Your Favourite Purchases & Musical Discoveries of 2020

[Brass Hole]

I also read and appreciated what you said about Alpha before you edited the post to remove it.

Yes, I did it with that awareness. I felt uncomfortable posting. BIS' first response to a very similar incident was "So?"... but he paid for that response

[amw]

Should be pretty obvious if you load the file up into Audacity.  Archimago showed this example of a 24/96 download from Erato (Warner Classics).  Note the waveform getting clipped off on top and bottom:

For comparison, here's the 16/44.1 Quatuor Ébène Grosse Fuge. Looks almost like a pop song. (I wasn't going to bother with the 24/96 in these circumstances.)

This is for me one of the worst aspects of their cycle, but I can generally overlook it because I really like the sound of their ensemble in general. For those who aren't in love with their sound, the Beethoven 250 cycle to buy is probably the Cuarteto Casals or the Miró (released last year).

[amw]

(And for comparison, here's the Auryn Quartet's 1994 recording)

[Daverz]

The first ones that come to my mind are Beethoven Piano Concerto 3 Track 3 - Helmchen (dropout)

Thanks for the examples.  The dropout in the Helmchen is obvious in Audacity at about 3:30 in and is nearly 0.8 seconds long.  I'll try to check what's on Qobuz now if I get a chance.

UPDATE: I don't hear the dropout on Qobuz, so probably safe to get their downloads of this.  Did Alpha say anything about how this might have happened?

[T. D.]

Thanks. I was at one time very close to purchasing the Ébène Beethoven cycle, but held off for various reasons including reports about the audio "engineering". After seeing those graphs, I'm glad I didn't buy it.

[Daverz]

I wrote "high dud/good ratio". In order to make that comment shouldn't you know the total number of purchases? ...and I specifically said "the ones I liked better"

I wasn't denying that it was a disappointing year -- how could it not be? -- but it's still an impressive list to me.  Part of my problem is that I just can't remember a lot of things I listened to, even if I can go back and see enthusiastic comments I made here on GMG [no, this does not mean it's bad music].

[Carlo Gesualdo]

One great great , one of greatest achievement in Monteverdi would be this year the excellent live of La Venexiana ensemble, splendid , charming, passionate...

One is bound if he love the great Claudio to heard this 2020 album 

What about this releases folks , I mean gosh even someone whom does not appreciated Claudio Monteverdi would dig this.

I vow and cherish La Venexiana they have a smooth , harmonic , sound or it 's my opinion?

[Brass Hole]

UPDATE: I don't hear the dropout on Qobuz, so probably safe to get their downloads of this.  Did Alpha say anything about how this might have happened?

Yes, that their master was good but concluded that a transmission problem on their side to a distributor pool caused it. They fixed it for me that very night and afterwards first they assured me that they took steps to never let it happen again, second they let me know that it was fixed for the distributors after a few days.

[Brass Hole]

Thanks. I was at one time very close to purchasing the Ébène Beethoven cycle, but held off for various reasons including reports about the audio "engineering". After seeing those graphs, I'm glad I didn't buy it.

That causes a better listening on the phones and other less advanced configurations or as background music. But the lack of that space in classical music on hi-fi effects the perception...tires you easily, prevents you concentrating on and detecting the details of the performance. It was an average cycle anyway...if you know your quartets you didn't miss anything. 

[Brass Hole]

I wasn't denying that it was a disappointing year -- how could it not be? -- but it's still an impressive list to me.  Part of my problem is that I just can't remember a lot of things I listened to, even if I can go back and see enthusiastic comments I made here on GMG [no, this does not mean it's bad music].

I'm not writing with full awareness . But I have a simple system with 4 storages and many shoebox sized boxes. I keep everything on computer folders, I rip the disc right away if it's not a digital download, then I carefully listen to it twice. The first time, if I don't like it I delete it right away and make a small hand written note of what's wrong, if I like it I move it to another HD on which I keep what I keep. The second time, I attempt to analyze it and produce better notes. If I like it after the second time I move it to another HD on which I keep the better ones. So other than the staging area ("Master") I have one huge library HD ("Main") and one HD with the ones that I deem better ("MeLikey"). I keep the physical notes organized in shoeboxes. There is the 4th which involves the results of my surveys for my favorites but that's quite analytical and I rarely do it anymore as I'm almost done with all. But yes there is a final disk full of my favorites. I had and have the time, means and education anyway...

[staxomega]

The discussion of Art of Fugue jogged my memory on this disc from Celimene Daudet that I somehow forgot about. One of the best, uneccentric, laid bare performances of AoF on piano.

