Your Favourite Purchases & Musical Discoveries of 2020

Started by vandermolen, November 27, 2020, 11:35:13 PM

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amw

L'Archibudelli remains my second choice. I did not like the Grumiaux Trio much. (Nor do I like them in the Mozart quintets, or the Schubert quintet, etc. In all technical aspects, which the expressive aspects necessarily spring from, they seem to have been long since surpassed. It's probably my loss though.)

Brahmsian

Quote from: amw on December 30, 2020, 06:21:50 AM
L'Archibudelli remains my second choice. I did not like the Grumiaux Trio much. (Nor do I like them in the Mozart quintets, or the Schubert quintet, etc. In all technical aspects, which the expressive aspects necessarily spring from, they seem to have been long since surpassed. It's probably my loss though.)

I generally dislike period instrument HIP performances, but there are a few exceptions.  One of them is L'Archibudelli's performance of the Schubert Quintet.  I find it so moving, particularly the trio to the 3rd movement scherzo.  However, I disliked their performance of Haydn's Op. 77 so much, I gave it away to someone.

Brass Hole

#102
Quote from: amw on December 30, 2020, 06:21:50 AM
L'Archibudelli remains my second choice. I did not like the Grumiaux Trio much. (Nor do I like them in the Mozart quintets, or the Schubert quintet, etc. In all technical aspects, which the expressive aspects necessarily spring from, they seem to have been long since surpassed. It's probably my loss though.)
It's a great set in terms of Citizen Kane. When it was out there was nothing like it so it's encoded. I try to keep alternatives along the time spectrum when possible. I wouldn't agree with Mozart but I do not keep anything else from them...so more than 10 from Grumiaux thoug

Brass Hole

Quote from: OrchestralNut on December 30, 2020, 06:27:58 AM
I generally dislike period instrument HIP performances, but there are a few exceptions. 

I urge you to not to generalize and urge yourself to listen to them more in the name of progress, especially up to Schubert  :). The scene and the quality has changed drastically. I try to keep up both but the scale is tipping.

MusicTurner

Am not generally into HIP either, but regarding Schubert in that field, Gura/Berner's Winterreise has the pianist playing a piano from around 1870, and it works very well, with just a discreet difference from the modern instruments in its sound. It's a marvelous release. I got it this year, but it's older than that.

amw

Quote from: OrchestralNut on December 30, 2020, 06:27:58 AM
I generally dislike period instrument HIP performances, but there are a few exceptions.  One of them is L'Archibudelli's performance of the Schubert Quintet.  I find it so moving, particularly the trio to the 3rd movement scherzo.  However, I disliked their performance of Haydn's Op. 77 so much, I gave it away to someone.

I was referring to the Grumiaux Trio's version of the Schubert—not L'Archibudelli's which is also a top choice for me (along with Taneyev/Rostropovich & Arcanto/Marron)

Quote from: Brass Hole on December 30, 2020, 06:31:10 AM
It's a great set in terms of Citizen Kane. When it was out there was nothing like it so it's encoded.
That's fair enough & probably where a lot of standard recommendations come from. I'm sure it was the best available recording upon its release, at least compared to the other historical recordings I listened to, but modern standards of playing & performance practice knowledge make it difficult for a lot of earlier recordings to compete across the entire standard repertoire, though there are always exceptions (usually from the 1930s or 50s for some reason)

Brass Hole

#106
Quote from: MusicTurner on December 30, 2020, 06:46:54 AM
Am not generally into HIP either, but regarding Schubert in that field, Gura/Berner's Winterreise has the pianist playing a piano from around 1870, and it works very well, with just a discreet difference from the modern instruments in its sound. It's a marvelous release. I got it this year, but it's older than that.

Piano timbre during its developmental years is harder to wrap your head around if you are accustomed to the modern. It might be easier with string instruments to get along with at first. Unfortunately, in context of Historically Informed Practice (rather than mere period instruments) there is a "better" stylistic approach in performance, too, which you can hardly find in modern instrument counterparts

Quote from: MusicTurner on December 30, 2020, 06:46:54 AM
Gura/Berner's Winterreise

...and that is an exceptional recording.

Brass Hole

Quote from: amw on December 30, 2020, 06:58:51 AM
but modern standards of playing & performance practice knowledge make it difficult for a lot of earlier recordings to compete across the entire standard repertoire

We know better now. The more I'm informed the less I listen to earlier ones. But then again, some of them are encoded during my brain development which beats appreciation.

MusicTurner

Quote from: Brass Hole on December 30, 2020, 07:00:56 AM
Piano timbre during its developmental years is harder to wrap your head around if you are accustomed to the modern. It might be easier with string instruments to get along with at first. Unfortunately, in context of Historically Informed Practice (rather than mere period instruments) there is a "better" stylistic approach in performance, too, which you can hardly find in modern instrument counterparts

In that Winterreise, there's just a discreet, but interesting difference.
Taste varies; in the case of Baroque and Classicism, I've personally found a flattening out and homogenizing of the expression, in many HIP releases.

