Purchases Today

[bhodges]

Sibelius: Humoresques (Nicolas Dautricourt, violin / Alejandro Gorrido Porras, conductor / Orquesta Vigo 430)

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--Bruce

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Just bought:

[TheGSMoeller]

Lots of Svetlanov here lately on GMG, mostly regarding his Rachmaninov recordings, which led me to these two discs which I sampled from Spotify. The 2nd symphony here is thrilling!

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[Mirror Image]

Lots of Svetlanov here lately on GMG, mostly regarding his Rachmaninov recordings, which led me to these two discs which I sampled from Spotify. The 2nd symphony here is thrilling!

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[asin]B008KA6MV8[/asin]

Very nice, Greg. How's the audio quality of these recording? I know these BBC recordings are of hit/miss.

[TheGSMoeller]

Very nice, Greg. How's the audio quality of these recording? I know these BBC recordings are of hit/miss.

Hi, John.
I'll let you know once the discs arrive, although Spotify Premium has good quality through their streaming music I still wait until I can spin the hard copy to really judge. But in terms of balance and clarity from the orchestra it was superb.

[Mirror Image]

Hi, John.
I'll let you know once the discs arrive, although Spotify Premium has good quality through their streaming music I still wait until I can spin the hard copy to really judge. But in terms of balance and clarity from the orchestra it was superb.

Thanks for the feedback. I just bought them along with some other goodies, which I'll post later.

[TheGSMoeller]

Thanks for the feedback. I just bought them along with some other goodies, which I'll post later.

And even if the sound isn't top notch, the interpretations and performances are. Being live gives it that extra jolt of excitement. 

[Brian]

Surprise purchase alert! Ken B would be outraged with me!

So. I only spend a fixed amount per year (about 1% of my income) on classical music. And traditionally (for at least 2 years), that's been in the form of one big giant purchase January 1, followed by buying nothing else all year long. During the other 364 days, I fine-tune my shopping list, prioritize, and also wait out "phases" to discover that, oh, no, that CD that sounded really good last month sounds boring now. So each annual purchase is the product of waaaaay too much planning and careful study.

But a major part (two-thirds) of my 2016 order just got placed early!

The reason: much of my shopping list is stuff from Channel Classics and Supraphon, and Presto Classical is having a big sale on Channel and Supraphon. But the sale ends before Christmas - in fact, the Channel sale ends TODAY. So to get that juicy 30-40% discount, I had to strike early.

Worse still, a lot of my shopping list was Ancerl Gold Edition, and those CDs are starting to disappear or go on back order just about everywhere. So, again, the time to strike was now.

Without further ado... Brian's 2016 Shopping: Part I

Super Supraphon



Change the Channel



(The Argentinian Album contains a concerto for string orchestra by Ginastera, Last Round by Golijov, and the Piazzolla/Desyatnikov Four Seasons.)

Random Stuff I Ripped from the College Library in Crappy 128 kbps MP3, and Am Now Replacing with Real CDs Because They're Awesome and They Deserve It



Miscellaneous Other Stuff



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What will I actually be ordering on January 1? Glad you asked:

- Irving Fine orchestral music (BMOP Sound)
- piano recitals by Vera Gornostaeva (Beethoven, Chopin, Shostakovich/Prokofiev), Alexander Lonquich (Schumann/Holliger and Faure/Messiaen/Ravel), Alexei Lubimov ("Der Bote"), Andras Schiff (Janacek, ECM), and Sviatoslav Richter ("in Leipzig" Beethoven)
- Andras Schiff's Well-Tempered Clavier on ECM
- Schubert's string quintet D. 956 by the Prazak Quartet and Marc Coppey
- Dobrinka Tabakova "String Paths"
- More from the Ancerl Gold Edition: Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, Vycpalek, Ostrcil, Shostakovich, and Smetana
- basically all the 2015 releases by Jordi Savall

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And even if the sound isn't top notch, the interpretations and performances are. Being live gives it that extra jolt of excitement. 

