New Releases

[DavidW]

Obviously a Faust-helmed Brandenburgs is not the dreck which the movie is. But it looks like the same corporate thinking: It's sold before, It'll sell again.

Especially with Bach.  A few months back there were two different releases of the harpsichord concerti in the same month!

[Madiel]

Ye gods! More Brandenburgs?! Just what the world doesn't need! Faust is a brilliant violinist, but this is pure vanity.

Yes, how dare modern musicians continue to want to play the greatest music when we can access the recordings of past generations.

[JBS]

Yes, how dare modern musicians continue to want to play the greatest music when we can access the recordings of past generations.

Musica Antiqua Koln recorded Heinichen's Dresden Concertos in 1993. A few more CDs of his music appeared over the next decade, and a couple more (including one opera) in 2013 and 2016.  Is no one in 2021 interested in another take on those concertos after almost 30 years?

[Madiel]

Musica Antiqua Koln recorded Heinichen's Dresden Concertos in 1993. A few more CDs of his music appeared over the next decade, and a couple more (including one opera) in 2013 and 2016.  Is no one in 2021 interested in another take on those concertos after almost 30 years?

Who's Heinichen?

[Brian]

The best defense is always artistic excellence. There are some really amazing recordings of core rep which have been released in the last few years, like the Pittsburgh Honeck Beethoven 3/5/7 or piano recordings by people like William Youn and Daniil Trifonov.

But on the other hand, there has also been a whole lot of wasted plastic from artists or labels whose egos overtake them.

So the proof will be in the listening!

[JBS]

Who's Heinichen?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_David_Heinichen

When the MAK recording appeared people took note (and made more than a few beer jokes). A few follow-up CDs and then...

The MAK recording at least was a good one.



There are at least a couple of YT videos you can check on.

[Todd]

The best defense is always artistic excellence.

So the proof will be in the listening!

True.

It's silly to think, on a forum dedicated to "classical" music, that we can't enjoy new recordings of the best music.  It's what we do.

[Madiel]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_David_Heinichen

When the MAK recording appeared people took note (and made more than a few beer jokes). A few follow-up CDs and then...

The MAK recording at least was a good one.



There are at least a couple of YT videos you can check on.

Thanks, but in part you're missing the rhetorical point of my question. Sure, there might be the occasional musician, just as there is the occasional listener, who encounters Heinichen and thinks wow, what great music, and wants to perform and record it.

But meanwhile, a very, very large cohort of musicians, and listeners, grows up being taught or discovers for themselves that JS Bach is the bee's knees. Is it any wonder musicians want to perform music that they think is amazing and great?

In fact I would argue that's what should be happening, in the sense that I think musicians really should perform music that they believe in. While that's personal and subjective, I think it's hard to argue that there isn't some reason why the big names are the big names. People keep responding to the music of people like JS Bach, and that's why it keeps coming up.

Which is not to say that people wouldn't respond to the music of Heinichen. Maybe a Heinichen revival is around the corner. I don't know. The problem I have with the complaint about a new recording of the Brandenburgs is that it somehow implies that older generations get to own the Brandenburgs, just because we're living in an era where recordings means it's easy to access what those older generations did with them (and in my personal opinion we've now had 50-60 years of recording technology that still holds up pretty well).

I just don't think that's how musicians respond. Heck, there are things that I want to learn on piano precisely because I've heard them, and I want the experience of not just hearing that music but making it. I don't imagine professional musicians are much different.

[Karl Henning]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_David_Heinichen

When the MAK recording appeared people took note (and made more than a few beer jokes). A few follow-up CDs and then...

The MAK recording at least was a good one.



There are at least a couple of YT videos you can check on.

And at some point, MAK did a much-celebrated recording of the Brandenburgs ... underscoring what a plenitude of recordings we already enjoy ....

[Spotted Horses]

Obviously a Faust-helmed Brandenburgs is not the dreck which the movie is. But it looks like the same corporate thinking: It's sold before, It'll sell again.

A record label is a business, not a public service. They need to make profit to survive. You can bemoan the bean counters all you want, but generally they know how to count beans. Profitable recording of popular repertoire make recordings of less popular repertoire possible. And if your thinking held sway, my favorite recordings of the Brandenburg concerti wouldn't exist.

[DavidW]

But on the other hand, there has also been a whole lot of wasted plastic from artists or labels whose egos overtake them.

Well Faust has already spent considerable time with Bach and she varies her approach from PI to MI based on what she is playing.  So I think it will be on the excellence and passion side and not on the inflated ego side.

But to get to what Karl is talking about Arkivmusic is currently selling over 6500 recordings of Bach.  The second and third most popular baroque era composers are Handel and Vivaldi respectively holding 2500 and 1700.  I bet if you lump all other baroque era composers together Bach eclipses them all collectively.  Now he is an extraordinary composer but maybe a little love for the others?

And I don't believe that it is a matter of selling well.  Whether it's Bach or Heinichen these labels are probably just breaking even at best.  This forum presents a false image of cd collecting still being a thing in 2021.