Brass Hole

Quote from: MusicTurner on December 30, 2020, 07:10:15 AM
Taste varies

That is superficial. If the subject is "taste" you can acquire it, can't you?

MusicTurner

#110
Based on say Viviana Sofronitsky's or Bilson's Mozart concertos, that won't happen. I'd rather be forced into exile then, with what I own already ... :)

It is worth noting though, how the concept of the allegedly definitive, historically 'correct' also has changed through the recent decades.

Brass Hole

Quote from: MusicTurner on December 30, 2020, 07:20:17 AM
It is worth noting though, how the concept of the allegedly definitive, historically 'correct' also has changed through the recent decades.

Yes, that's because I can fly from Berlin to London and visit 3 different libraries full of manuscripts in both cities while listening to 6 different recordings of the same work and skimming 3 different reference books on the flight on the same day in order to cross check infer knowledge that same night...instead of months or years

Todd

Quote from: amw on December 30, 2020, 04:49:39 AM
Michel Block - Albéniz: Ibéria / Navarra - unclear why this has rarely if ever appeared on CD or digitally


He never recorded much commercially until late career for OM Records, Guild, and Pro Piano (which also initially released a couple Sergei Babayan discs).  It is unlikely that there's enough money to be made from multiple reissues.  Since OM Records is gone, and it looks like Pro Piano is, too, one must wait for other labels to reissue in some form.  I have been able to track down a copy of the Beethoven sonatas he recorded.  The nearest copy is available at a library only 1700 miles away.  (Apparently, BRO had it briefly, but I haven't shopped there for years.)
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Todd

Also, on Block and Iberia specifically, you can listen to him discuss it with Studs Terkel in 1978 here: https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/michel-block-discusses-his-career
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Mandryka

Quote from: vandermolen on December 17, 2020, 11:26:03 PM
Two nice discoveries for me this year:

I remember those were very good, I was a great fan of Mackerras Telarc.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#115
My two big discoveries were David Toop -- both as composer and curator -- and the Stockhausen of Licht and Klang.  It was Richard Barrett who put me on to Stockhausen, in a passing comment about totally serial composition. I'm glad he did.  I found Toop just by investigating active British composers, and found he was a serious point of inspiration for many of the composers I enjoyed.

Toop and Stockhausen have started to shift my attention to improvisation and to world folk music, so who knows what the future holds.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mirror Image

Not a discovery, but a rediscovery --- I have really enjoyed getting back into English composers like Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Walton, Britten, Tippett, Arnold and Rubbra, but it's also been nice to dig back into Strauss' oeuvre. I've also been getting back into Mahler, Bruckner, Glazunov, Grieg, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, etc. Sibelius and Nielsen are never too far off either. There's so much music out there and so little time. There are many days where I simply don't know what to listen to and not because I'm confused, but rather that I have so much to choose from.

springrite

Quote from: Mirror Image on December 30, 2020, 11:40:34 AM
Not a discovery, but a rediscovery --- I have really enjoyed getting back into English composers like Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Walton, Britten, Tippett, Arnold and Rubbra, but it's also been nice to dig back into Strauss' oeuvre. I've also been getting back into Mahler, Bruckner, Glazunov, Grieg, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, etc. Sibelius and Nielsen are never too far off either. There's so much music out there and so little time. There are many days where I simply don't know what to listen to and not because I'm confused, but rather that I have so much to choose from.

Yes, a year of rediscoveries for me as well. This is partly because this year, my daughter Kimi started middle school. I started driving to and from work because I had to drive her to school first (leaving home at 6:40) and then pick her up after school, getting home rather late (as I occasionally have late class so we actually get home after 8pm). This means I am driving tow hours a day.
The great benefit of this is: Yes! I am listening to music in the car! I have had the opportunity to listen to the hundreds of CDs that I have not listened to for ages. It helped me to rediscover composers I had neglected, such as Albeniz, Ludolf Nielsen, Poot, Irving Fine, Della Joio, Arthur Foot, Dargomyzhsky, Raid, Egge, Fuchs, Goetze, Rontgen, Gade, Luis Glass, Ginastera, Chavez, D'Indy, Godard, Arnell, Butterworth, Beach, Marx, Fricker, Parry, Lajtha, Weiner, Rosza, Rota, just to name a few.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Mirror Image

