New Releases

[Wakefield]

Also this one too, on the same date in the U.S.:
[asin]B00HX6FDSI[/asin]

Some Mozart as well:
[asin]B00HZ03P0K[/asin]

Great!

Apparently, Gardiner will record (some times again) the sacred cantatas not intended for a particular Sunday of the Lutheran Calendar. 

[North Star]

      
      
      
      
   

[Madiel]

Has anyone mentioned this yet?

[asin]B00IE6ZWJQ[/asin]

I'm rather intrigued, as I've specifically been thinking about this major gap in my Rachmaninov collection. Also, the first review I've found (from the Telegraph newspaper in the UK) is extremely positive.

[Wakefield]

When I see this kind of picture, I can't avoid to think how quickly cultural changes happen.

Apparently, today very few women seem concerned about the old issue of the "sexual objectification of women"; so important to feminists of the 60s and 70s.

[The new erato]

When I see this kind of picture, I can't avoid to think how quickly cultural changes happen.

Apparently, today very few women seem concerned about the old issue of the "sexual objectification of women"; so important to feminists of the 60s and 70s.

One word; cash flow.

[Todd]

One word; cash flow.

Hey, that's two words!

[jlaurson]

Poor Fournier didn't get the ALL-CAPS treatment there...

Fournier was just too darn elegant a player to be bogged down with ALL-Caps...

[The new erato]

Hey, that's two words!

You're right. Let me rephrase; One word: Cash!

[Todd]

You're right. Let me rephrase; One word: Cash!

Ah, much better.  And as true as the first statement.

I remember reading an article sometime last year, or the year before, that had a blurb about how Helene Grimaud was presented on disc covers, and how when she is presented a certain way - usually near full or full face shots - sales increase.  Looks like Ms Fliter and/or PR people may be looking for the magic elixir for her.

[Wakefield]

You're right. Let me rephrase; One word: Cash!

Four words: Money doesn't stink! 

[kishnevi]

Going by the contents listing I've seen, that is a sort of sampler of his LSO Live recordings.  So you get a couple of his Sibelius performances, but not nearly all of them (and I rather like that Sibelius cycle), which is a negative.

However, on the positive side,  none of his Bruckner recordings are included.

ETA: Blessed be!  I deleted the wrong image.  The item in NorthStar's post I was referring to is the LSO Live Colin Davis Anthology:

[North Star]

Going by the contents listing I've seen, that is a sort of sampler of his LSO Live recordings.  So you get a couple of his Sibelius performances, but not nearly all of them (and I rather like that Sibelius cycle), which is a negative.

However, on the positive side,  none of his Bruckner recordings are included.

ETA: Blessed be!  I deleted the wrong image.  The item in NorthStar's post I was referring to is the LSO Live Colin Davis Anthology:

Here's the listing, as seen on their website
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
Berlioz Overture: Les francs-juges
Berlioz Te Deum
Berlioz Les Troyens
Dvorak Symphony No 9
Elgar Enigma Variations, Introduction & Allegro
Sibelius Oceanides
Sibelius Symphony No 2
Sibelius Pohjola's Daughter
Tippett A Child of our Time
Vaughan Williams Symphony No 4
Walton Belshazzar
Walton Symphony No 1
The Man Behind the Music (DVD)


As I already have the fantastique and Les Troyens, I can't say this interests me too much. Even the documentary has already been broadcast here.

[Holden]

Beethoven: sonatas 23,31,32 (Arrau 1960 live).
http://www.mdt.co.uk/beethoven-piano-sonata-no-31-appassionata-claudio-arrau-ica-classics.html

Various other live 32s by Arrau on DVD have enthusiastic fans. I haven't heard any of them.

The Arrau Op 111 on the new DVD box set posted by North Star is close to being definitive for me. I've not heard any better so the new CD will be well worth investigating.

[prémont]

Four words: Money doesn't stink! 

So you never heard of dirty money?

[Wakefield]

So you never heard of dirty money?

Oh, yes, but I wanted to show off my superb Classical culture: Pecunia non olet.   

