Your Favourite Purchases of 2018

[milk]

Too soon?
Post your favourite purchases...
...of the year, whether long standing or brand new recordings....as many you like...feel free to update in the coming weeks.

[Draško]

I haven't posted in this type of thread last year for some reason, so it's bit fuzzy when I got what, but these were definitely in my listening focus this year, even if I got them earlier.









other good stuff that could have easily made it onto the list:

mondonville isbe vashegy
rameau nais vashegy
eton choirbook huelgas
vaughan wiliams pastoral elder
luc ferrari l'oeuvre electronique (box)
grisey temps et l'ecume
brahms 4 fischer
rachmaninov 2,4 trifonov
cypriot advent antiphons huelgas
zemlinsky die seejungfrau storgards
josqin motets weser-renaissance
mahler 2 tennstedt (lpo live)

[Brian]

Plus:
The Great Big Salonen Box
The Great Big Szell Box

[Brahmsian]

[asin]B005HLJNHI[/asin]

[asin]B005V8K6XC[/asin]

[asin]B005HYNCTK[/asin]

[asin]B01K3DIUJG[/asin]

[asin]B0002I745O[/asin]

And honorable mentions for two Tasmin Little discs:

Brahms - Violin Sonatas - Tasmin Little, violin and Piers Lane, piano

Britten - Violin Concerto - Tasmin Little on violin, Piano Concerto - Howard Shelley on piano, conducted by Edward Gardner with the BBC Philharmonic

[aukhawk]

Easily top of my list:

(this performance can also be found on YouTube - not that there's much to see - black-garbed pianist on darkened stage ...)

then


not a recent recording, but new to me


(VW 5th, Britten Sea Interludes)




(for the Kindertotenlieder)


Vol 33 on tangent piano - probably my favourite of several from this excellent series

... and one I actually bought in the last week of 2017, but have played so many times since

[Mandryka]

The thing that pops into my head when I read "Your Favourite Purchases of 2018"  is Sollazzo Ensemble's Parle qui veut. There have been lots of other things, but they've been more gifts than purchases as it were -- René Zosso and Anne Osnowycz songs with hurdy gurdy, for example. And Leonhardt's D'Anglebert suite.

There is also the extraordinary Rubsam Goldberg Variations, and the extraordinary Egarr Byrd.

[amw]

I picked up an incredibly large amount of stuff this year and haven't had a chance to listen to all of it. (Assuming "purchases" includes all acquisitions.) These are standouts

[TheGSMoeller]

Favorite purchases in 2018 of recordings released in previous years...







Favorite purchases of recordings released this year in 2018...





This was the year of the Countertenor for me...

[Brian]

Hey Greg, who is Anton Zimmermann? Or is there a discussion about that album elsewhere on GMG? It looks intriguing... (As does the accordion/gamba)

[TheGSMoeller]

Hey Greg, who is Anton Zimmermann? Or is there a discussion about that album elsewhere on GMG? It looks intriguing... (As does the accordion/gamba)

Brian, this recording was my introduction to Zimmermann, I was completely unfamiliar with even the name before. Below is all that is available from his Wikipedia page...

Anton Zimmermann (1741 in Široká Niva (Breitenau) – 1781 in Bratislava) was a Silesian-born composer and contemporary of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Zimmermann spent most of his career in Bratislava, then capital of Hungary, where he worked as a composer, violinist, conductor, and artist manager.


And regarding the accordion/gamba, I posted a video of them performing on the Down with Dowland page. It makes for a wonderful combo, I find the instruments blend very well with each other.

[Daverz]

Not all purchases, strictly, because these days I'm mostly streaming instead of buying.

In top place I'm putting:

Beethoven: Eroica - Honeck

[asin] B07GJ5G4CZ[/asin]

I was deeply impressed by this Eroica.

These were purchased downloads:

Roussel: Evocations

[asin] B07CCLPMW3[/asin]

Sgambati: Symphonies

[asin] B07D31RXPS[/asin]

Shostakovich Symphonies 4 & 11 - Nelsons

[asin] B07CXC3311[/asin]

Ginastera PC1, Wang/Mena

[asin] B07C5HMXF2[/asin]

Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night's - Gardiner

[asin] B01MZ6IA9W[/asin]

These were streamed on Tidal (lossless CD quality)

Tarp: Orchestral Works
[asin] B07C5NSRYT[/asin]

If you like Riisager or Tansman, you'll like this.