I would like to see Trifonov record them since he toured them a bit last year, though my suspicion is they'll be quite romanticized and not for me.

[Mandryka]

I'd add a couple of recordings that would have been my joint disc of the year but for the competition:

Another composer making huge strides forward in my estimation is Clara Iannotta. Earthing, her disc of string quartets as played by the JACK Quartet, shows this very well: the two earlier quartets are fine essays in sonic exploration in the tradition of the likes of Lachenmann and Schnebel, but the title work and the extraordinary You Crawl over Seas of Granite add something new, a cavernous, doom-laden sound that feels like it's taking up where the best of Nono's late electro-acoustic works left off.

[asin]B08D53GVN1[/asin]

I checked it out, and what I saw in doing so is that there's a lot of stuff from The Jack Quartet which I didn't know about, so I envisage some good fun exploring it all, I'm listening to a rather nice CD of music by Hannah Lash (who she?) now.

[T. D.]

That causes a better listening on the phones and other less advanced configurations or as background music. But the lack of that space in classical music on hi-fi effects the perception...tires you easily, prevents you concentrating on and detecting the details of the performance. It was an average cycle anyway...if you know your quartets you didn't miss anything. 

Those graphs were really scary. The extreme boosting of loudness bothered me more than the clipping of waveforms. That sort of thing's been common for decades in pop music, but I'm surprised* to see it in classical.
There's a short Youtube video that gives a good explanation of "brickwalling": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

*Maybe not that surprising considering the prevalence of phones and lower-fi playback.

[vandermolen]

Surely one of the greatest Brian CDs

[amw]

As 2020 is now actually over, here's my list:

Recording of the year: most contemporary music fans on here seem to disagree, but for me it can't get much better than Liza Lim - Extinction Events & Dawn Chorus
runner-up: Yeol Eum Son - Schumann: Fantasy / Kreisleriana / Arabeske - perfectly judged and controlled performances that can match any in the catalogue

Also:
Adam Laloum - Schubert: Piano Sonatas 18 & 19
Andrea Lucchesini - Schubert: Piano Sonatas 4 & 20, Piano Sonata 21 / 3 Klavierstücke, Piano Sonatas 18 & 19
Anna Kijanowska - Szymanowski: Mazurkas (complete)
Anna Vinnitskaya - Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit / Miroirs / Pavane
Beatrice Rana - Stravinsky: Firebird Suite / Three Movements from Petrushka / Ravel: Miroirs / La Valse - a bit overhyped, but still holds up
Bob van Asperen - Scarlatti: 16 Sonatas
Bruce Hungerford - Beethoven: Piano Sonatas 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 30, 31, 32 - currently available in three separate double albums from Vanguard Classics along with some other works, but I decline to send any traffic to Amazon
Catherine Collard - Schumann: Papillons, Arabeske, Kinderszenen, Sonata 1, Carnaval & Davidsbündlertänze [Lyrinx recordings]
Charles Curtis - Performances & Recordings 1998-2018
Chiaroscuro Quartet - Haydn: String Quartets Op. 76 nos. 1-3
Clara Iannotta - Earthing
Daan Vandewalle - Skalkottas: Piano Concerto No. 3
Daniel Kawka - Boulez: Le Marteau sans Maître / Manoury: B-Partita
Daniel-Ben Pienaar - The Long 17th Century
Edwin Fischer - Beethoven: Piano Sonatas 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 30, 32, Fantasia - should have bought this a long time ago
ELISION Ensemble - Barrett: world-line / McCormack: subsidence / Lim: Roda
Enno Poppe - Fett / Ich kann mich an nichts errinern
Ethel Smyth - The Prison
Evan Johnson - Forms of Complaint
Francesco Piemontesi - Schubert: Piano Sonatas 19, 20 & 21
Haydn Trio Eisenstadt - Haydn: Piano Trios 1-45
Jennifer Walshe - A Late Anthology of Early Music vol. 1
Kandinsky Trio - Beethoven: String Trios Op. 9 - based on a non-exhaustive survey, possibly the best recordings of these pieces in the catalogue; certainly my favourites
Kotaro Fukuma - Albéniz: Ibéria & other works
Leipzig String Quartet - Halffter: String Quartets 1, 2 & 7
Linda Buckley - From Ocean's Floor
Luc Beauséjour - Scarlatti, Vol. 2 - I already had Vol. 1 but it's just as good
Michel Block - Albéniz: Ibéria / Navarra - unclear why this has rarely if ever appeared on CD or digitally
Mozart Piano Quartet - Beethoven/Ries: Symphony 3 / Beethoven: Piano Quartet Op. 16
Patrick Cohen - Chopin: Mazurkas Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
Paul Badura-Skoda - Mozart: Piano Sonatas 1-18 - easiest availability at the moment is through six separate volumes sold as digital downloads, but I'm too committed to one url per line (or maybe three at most)
Pavel Kolesnikov - Bach: Goldberg Variations - one of those recordings that's worth hearing just for the piano technique
Peter Sheppard Skærved - Schubert: 3 Violin Sonatas
Pieter-Jan Belder - Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (complete)
Rebecca Saunders - Still / Aether / Alba
Richard Egarr - Sweelinck: Fantasias, Toccatas & Variations
Roger Woodward - A Concerto Collection
Spektral Quartet - Experiments in Living
Thomas Adès - Janáček: On an Overgrown Path I & II / Sonata / In the Mists
Timothy McCormack - Karst
William Youn - Schubert: Piano Sonatas 1, 8, 13, 14, 21
Yasuyo Yano - Schubert: Piano Sonatas 16 & 18
Zeynep Gedizlioğlu - Verbinden und Abwenden

