New Releases

[Todd]

Capucon and Wang make a fine duo, so I think I will bite.  (That dude is short, which means his wife is positively miniature.)







More LvB in the unending stream of releases and reissues.



Devoyon is woefully underrecorded, and his older solo stuff badly needs to be reissued.

[Roy Bland]

[Daverz]

I have the feeling Sony is mining their back catalogue for any possible profits. This set, for instance,  features two musicians whom I don't remember ever hearing about. (And I think if I ever heard a name such as Uto Ughi, I would remember it just because it' Uto Ughi.)

I think anyone who was collecting records in the '80s would find the name vaguely familiar.  But I admit that when I first saw your post, I confused him with Ulf Hoelscher.

[Brian]

I think anyone who was collecting records in the '80s would find the name vaguely familiar.  But I admit that when I first saw your post, I confused him with Ulf Hoelscher.

Oh, great. Ulf Hoelscher I get confused with Ulf Wallin!

[Mandryka]

World class sound, nice harpsichord (can't find details). Anne Catherine Bucher was a student of Lengellé and Dévérité and others, has a HIP career focused on where she lives in Lorraine. Read this

This recording rounds off two years de- dicated to Bach's 30 variations, interspersed with pleasant encounters with the public, in particular during the Cafés Baroques concert series at the Arsenal in Metz. For me this was an opportunity to explore with humour and passion the various characters, forms and compositional processes, as well as the historical context and our own contemporary relationship to this master-work. I devoured every book on the subject that I could lay my hands on. For a while, two questions re- mained unanswered. . . . .

Variatio 15 Canone alla Quinta. Andante
At the midpoint of the cycle, Bach switches suddenly to the minor mode. The semiquavers, grouped in pairs, recall the Seufzer (sighs) from his organ chorale O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (O innocent Lamb of God)from the Orgelbüchlein, which is also built around a canon at the fifth. At the end of the movement, the listener is torn apart by an eerie-sounding open fifth.
Variatio 16 Ouverture The sun rises after the night! Bach demonstrates here his perfect understanding of the specific attributes of the French overture, down to the dots placed above the semiquavers, which do not indicate that these notes should be played shortly but rather equally, in contrast to their customary inégal treatment in overtures. Variatio17Bachplaysaroundwithsixths and thirds in this treacherously virtuosic variation. The descending motif in the bass is skilfully transformed into a series of curls of rising thirds over four octaves that appears to expand in an unending spiral.
The preceding triptych, which places the sun at the centre of the Goldberg Variations, seems to reconcile advocates of heliocen- trism with those of geocentrism, who at the time of Bach were still nostalgic of a universe with the Earth at its centre, surrounded by the other planets in celestial harmony. If Bach did in fact introduce the concept of the harmony of the spheres into his work, then the character pieces become cosmic variations: the 4th variation represents the Earth, the 7th, inconsistent and changing, the Moon; the 10th is Mercury standing with his winged sandals beating, as suggested by the trills in the beginning; the 13th, elegant, refined and delicate, must be Venus; the 16th is the Sun, the 19th, Mars, the 22nd, written in an antique and patriarchal style, Jupiter; the 25th's melancholic Adagio stands in for Saturn, while the 28th represents with its continuous trills the sphere of fixed stars twinkling in the night sky.

It's one of those cases of a recording which, if it were a concert, would be a fabulous experience, unforgettable. But it's not a concert and so gets put in the shade by the two zillion other equally fabulous recordings of The Goldberg Variations. But even to blasé old lags like what we all are, the booklet and the sound quality and indeed the interpretation make it rather special I think.

[ritter]

The Palezzetto Bru Zane - Centre de Musique Romatique Française will be issuing a 4 CD set of the complete songs of Reynaldo Hahn, with baritone Tassis Christoyannis and Jeff Cohen at the piano.



AFAIK, this is the first such traversal of Reynaldo's mélodies on record. The excellent Hyperion set (with Graham Johnson at the piano and several distiguished soloists, including Felicty Lott) did not claim to be complete.

Presto gives October 25 as release date.

[Florestan]

The Palezzetto Bru Zane - Centre de Musique Romatique Française will be issuing a 4 CD set of the complete songs of Reynaldo Hahn, with baritone Tassis Christoyannis and Jeff Cohen at the piano.



AFAIK, this is the first such traversal of Reynaldo's mélodies on record. The excellent Hyperion set (with Graham Johnson at the piano and several distiguished soloists, including Felicty Lott) did not claim to be complete

Great news, thanks!

[ritter]

Great news, thanks!

À votre service...

And good day to you, Andrei.

[Florestan]

À votre service...

And good day to you, Andrei.

Hola!

[Roy Bland]

Oleg Yanchenko
Russian organ music

[Roy Bland]

Antoniuk's symphonies
https://davinci-edition.com/product/c00120/

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I disagree with the opinion. Just like Italian, every consonant is followed by a vowel in Japanese most of the time. Certainly there are less vowels in English and least vowels and more consonants in German. In effect and aesthetics, Japanese is not much different from Italian.

It's a beautiful language, but it's not necessarily well suited for the operatic vocal style.  I've only heard a few operas written in the language, though.

I don't know what's more hideous: that album cover or the idea of Bluebeard being sung in Japanese!

[Mandryka]

there's a sample of 1003/ii played with alternating pizzicato and bowed.

[Brian]

NOVEMBER STUFF



No front cover yet:









The Langgaard quartets in a 3 CD set.

And finally, the most Canadian CD in the history of Canadian CDs:



Yes, the work is performed twice, once in English, once in French.

[San Antone]

The Miro Quartet Beethoven has been out as individual discs for a few years.  I guess what is new is boxing them up.  Nice performances, though.

Is that yet another spelling of Weinberg?   

[JBS]

About this one


My first foray into contemporary Icelandic composers was fairly positive, so I will be interested in this one.

[Madiel]

1. Ooh, another Naive Vivaldi to add to the list.

2. Naxos is being quite impressive with the way it's handling additions to its Beethoven catalogue.

[JBS]

1. Ooh, another Naive Vivaldi to add to the list.

2. Naxos is being quite impressive with the way it's handling additions to its Beethoven catalogue.

Remember Naxos is coming out with its own Complete Beethoven box, so it's fair to assume most of these will show up in that.

[Madiel]

Remember Naxos is coming out with its own Complete Beethoven box, so it's fair to assume most of these will show up in that.

Yes I'm aware, but I'm more likely to want (if I want any of it) some of the individual releases, of parts of Beethoven's outputs that don't get a lot of love.

[André]

In October DG will be releasing a box with all of Beethoven's symphonies with Andris Nelsons and the Wiener Philharmoniker:

[asin]B07TJKC26B[/asin]

It's out, with 44 short clips to sample (on Presto Classical). Sounds like classic WP stuff. I didn't detect a single original touch in these 22 minutes, with solidly mainstream tempos the norm, but the sheer sound of the orchestra in their comfort zone gives goosebumps.