[CJG888]

If you like Mahler, try this:

You won't regret it!

 

[Christer]

If you like Mahler, try this:



You won't regret it!

Do you have the LP?
I have the SACD of the 4th and also Das Lied von der Erde.
Amazing SQ for late 50s simple miking and musically very good indeed.
DLVDE is imho one of the greatest works of all in the entire history of music so far.

 

[CJG888]

Both the LP (Classic Records reissue) and the CD.

 

[jdpark]

Just listened to the Dragon Quartet playing Schubert's Death and the Maiden (D min), and Dvorak's Bohemian quartet (F maj) in DSD256 ordered from NativeDSD. From an audiophile point of view, this is an amazing album. I have other recordings of these that I like better, but the young Chinese group does a good job at hitting those surprising quick starts that occur particularly in the Schubert quartet. The Dvorak, though, is a bit more charming.

 

[perhapss]

 

[Starway]

Theres so many Four Seasons out there and Fabio Biondi & Europa Galante's performance has to be my favorite. The Tempo impetuoso of L'Estate is my reference for testing out new headphones.
This version: http://www.eclassical.com/vivaldi-les-quatre-saisons-1.html
The speed... how did they do that? Puts me in awe every morning.

 

[richard51]

Alfred Deller was in his last days,his voice is not so beautiful like few years ago, but his mastering of expression is at another level now.... One of the very rare absolute great performance that nobody till this day has equaled.... Many voices are more "beautiful" how many are so expressivily touching the heart ? i think none among the countertenors...

 

[richard51]

Last but not the least , the greatest pianist of all time, and if not, who?

A prodigy from the craddle to his deathbed....This pianist is so perfectly mastering the instrument that probably God created him to listen to him....If you think i have exagerated compare his playing with any other version on youtube of these same pieces....By the way he quit the piano touring concert in his thirties, was too poor to buy one and for the rest of his life never bought one,he never practice, play with memory, and accept to register finally some piano music past 74 years old for the money necessary to cure his cancer dying tenth wife (He live in total poverty all his life not capable to regain a concert career, and not interested in that anymore after few years trying, that says something about humanity!)...Some knowledgeable people think of him on par with Mozart or Beethoven or Liszt, me i have only my ears, and know nothing,but the first time i listen to this volcano or delicate colibri playing is a date in my life...

At thirteen years old in his natal hungary he was considered Liszt reincarnated, a book about the psychology of genius in music was written about him in Holland when he was 13 years old already...Arnold Shoenberg, not a piano critic by any margin , wrote with absolute admiration about the pianist ....He was a composer for all his life and hate concert playing...I never listen to his own composition and cannot evaluate them... But in all my life no piano player rival him for my ears in absolute mastering of the colors,and poetry, without speaking of his thunderous voice...Perhaps only Scriabin-Sofronitsky or Neuhaus,or Rachmaninoff, the "three" Russian musketeers or deities are beside him ..

His piano playing is totally transcendant without peer i know of....The power of his plastic expressiveness is like an improvisation and at the same times a profund rendition with the necessary recreation of the composer's partition at a level no one i know can match, crushing almost all known virtuosos, (at the exception perhaps of the 8-hands artistry of Simon Barere,i dont know how to compare gods) ....If you dont know, even if you think you know, what a romantic playing is, listen to his superhuman effortless hands....This is not anymore ,some so-called perfect piano playing, it is the living tides, an explosive or sometimes a murmuring flow of celestial harmonies from the universal heart of mankind...







the recorded sound is often not great but who will dare to complaint first, in front of a god or a demon, about the not so great recorded sound of his playing, better to listen to his music, in these last pieces you will hear the utmost delicatesse with the greatest sheer power ever produce by the piano....





A last one to make envious all pianists that ever lived (and they are,because some have described with a more than evident bad faith his playing by saying that his manner of play are "vulgar", i will not name their names,suffice to say that they are among the greatest successful virtuosos of america and that says all about their despair, like the despair of Salieri at the listening of Mozart,minus the admiration) because nobody i know has ever plays Liszt like that...Who want to listen an orchestra after that ?

 

[richard51]

Only for an example, if it is reasonnable and possible to compare a giant and a god, compare the hypnotic magic trance-like version of this god on the plane of pure love with the beautiful, and moving version of the russian giant (Richter); at almost 3 minutes longer without any lost of power but to the contrary, the Hungarian manage to produce a flowering power without any bound.... With the Hungarian you dont listen only a melody, you are first engulfed in each note like a world of color succeeding another world of color without bound and time is in a musical standstill when you awake finally to the existence of the melody... is it piano playing? This is not seduction,no,it is not piano anymore;it is music and it is recreation itself...I will say it with only one metaphor, with the russian we are moving around a beautiful house, with the hungarian we are moving around the cosmos and around a beautiful house simultaneously and in-between, in and out of time...

