Purchases Today

[kishnevi]

Thanks to premont and others who have discussed these works and recordings in the Bach Organ Works thread.

[asin]B000RZOR2K[/asin]
Bach: ORGAN WORKS (Marie-Claire Alain, her second ~full cycle, rec. ~1978-80 - Warner, 15cd)

GMG member Milk once commented that s/he used to dislike organ music, or was indifferent to it, and then rather suddenly found himself barely able to listen to anything but Bach's organ works.  I am not to that point yet, but I can relate!  The obsessiveness and dedication of the Bach Organ Works thread participants is proof that this condition is not uncommon, even if it's rare.

A very nice set, although I had the impression with several of the chorale CDs that she was churning out assigned work.  I preferred the set by her pupil Oliver Vernet, which is organized by approximate chronology and not genre, and keeps the interest up better--and among the bonus CDs in that set is a recording of JSB's concertos for multiple harpsichords played on chamber or positive organs--one of the soloists being Alain herself.   I'm about two thirds of the way through Koopman's cycle now, and am finding the chorales to be one of his strengths.  So that gives you at least two more sets to look forward to.

Thread duty:
landed in the last couple of days, but I haven't had a chance to report them.
--Wagner: the Complete Solti Recordings box
--Mozart: Complete Keyboard Concertos--Sofronitsky, etc;  so I now have a PI set of the concertos to go with Perahia and Brendel.
--Rachmaninov: Symphonies, etc.  Pletnev conducting
--the third installment of the Sixteens/Harry Christophers' Palestrina series
--Adams: Harmonielehre/Short Ride   MTT conducting SFO
--DHM's "Mozart Edition",  much of which but not all is from Collegium Aureum.

[Octave]

Thank you for those recommendations, Jeffrey, and for the Alain qualifier; I have seen a great deal of praise for Vernet among the cognoscenti, but for the moment it seems I have simply missed that set in an affordable form.  After spending some time with what I have, I will probably be doing some research specifically on chorales recordings.  One friend recommended a single Erato disc by M-C Alain, CHORALES POUR ORGUE, which was recorded in the ~mid-80s, and which is now OOP.
As far as full cycles go, I have heard good things about that Koopman, but based on scant samples (no way to make a judgement, but what does one do in the absence of a great library or generous IRL friend?), I am actually more inclined to check out the Foccroulle.  Do you think this is a mistake?

[Octave]

One more item and then a needed break from the acquisition mania:

[asin]B007KKKGQG[/asin]

Mainly for the Messiaen and the Ives, though the rest looks interesting.

[prémont]

As far as full cycles go, I have heard good things about that Koopman, but based on scant samples (no way to make a judgement, but what does one do in the absence of a great library or generous IRL friend?), I am actually more inclined to check out the Foccroulle.  Do you think this is a mistake?

I can not imagine, that Foccroulle would disappoint you, while Koopman is a hit or miss. Either you will love him or you will dislike him, nobody can tell beforehand.

[Que]

I can not imagine, that Foccroulle would disappoint you, while Koopman is a hit or miss. Either you will love him or you will dislike him, nobody can tell beforehand.

I love him! 

Q

[Mirror Image]

Went to my local CD Warehouse and bought these blurays:





The Strauss and Dances & Dreams blurays were $15, but the Ring Without Words was $6.

[Mirror Image]

Received a refund on Knussen's Where The Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! because there was a scratch mark over the UPC on the slipcase which would indicate it was cut-out, seller didn't mentioned this in their description, so contacted seller, got to keep this set for free and received a full refund, so here's what I bought with some of the money:



Not sure how good this Boulez DVD of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande is but I took a chance on it anyway. Reviews looked very favorable.

[kishnevi]

Thank you for those recommendations, Jeffrey, and for the Alain qualifier; I have seen a great deal of praise for Vernet among the cognoscenti, but for the moment it seems I have simply missed that set in an affordable form.  After spending some time with what I have, I will probably be doing some research specifically on chorales recordings.  One friend recommended a single Erato disc by M-C Alain, CHORALES POUR ORGUE, which was recorded in the ~mid-80s, and which is now OOP.
As far as full cycles go, I have heard good things about that Koopman, but based on scant samples (no way to make a judgement, but what does one do in the absence of a great library or generous IRL friend?), I am actually more inclined to check out the Foccroulle.  Do you think this is a mistake?

As a matter of fact, Foccroulle is in my shopping cart at Presto; problem is that there's so much else I want to include on that order, and half of it has to be bumped off before I hit the purchase button!

As for individual chorale discs,  I like Rubsam's two CDs of the Leipzip chorales on Naxos, and the single CD of the Schubler chorales by Alain that's companion to the one you mentioned--and almost everything else I have of chorales is part of the various cycles. 