Ravel - Les Siecles
[asin] B079B2ZDKZ[/asin]

Shostakovich: Symphonies - Tatarstan Symphony.  I've only sampled a few symphonies from this so far, but it's idiomatic and very well recorded.

[asin] B077MQBZR6[/asin]

Peter Child: Shanti

[asin] B07D76KX5H[/asin]

Rodney Newton

[asin] B0789TKQMZ[/asin]

Debussy: La Mer - Krivine

I was really impressed by the clarity and "rightness" of this La Mer.

[asin] B079ZV79B8[/asin]

Beethoven: Triple Concerto - Paavo Järvi

[asin] B078Y2PCS7[/asin]

John Robertson: Symphony No. 1

[asin] B07D57WC3N[/asin]

Tippett - Brabbins

[asin] B075YB5L3V[/asin]

Kalabis Sonatas

[asin] B07FTSXLDY[/asin]

Hindemith - Paavo Järvi

[asin] B076MDDR79[/asin]

One of the best Hindemith "warhorses" discs in a while.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 - Urbanski

[asin] B07F3CZZ3K[/asin]

[Mandryka]

... and one I actually bought in the last week of 2017, but have played so many times since

Thanks for mentioning this, I hadn't heard it before. It made me think how personal expressive embellishment is - personal to the listener as well as the pianist. In some hands it sounds self conscious and annoyingly random, in other hands it sounds organic and beautiful.

Klara Min's Mazurkas were for me in the second camp, though whether this was just my mood yesterday I cannot say.

But I have one major reservation, which is for me a deal breaker. It's the piano. The glare and the purity of the sound - a sound imbalanced to favour  the high registers, with insufficient transients to make the tone interesting - became too annoying. Why oh why don't pianists think harder about their pianos, make more thoughtful choices?

[Maestro267]

Probably the major composer of the year for me has been Sir James MacMillan. I've picked up quite a few discs of his music this year, including all three parts of Triduum, The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, Symphony No. 3, A Scotch Bestiary, Piano Concerto No. 2, and the St. John Passion.

Other notable recordings of works I've really grown to love this year include Alfred Schnittke's ballet Peer Gynt, the six symphonies of Carlos Chavez, Arthur Bliss' John Blow Meditations, Ginastera's Cello Concertos and two George Lloyd symphonies, Nos. 5 and 11.

[Todd]

The DHM long box would basically be cheating, so:

   


   


   


   


   


   


   


   


   


   

[Zeus]

These four discs received my highest ratings during the year.  Looking this up just now, all four of them are a surprise to me.  I guess I haven't been paying much attention to which discs most appealed to me this year.  Hmm.  My hedonism must be faltering.

Hahn: Le Rossignol Eperdu
Billy Eidi
Timpani

[asin] B00NO5BVEC[/asin]

On Wings of Jewish Songs
Helene Schneiderman, Jascha Nemtsov
Hanssler



Huybrechts: Complete Melodies, Sicilienne
Quatuor MP4 et al.
Cypres



Views from Ararat
Rebekka Hartmann, Margarita Oganesjan
Farao

[milk]

Some of this I'm streaming but I'll consider them all purchases if I may.

[GioCar]

In order of acquisition

[asin]B076D14CFP[/asin][asin]B01N2WE1L3[/asin][asin]B008F863LY[/asin][asin]B00016L96M[/asin][asin]B000BTE4SO[/asin][asin]B0794MC5F1[/asin][asin]B0031Q8VZ6[/asin][asin]B06Y5Z74DN[/asin][asin]B075GBJD8K[/asin][asin]B07GJ397DV[/asin]

[aukhawk]

But I have one major reservation, which is for me a deal breaker. It's the piano. The glare and the purity of the sound - a sound imbalanced to favour  the high registers, with insufficient transients to make the tone interesting - became too annoying. Why oh why don't pianists think harder about their pianos, make more thoughtful choices?

Strangely there's no information about Klara Min's instrument in the sleevenotes of her Chopin recording.  Her more recent Scriabin recording is on the pianophile Steinway label - not that that's necessarily a guarantee of anything.
The sleeve features her wearing a ring which I would have thought was pianistically impractical.

[North Star]

            

          


       

         

[André]

Part I