I spent most of this year consolidating my collection & tracking down already-released music that I wanted for it, so I didn't listen to a ton of new releases. That said overall this Beethoven anniversary year seems to have been a very good year for Schubert, pretty unimpressive for Beethoven himself, and better than usual for contemporary music.

[Mandryka]

I keep playlists of releases which are new in 2020, or late 2019 and I only got to find out late. These are taken from those lists, and consist of the recordings which I registered as being interesting. The ones with a star are the ones which caught my imagination, and the ones with two stars caught my imagination big time -- I mean, I listened several times over a few weeks. Nothing follows about quality, obvs. Some of them appeared too late for me to really get to know well (Like the Asperen Louis Coup.) In fact, over the past six months most of my listening has been dominated by old stuff -- Stockhausen operas mostly.

Capella de Ministrers, A Circle in the Water
Ben-Pienaar, The Long 17th century
** Bach cello suites, Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann
* Yoshiko Yeki, Pavana Lachrimae
* Ensemble fur Fruhe Musik, Die Weisheit des Alters
L'archeron, A Consort's Monument
* Graindelavoix, Gesualdo
** Sollazzo Ensemble, Un jardin medieval florentin
Peter Waldner, Francisci magnus amor
Bruno Cocsis, Diego Ortiz
* Cappella Romana, Lost voices of Hagia Sophia
Sergey Malov, Bach suites
David Ponsford/David Hill, Bach trio sonatas
* Sokolov, Brahms intermezzi
* La Quintina, Ludford masses
Alla Francesca, Variations Amoureuses
Ensemble Biscantores, A LAte Medieval Organ
** Bor Zuljan, Dowland
* Peter Sheppard Skaevred and Julian Perkins, Schubert sonatas
* Paolo Cherici, El siglo de Oro
** Jonathan Dunford, Thomas Morley fantasias
Jorg Halubek, CU3
** Paloma Guttierez del Arroyo, Chantador de joi d'amour
* Colin Tilney, Bach Partitas
Wieland Kuijken, Live in Rio
Jennifer Walshe, The wasistas of Thereswhere
Terence Charlston, Froberger
Daniel Kawka, Boulez's Marteau and Manoury's B Partita
** Enselble Peregrina, Wizlav von Rugen
Cantica Symphonia, Josquin
Schola Heidelberg, Sciarrino and Nono
*Marcin Swiatkiewicz, Goldberg Variations
** Johannes Otzbrugger, Robert de Visee
Jonathan Dunford, John Merro's Book
Jonathan Dunford, Demachy 1685
**Anton Lukoszevieze, Word Origins
Jean Marc Aymes, Froberger
*Asperen, Louis Couperin
Hough, Brahms intermezzi

[Brass Hole]

Daniel-Ben Pienaar - The Long 17th Century

I should have listed this one, too.

Kandinsky Trio - Beethoven: String Trios Op. 9 - based on a non-exhaustive survey, possibly the best recordings of these pieces in the catalogue; certainly

Was Leopold Trio included?

[amw]

Was Leopold Trio included?

No. I used only streaming services in making that determination. I'll check them out as well, though.

[amw]

Jennifer Walshe, The wasistas of Thereswhere

Should have remembered this one as well. Knew I'd forget something.

[Brass Hole]

No. I used only streaming services in making that determination. I'll check them out as well, though.

Yours is a strong statement to me where Grumiaux, Leopold and L'Archibudelli reign supreme so I'm downloading yours right now.