Final Bach organ suggestion:  look for a fellow on the Web named James Kibbie.  He recorded the entire Bach organ corpus (no pretense of HIP) and it's available for free downloading.  It's very hit or miss, and possibly a very high ratio of misses,  but all you'll pay for is the CDs to which you'll burn the MP3 files.

[Octave]

As a matter of fact, Foccroulle is in my shopping cart at Presto; problem is that there's so much else I want to include on that order, and half of it has to be bumped off before I hit the purchase button!

Ooh, and it seems that Foccroulle set is part of Presto's "early music" sale, gods bless them.  I'll be able to save like ~$12.  Two Bach organ sets for me this month!

[Opus106]

Ooh, and it seems that Foccroulle set is part of Presto's "early music" sale, gods bless them.  I'll be able to save like ~$12.  Two Bach organ sets for me this month!

I don't know whether outhere-music.com includes VAT in its listed prices, but if it does, it will come out to more or less the same price as Presto.

[Fafner]

Spending the remaining £20.00 of my March CD-buying budget:

[asin]B00005Q66Y[/asin]
[asin]B002DU7OOK[/asin]
[asin]B000002SF9[/asin]

[Papy Oli]

Ordered today :

[asin]B003AO1KYI[/asin]

[asin]B0007NLHMK[/asin]

[prémont]

P.S.: I have high expectations on that Savall [Bach: b-minor Mass]; do you know it?

No, maybe I am too conservative, but I do not own a DVD-player.
Being no opera-fan and often finding the look of musicians distracting, I have not yet felt a need for a DVD-player.

[Karl Henning]

Dude, are those things Beta-Max? . . .

[Opus106]

No, maybe I am too conservative, but I do not own a DVD-player.

All of a sudden, I now feel like a gizmo-freak!

[Karl Henning]

For reasons Betamax lost to VHS, see Videotape format war.

[Daverz]

All of a sudden, I now feel like a gizmo-freak!

I've thought about getting a Blu-ray player, but the basic problem is that I'm not interested in owning any films.  I did buy a bunch of DVDs early last decade, but I found I was rarely interested in watching anything more than once.  And I don't even have (or want) a TV in the same room where my stereo is.

[Octave]

I've thought about getting a Blu-ray player, but the basic problem is that I'm not interested in owning any films.  I did buy a bunch of DVDs early last decade, but I found I was rarely interested in watching anything more than once.  And I don't even have (or want) a TV in the same room where my stereo is.

I second this entirely, and I am a movie freak.  I own almost no films on disc at all, and I somewhat regret jumping the gun on a Blu-Ray player when so, so few things I want to see are available (for rental, in my backwoods locale) as BR discs.  Based on my experiences with Blu-Ray audio (almost exclusively via movies on BR) through my mere middling 2-channel set-up, I'm a little puzzled that Blu-Ray audio(-only discs) has not caught on as an audiophile medium; "uncompressed" sound seems so noticeably rich compared to compact discs....it's overwhelmingly evident, completely aside from any multi-channel hoohah.  But I've also never properly heard SACD at home, so I've no real point of reference for BR audio.

[Wakefield]

No, maybe I am too conservative, but I do not own a DVD-player.
Being no opera-fan and often finding the look of musicians distracting, I have not yet felt a need for a DVD-player.

Fortunately, you won't need to change your habits, my dear friend, because the Savall set includes 2-SACD (hybrid) and 2 DVDs, therefore you can ignore the DVDs.

Just EUR 19 on Amazon.es:

http://www.amazon.es/Messe-Mineur-Bwv-232-J-Savall/dp/B009RUNNH6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363367884&sr=8-1

[jut1972]

I second this entirely, and I am a movie freak.  I own almost no films on disc at all, and I somewhat regret jumping the gun on a Blu-Ray player when so, so few things I want to see are available (for rental, in my backwoods locale) as BR discs.  Based on my experiences with Blu-Ray audio (almost exclusively via movies on BR) through my mere middling 2-channel set-up, I'm a little puzzled that Blu-Ray audio(-only discs) has not caught on as an audiophile medium; "uncompressed" sound seems so noticeably rich compared to compact discs....it's overwhelmingly evident, completely aside from any multi-channel hoohah.  But I've also never properly heard SACD at home, so I've no real point of reference for BR audio.

For me the biggest leap with blu-ray is the audio rather than the picture compared to DVD.  Reason being any decent AV amp or DVD player will upscale the picture to near blu-ray quality anyway, but the sound quality is a different league.  Once you have heard a decent AV set up playing a decent audio stream you wont want to have a TV picture without it...   (even the wife could hear the difference..)

Back on topic, picked this up cheap from an Amazon uk MP seller for 2p plus shipping:

[asin]B000001GS1[/asin]

And this which I'll probably give away as a present and counts as a super duper bargain, 2.99 plus shipping for 10 naxos CDs :

[asin]B003LLO9JS[/asin]