[Pat B]

The Arrau Op 111 on the new DVD box set posted by North Star is close to being definitive for me. I've not heard any better so the new CD will be well worth investigating.

Thanks for pointing that out -- I had glanced at that Blu-ray but not closely enough to note the specific performances. I'll probably pick that up (and the violin-cello one too).

[Octave]

Belatedly noticed:

Good taste in music doesn't preclude appaling taste in other areas.

Probably a good thing, too, otherwise individuals would be nothing but amalgams of tidy, well-trained, "disciplined" consenses: "good taste"; it's creepy to imagine that this is in fact so....'refinement' as a kind of inbreeding.  Hence "crude thinking is the thinking of great men".
Only mirrors have good taste all around!

Possibly unrelated to this:


Brian Ferneyhough: COMPLETE WORKS FOR STRING QUARTET & TRIOS [Arditti Quartet w/Claron McFadden] (Aeon, 3cd)
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Aeon/AECD1335
Presto release date 21 April 2014

A couple of glances at the Outhere site (including Aeon's pages there) did not yield anything for this release, not even the Arditti 4tt artist listings.
These are the Arditti's second recordings of the whole ~set, and I am psyched about it, having only heard their earlier recording of SQ4 (Montaigne).

Here is some amusing label hype from Presto's product page:

On the occasion of its 40th anniversary (1974-2014), the Arditti Quartet, one of the most famous groups in contemporary music, has chosen to record for the second time — and this is an occurrence sufficiently rare that it bears emphasizing — the complete string quartets of Brian Ferneyhough. The pieces on these discs immediately weave an auditory spell and well illustrate this composer's brand of complexity, i.e., writing reputed to be unplayable for the instrumentalists but providing a definite pleasure for the listener, caught up in the headiness of a universe without limits or vanishing point.

This 3-CD set will not only be one of the indispensable releases of 2014 but also the best way to apprehend the music of a fundamental composer whose intense writing, emancipated heir of Schoenberg, remains radically expressive, chaotic in appearance but sublimated here by the freedom and excellence of the interpretation.

[amw]

When I see this kind of picture, I can't avoid to think how quickly cultural changes happen.

Apparently, today very few women seem concerned about the old issue of the "sexual objectification of women"; so important to feminists of the 60s and 70s.

Well of course now sexual objectification is seen as being a sign that you are 'liberated' and 'modern' and if you don't do such things you are prudish and Victorian and hate freedom.

In all fairness it's not just women who are expected to be sexy and glamorous nowadays:

but I think that is a sign of a culture increasingly obsessed with appearance over substance, in which the unattractive are further marginalised regardless of gender, rather than a sign that we are approaching greater equality.

Re that Ferneyhough, I'd be curious to hear String Quartet No. 1 if it's included—I don't even know if there is a String Quartet No. 1. It seems to have made itself very scarce if so.

[Octave]

[...]but I think that is a sign of a culture increasingly obsessed with appearance over substance, in which the unattractive are further marginalised regardless of gender, rather than a sign that we are approaching greater equality.

It grieves me nonstop to agree.  (With you, about this.)  So unfortunate that feminism and other emancipation movements would end up being used* to leverage the culture into an acceleration of the worst of itself, an "equal opportunity" enshallowing in which suffering isn't lessened but shifted to those who will be missed the least.  The vicious and the cruel will sleep better and better and better.  I am taking all this as further illustration of the "non-linearity" of progress.

* I guess to be fair everything contains the seed of its own perversion, no?  I just used the "feminism" example because it was floating there.

EDIT: These musings are giving 'new releases' new meaning!

[amw]

* I guess to be fair everything contains the seed of its own perversion, no?  I just used the "feminism" example because it was floating there.

Yes, fair enough. I would also add that history is a long sequence of suffering being shifted around, whether on the basis of religion or race or gender or sexual orientation or social class or what have you; and many of those groups continue to be effectively marginalised even if they've gained enough political power to become visible again. When's the last time you saw an African American classical musician on an album cover?