eclassical Christmas sale

[Bob Stern]

Today's half-price special from BIS is very nice: Flute and piano sonatas by Poulenc, Martin, Martinu, Reinecke and Messiaen. Played by Bezaly (flute) and Brautigam (piano).

 

The Poulenc is one of his most famous pieces, and one of the most famous of all flute pieces.

 

The Martin and Martinu also are very good. Brautigam is fantastic in the Martinu.

 

I'm not a great fan of the Reinecke, except for the Mendelssohnian 2nd movement.

[Bob Stern]

Respighi Roman Trilogy

 

is today's half-price Christmas special from BIS.

Detailed, colorful performances, emphasizing beauty over flash.

 

Today's Pentatone special includes a good but low-key Faure "Pelleas & Mellisande" suite. My only comparison is Dutoit. Kreizberg has more nuance and inner detail, but less drama than Dutoit. The Ravel "Bells" is pretty rare and worth snagging. The other pieces on the album are widely available in livelier performances. For "Daphnis & Chloe" I recommend Levine, a 24/96 download from the Boston Sym website.

[Bob Stern]

BIS doesn't own a DSD recording capability anymore; too expensive, Robert says.

 

To elaborate a bit, I don't think Robert's complaint was the cost of the DSD recorder itself. It was that his existing multi-channel mixing hardware does not support DSD.

 

Question for Ted: DSD does not easily lend itself to multi-channel mixing, since there is no simple algorithm for scaling (to adjust relative gain of different mic feeds) and summing multiple 1-bit signals. Are there DSD mixing consoles that do this without converting DSD to PCM? Which labels mix DSD this way?

 

Blue Coast circumvents this issue by doing all recording and mixing in the analog domain, then converting to DSD only at the final mastering stage.

[Bob Stern]

Debussy & Ligeti — excellent picks today:

 

Debussy late sonatas on Harmonia Mundi.

 

Debussy "Jeux" and Ligeti "Melodien" on Pentatone with Jonathan Nott & Orch. Suisse Romande.  (I skipped the Strauss.)

[Bob Stern]

Mozart's last 2 symphonies.  Fanfare magazine reviewers praised Andrew Manze's conducting as highly nuanced and in the tradition of Bruno Walter rather than HIP.  (I haven’t heard it myself yet.)

[Bob Stern]

I really like the last 2 mvmts of the Vaughan Williams oboe concerto (1st mvmt is attractive but outstays its welcome) and most of Flos Campi.  The Fanfare magazine reviewer praised the performances.  I didn’t buy the piano concerto because it was described as dissonant and ugly.

[Bob Stern]

Ravel songs by baritone Stéphane Degout, with pianist Cédric Tiberghien, are excellent.

 

(I only bought the songs because I found the two piano concertos understated, and I don’t care for the historic piano.)