Here you will see him play in person, nevermind the bad recording! Listen please! ... He is 77 years old and remember that he never practice and never had a piano for the last forty years...Is it not unbelievable? This man was too great to walk normally on earth...




And for those of you that think that i exagerated, i just stumble on the wiki citation of Arnold Schoenberg in a letter to Klemperer, about this prodigy :

In a 1935 letter to Otto Klemperer, Arnold Schoenberg wrote the following about him:

"...a pianist who appears to be something really quite extraordinary. I had to overcome great resistance in order to go at all, for the description I'd heard from Dr. Hoffmann and from Maurice Zam had made me very skeptical. But I must say that I have never heard such a pianist before...First, he does not play at all in the style you and I strive for. And just as I did not judge him on that basis, I imagine that when you hear him, you too will be compelled to ignore all matters of principle, and probably will end up doing just as I did. For your principles would not be the proper standard to apply. What he plays is expression in the older sense of the word, nothing else; but such power of expression I have never heard before. You will disagree with his tempis as much as I did. You will also note that he often seems to give primacy to sharp contrasts at the expense of form, the latter appearing to get lost. I say appearing to; for then, in its own way, his music surprisingly regains its form, makes sense, establishes its own boundaries. The sound he brings out of the piano is unheard of, or at least I have never heard anything like it. He himself seems not to know how he produces these novel and quite incredible sounds - although he appears to be a man of intelligence and not just some flaccid dreamer. And such fullness of tone, achieved without ever becoming rough, I have never before encountered. For me, and probably for you too, it's really too much fullness, but as a whole it displays incredible novelty and persuasiveness. And above all he's only [sc. 33 years] old, so he's still got several stages of development before him, from which one may expect great things, given his point of departure... it is amazing what he plays and how he plays it. One never senses that it is difficult, that it is technique - no, it is simply a power of the will, capable of soaring over all imaginable difficulties in the realization of an idea. - You see, I'm waxing almost poetic.[9]

 

[Sweden]

This version of Largo from Xerxes arranged by José Serebrier, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is sublime.


This version of Adagio Un Poco Mosso is one of the best I've heard and maybe my favourite classical piece.

 

[Mifi]

Here is a new fresh recording of J.S. Bach's BWV 42, 85 and 23. The Sinfonia which act as a prelude to the cantatas is absolutely lovely and so very well played. The singers performance is top shelf as well.
The recording is very well done, there is a clear placement of the musicians and you can sense the depth of the hall, yet every instrument is very present and real.
http://www.soundliaison.com/studio-masters/253-bach-live-edition-1 and it is on special offer at the moment, 10$.

The follow up has been released. There is two days left of the $10 intro price.
The download comes with a map of the church where the recording took place so it is excellent for speaker placement.

https://www.soundliaison.com/studio-masters/254-bach-live-edition-2

`` Enghave Barok’s intense performances of these cantatas, have gained worldwide acclaim from leading Bach specialists. The ensemble's burning dedication to convey the many layers hidden in Bach's music, let the listeners explore Bach's universe, with the leading Scandinavian Bach ensemble as tour guides. And this high resolution download ensures that the best place is reserved for you, the listener, right in the sweet spot in front of the Enghave Barok Ensemble.``

 

[Kundi]

I like

 

[Christer]

The Sibelius Concerto was performed live at the Proms last year by the same "team" and was a very good performance.
Maybe it is still up for listening a the BBC Proms site?
I have only heard snippets of this recording on Youtube. But I am going to hear the Concerto live again this Friday and Saturday in KL performed by yet another of all these amazing young women, the Latvian Baiba Skride, who play these masterworks so well.
My most recent live performance of the Sibelius was in Singapore in November superbly played by Janine Jansen.
My favorite recordings of the Sibelius are the Heifetz on RCA Living stereo SACD and the Akiko Suwanai on Philips SACD.
Cheers Christer

 

[Quinto]

Janine Jansen is special.. got to check out Akiko Suwanai, she's been on my wish list waaay too long

 

[skwoodwiva]

Only on wv that I could find.
That means Kamerton !

Imaging is fabulous
Like my old MC cart. on Thorens turntable.
Unfortunately UAPP no does wv/ or any other android app will not put out any higher than 44k. No DAC yet, is that true?
Anybody? Power amp, no... Neutron no...