after he had given the Viennese premiere of his mentor’s Emperor Concerto, the same choice of key seems a fitting homage to the grand master he so revered.
The Brentano Quartet, in their second release for Azica Records, present the Mozart String Quartets No. 19 in C Major, K. 465, "Dissonance", and No. 16 in E Flat Major, K. 428. Since it's inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. "Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding," raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols it's "luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism"; the Philadelphia Inquirer praises it's "seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture"; and the Times (London) opines, "the Brentanos are a magnificent string quartet... This was wonderful, selfless music-making." Within a few years of it's formation, the Quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award; and in 1996 the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center invited them to be the inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two, a program which was to become a coveted distinction for chamber groups and individuals. The Quartet had it's first European tour in 1997, and was honored in the U.K. with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. That debut recital was at London's Wigmore Hall, and the Quartet has continued it's warm relationship with Wigmore, appearing there regularly and serving as the hall's Quartet-in-residence in the 2000-01 season.
Back in the days when Johann Christian Bach was writing music, staying true to a composer's intention was not a priority in musical performances in the way it is today! His publisher, William Foster, was particularly cavalier in his attitude to his client's music and often amended the masterpieces - amalgamating or even omitting parts entirely - for purely commercial reasons. The Academy of Ancient Music, renowned for the authority of its performances, restored the works on this disc so that the listener can experience these pieces as J.C. Bach intended.
Oscar Peterson was one of the most brilliant and distinctive modern jazz pianists to come to the fore in the post-war era, as adventurous small-group music and virtuoso soloists established new strands of jazz in the wake of the demise of the big swing bands as post-war austerity took hold and public tastes evolved. Initially making his mark in his native Canada, he made his first records for RCA in Montreal, but soon captured the attention of jazz impresario Norman Granz and within a few years was recording under his auspices for Clef/Mercury in New York. This great-value 47-track 2-CD collection specifically addresses those early years, and comprises studio recordings in trio, quartet and duo settings with a variety of line-ups, performing well-known Great American Songbook standards which were the staple repertoire of jazz improvisers in that era along with original compositions. The recordings come from ten different recording sessions, and feature trio and quartet recordings with bassists Bert Brown, Albert King & Austin Roberts, drummers Frank Gariepy, Roland Verdon, Russ Dufort, Mark Wilkinson & Clarence Jones, and guitarists Armand Sampson & Ben Johnson, plus recordings as a duo with bass players Ray Brown and Major Holley. It's an entertaining showcase for the already highly developed talent of one of the great piano stylists of the genre, and offers an insight into how his music evolved during the key formative years of his career.
Handel: Concerti grossi, Op. 6 / Christie, Les Arts Florissants
HARMONIA MUNDI
CD
$11.99Aug 28, 2020
This is William Christie's valedictory disc for Harmonia Mundi before seeking pastures new with Erato. All five works belong to Handel's last and greatest set of concertos, Op. 6, printed in London in 1740. They are splendid pieces and I never tire of listening to them. Christie has chosen three of the four concertos for which optional oboe parts have survived (Nos. I. 2 and 6), as well as the seventh and tenth concertos of the set. It is as good a choice as any if choices have to be made and Christie brings the music to life with all his characteristic enthusiasm and feeling for Handelian idiom. The orchestra of Les Arts Florissants sound on good form, too, achieving a pleasant warmth of string timbre and a greater unanimity of sound than has sometimes been the case in earlier issues.
On the whole I like the presence of oboes in the aforementioned concertos, though the music loses nothing by their absence. Perhaps they are a shade too prominent in the G major Concerto (Op. 6 No. I) but I doubt if this seemingly slight imbalance will bother readers. What I did find more disconcerting, though, were some of the embellishments and cadential elaborations which felt too extended or spun out. One such instance occurs at the close of the Larghetto andante e piano of the F major Concerto (Op. 6 No. 2), where the continuo archlute launches into a veritable solo, albeit in miniature; and again, at the conclusion of the following Allegro the oboes, aided and abetted by the archlute, indulge in imitative flights of fancy. Such moments are neither unimaginative nor lacking in taste but my ears tell me that they are really not necessary. Perhaps I'm just being too English about it—beware of Channel tunnels!
Apart from this reservation, I found Christie's approach refreshing and full of vitality. The playing is wonderfully articulated and the rhythms clear-cut without being at all stiff or unyielding. There are moments, too, of great delicacy as, for example, in the languorous Musette of the G minor Concerto (Op. 6 No. 6), which is eloquently shaped and plentifully endowed with affecting contrasts. Then, at the opposite end of the scale, so to speak, are infectious movements like the Hornpipe of the B flat Concerto (Op. 6 No. 7), and the robust French overture which begins the D minor Concerto (Op. 6 No. 10). Christie enlivens these admirably—though the Hornpipe is, perhaps, a little restrained---responding with spontaneity to Handel's engagingly wide terms of stylistic reference. In short, a stimulating and enjoyable performance, notwithstanding reservations which may worry some ears much less than others.
-- Gramophone [5/1995] reviewing the original release of this title