But yet there is even another issue.  At this point you can rererererecord the warhorses done to death or you can pioneer esoteric music.  Not terribly exciting either way, it is just so saturated.  There is always an argument for live music, but for recordings the only purpose now a days is to advertise your existence to the listeners to get them into the concert hall.

[Karl Henning]

Ye gods! More Brandenburgs?! Just what the world doesn't need! Faust is a brilliant violinist, but this is pure vanity.

All in all, I stand by this. Is there the odd chance that the result may be my very favorite from the hundreds of Brandenburgs available? I suppose. So what?


PS/ Out of curiosity, really, some time ago I picked up the Ensemble Caprice recording, which intersperses arrangements of pieces from the Shostakovich Op. 87. It's a mighty fine performance, and give them credit for imaginative presentation.

[staxomega]

MORE OCTOBER INTEL

Looking forward to hearing this even if I find his music hit or miss.

As for another recording of the Brandenburgs, I personally find them interesting in that there is so much room for interpretation in them, I look forward to hearing it. I'm much more keen to hear a new recording of them than say the cello sonatas or violin sonatas.

[Todd]

Don't know for sure if these have been posted.  A quick glance indicated not, but I may have missed them.



Another must buy.



Same.



The Kanneh-Masons, or Decca, or both, seem intent on saturating the market with new recordings.  Excellent.

[prémont]

All in all, I stand by this. Is there the odd chance that the result may be my very favorite from the hundreds of Brandenburgs available? I suppose. So what?


PS/ Out of curiosity, really, some time ago I picked up the Ensemble Caprice recording, which intersperses arrangements of pieces from the Shostakovich Op. 87. It's a mighty fine performance, and give them credit for imaginative presentation.

To answer that question one must have heard all existing commercial recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos. I am too lazy to count them precisely, but the number is approximately 200. All i can claim to have heard is about 99% of these, so I am no real expert. My experience however is, that there is a substantial number of relatively unknown but very fine recordings. Thanks to the generous recording industry my life-long journey through these works has been a revelation.

Ensemble Caprice is IMO first tier.

[Mandryka]

https://graindelavoix.myshopify.com/products/josquin-the-undead-laments-deplorations-and-dances-of-death

[DavidW]

Another must buy.

This has been on my listening queue for the past few days along with Kushpler's Janacek.  Now that I've finished up with Telemann for now I'll probably listen to both today or tomorrow.

[Karl Henning]

To answer that question one must have heard all existing commercial recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos. I am to lazy to count them precisely, but the number is approximately 200. All i can claim to have heard is about 99% of these, so I am no real expert. My experience however is, that there is a substantial number of relatively unknown but very fine recordings. Ensemble Caprice is IMO first tier.

If you've listened to 99% of them, you may not be expert, but your opinion is certainly well informed. My assuredly not expert opinion of Ensemble Caprice is in line with yours.

[amw]

Another must buy.

Didn't like it as much as existing recordings, both from pianistic and interpretive perspectives. Wouldn't recommend. Others may disagree.

[Brian]

76 pianists on 11 CDs!!! Must really be a highlight reel of excerpts. This is Australian Eloquence so I suspect Cyrus Meher-Homji has patchworked together all the best stuff in the piano competition archive. The only pianists I've heard of are Andrey Gugnin, Ivo Janssen, Anna Malikova, Ilya Rashkovsky, and Gottlieb Wallisch. Full list: https://www.europadisc.co.uk/classical/152150/Virtuoso:_Pianists_of_the_Sydney_International_Piano_Competition_(1992-2016).htm

Jed Distler has a 10 rated review at ClassicsToday. Quote:

"Between 1992 and 2016 Cyrus Meher-Homji produced compilations of live, unedited performances recorded during the Sydney International Piano Competition. From this body of work, Meher-Homji has culled 11 CDs' worth of strong, well-contrasted, and wide ranging programs organized by style and genre. Choices are based on musical quality first and foremost, rather than on which stage a particular competitor had reached in the event. As a consequence, the level of artistry is so high that the identity of the pianists wound up not concerning me at all."

Distler provides a bit more info on the contents: CD1 is Bach/Busoni and CMH's pick of all the best Scarlatti in festival history. (I don't know if this link will work, but here's 30 seconds of Scarlatti from participant Jianing Kong.) CD2: "Gorgeous and stylish renditions of the Mozart F major Sonata K. 533/494 (Konstantin Shamray), Haydn C major Hob XVI:48 (Roger Wright), Beethoven's Op. 101 (Avan Yu) and Op. 53 "Waldstein" (Michele Bolia), plus Ivo Janssen playing Schubert's Moment Musical No. 6 at a real Allegretto, rather than the lifeless Largo one often hears in the name of "profundity"."

CDs 3/4: Liszt, Chopin, Brahms
CDs 5-7: Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, Sibelius, and Prokofiev 7 "treated as music rather than an Olympic event" by Vitali Samoshko.
CD 8: encores
CD 9: Australian music by Carl Vine, Elena Kats-Chernin, Brett Dean, Andrew Ford, Roger Smalley
CDs 10/11: concertos, sounds like a good Prokofiev 2/3 but a dud Rachmaninov 3