Quote from: springrite on December 30, 2020, 04:34:52 PM
Yes, a year of rediscoveries for me as well. This is partly because this year, my daughter Kimi started middle school. I started driving to and from work because I had to drive her to school first (leaving home at 6:40) and then pick her up after school, getting home rather late (as I occasionally have late class so we actually get home after 8pm). This means I am driving tow hours a day.
The great benefit of this is: Yes! I am listening to music in the car! I have had the opportunity to listen to the hundreds of CDs that I have not listened to for ages. It helped me to rediscover composers I had neglected, such as Albeniz, Ludolf Nielsen, Poot, Irving Fine, Della Joio, Arthur Foot, Dargomyzhsky, Raid, Egge, Fuchs, Goetze, Rontgen, Gade, Luis Glass, Ginastera, Chavez, D'Indy, Godard, Arnell, Butterworth, Beach, Marx, Fricker, Parry, Lajtha, Weiner, Rosza, Rota, just to name a few.

Very nice, Paul except for the driving part as I've never been one for driving, but it's crucial around here since we have to drive everywhere as we don't live within walking distance of any stores.

aukhawk

#119
Better late than never - my standouts - these are a mix of 2020 or near-2020 releases and some that were just 'new to me', and almost all acquired after learning of them via GMG:

Ockeghem, Missa L'homme arme; Ensemble Nusmido
Messes de Barcelone et d'Apt; Ensemble Gilles Binchois

Bach, WTC I & II; Dina Ugorskaja
Scarlatti, Sonatas 'Duende'; Skip Sempe

Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique; Francois-Xavier Roth
Chopin, Mazurkas; Janusz Olejniczak
Honegger, Symphonies 3 & 5; Mario Venzago
Messiaen, Livre du Saint-Sacrememt; Paul Jacobs (organ)
Satie, Gnossiennes etc; de Leeuw
Schonberg, Verklarte Nacht (sextet); Faust, Queyras, etc.
Shostakovich, Violin Concertos; Alina Ibragimova
RVW, Symphonies 3 & 4; Martyn Brabbins

Then there's Beethoven:
I'm over 70 now and I have to confess I've never really got on with Beethoven's music - apart maybe from some of his earlier Piano Sonatas.  His orchestral music has always been especially problematic and to this day I've never listened to Beeethoven's 9th Symphony in its entirety.  In hindsight this 'Beethoven block' is probably because in my formative years the Gold Standard for Beethoven was Klemperer - and believe it or not I clung to him for nearly 50 years.

So I thank Todd for his tireless survey of Beethoven recordings over the last year, which has opened my ears to some very fine music.  And how tastes have changed!
Thankyou, Todd !! - the following five outstanding Beethoven acquisitions are down to your advocacy:
(I should add that I buy mainly downloads and selected tracks where I can - not the complete compilations as illustrated below.)

Hunt Sonata; Yusuke Kikuchi

This is music I simply didn't know at all.  After reading Todd's thread and sampling a couple of them, I settled on this one.  Very nice addition to my music library.

Late Quartets; Quatuor Ebene

I've always up to now struggled with the late quartets.  These recordings, despite their too-obvious flaw of being over-produced, have really opened this music up for me.

Piano Concetos 3 & 4 Oliver Schnyder and James Gaffigan

These two concertos are probably my favourite orchestral music by Beethoven.  I've long relied on Perahia with Haitink, but these newer recordings are a revelation, I've listened to the 3rd in particular several times this year.

Symphony 3 Eroica; Thomas Adès

I really wanted to like Toscanini as well but I just found the NBC SO tympanist too distracting.  For every tymp hit (and there are a lot of them, in the Eroica) it was a lottery just how far behind the beat he would be.  (Or maybe, just maybe, the tympanist was getting it right and the entire rest of the orchestra was pressing on too hard?)

Violin Concerto; Patricia Kopatchinskaja  with Herreweghe

This is just wonderful - possibly my top choice of the year.

then, apart from the above here are my three other Beethoven standouts of 2020:

Piano Concerto 5 'Emperor'; Kristian Bezuidenhout on fortepiano and Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorster.

This is music that I really have never liked much - it's just too bludgeoning, the music of a deaf composer.  In this recording the fortepiano is light and crystalline while the accompaniment from the Freiburgers - who I always find a bit too lush and heavy in their core repertoire - here that warm sound is a plus.  There is a terrific separation between soloist and orchestra, which in this particular music works really well.  The first time I've ever really enjoyed this concerto.
The coupling is the 2nd Concerto which is completely new to me.  I've had a listen, and will certainly be playing it again.

Symphony 6 'Pastoral'; AAM Berlin

From the same stable as above, the AAM self-drive through this familiar landscape.  They are predictably quick, textures are light and gossamer-thin, but the storm when it arrives has terrific impact, a real throwback to the music of Sturm und Drang.  What a contrast to Klemperer!

Symphony 5; Teodor Currentzis

Raising this tired old warhorse to a whole new level.  And I see Currentzis has a 7th coming out later this year as well.