I've been doing a bit of sampling myself on Spotify and the recording with The Bells sounds great to me. Sampled the last movement, The Mournful Iron Bells, and it sounded absolutely thrilling. If you enjoy these performances, you may want to seek out Svetlanov's Melodiya box set. It's top-drawer.

[Mirror Image]

A great haul, Brian! Love those Martinu recordings.

Thread duty:

[mc ukrneal]

Importcds is finishing it's 10% off (basically pays for the shipping), but they have some good deals. Here is a sampling of most interesting items (beyond a few Glossa Jose Miguel Moreno discs of guitar/lute music):
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[asin]B006SQ72RE[/asin]
[asin]B0014GIZ3S[/asin]
[asin]B00GK8P0TC[/asin]
[asin]B002WEC6ZE[/asin]
[asin]B004CN8HME[/asin]

Most of it has been posted by others here - thanks to all of you who are responsible (you know who you are)!

[kishnevi]

I am not getting anything from Import CDs soon....just filed a complaint with Amazon about a refund that should have been issued two weeks ago...

On the bright side, this landed today from Amazon Italy.


Only one more big box in transit to me, the L'Oiseau Lyre Classical, which has a promised arrival date of Christmas Eve although I havd good reason to think it will arrive sooner.  That one is from Rarewaves on Amazon MP.

[Pat B]

Brian, I'm surprised you didn't already have Ančerl's Dvořák Requiem or especially Kubelik's live Má vlast!

ETA: that's a nice-looking selection.

TD: I picked up Karajan's 1970's Brahms cycle yesterday because it was $1.

[Mookalafalas]

Brian, great haul!  I too have binged through my next year's allotment (well, til September 8th, anyway).  I need to cold turkey for the next 9 or 10 months.  Shouldn't be tough.  The hoard is monstrously large. 

TD:
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This was the last thing on my "must have" list. 

[71 dB]

Finally ordered this one:

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This didn't arrived before postal strike began in Finland last thursday. I'm pissed off about that. It had two weeks to arrive, but no. Now God knows how long I have to wait... (and there's many other orders too). 

[Turner]

So. I only spend a fixed amount per year (about 1% of my income) on classical music. And traditionally (for at least 2 years), that's been in the form of one big giant purchase January 1, followed by buying nothing else all year long. During the other 364 days, I fine-tune my shopping list, prioritize, and also wait out "phases" to discover that, oh, no, that CD that sounded really good last month sounds boring now. So each annual purchase is the product of waaaaay too much planning and careful study.

But a major part (two-thirds) of my 2016 order just got placed early!

That´s a highly interesting approach; I might consider taking it up, or at least the principle of a very carefully composed want list, say of newer releases. My current total want list has 28 items, likely bought in 2015-2017, but I also find it necessary to combine with unexpected/unknown second-hand finds - very cheap here.
Keep your posts coming! Among those on your list, I personally know the Martinu piano concertos set, the Martinu/Neumann symphonies + the Ancerl Dvorak as very, very good.

[king ubu]

- Dobrinka Tabakova "String Paths"

very nice disc!

[North Star]

Snatched from Amazon FR MP
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This was waiting for me in the mailbox, along with Kertész's Bluebeard's Castle

[aligreto]

I have been promising to treat myself to this vinyl box set for some time so I have finally pulled the trigger....

[Brian]

That´s a highly interesting approach; I might consider taking it up, or at least the principle of a very carefully composed want list, say of newer releases. My current total want list has 28 items, likely bought in 2015-2017, but I also find it necessary to combine with unexpected/unknown second-hand finds - very cheap here.
Keep your posts coming! Among those on your list, I personally know the Martinu piano concertos set, the Martinu/Neumann symphonies + the Ancerl Dvorak as very, very good.

Another part of my process is watching for repeated GMG recommendations, posts just like yours  . Most of those Martinu discs came from seeing them on GMG so many times, I knew they couldn't be disappointing. In fact only a couple of my recent purchases have been disappointing...remarkably good success rate!