Classical Dance Music at top - Meyerbeer: Overtures & Entr'actes from the French Operas

[Russell_L]

I see that the 24/96 file is also available at The Classical Shop (Chandos) for £11.99, which is just slightly more than eClassical's price (at current exchange rates):

 

MEYERBEER, G.: Overtures and Entr'actes from the French Operas (New Zealand Symp

 

Still, these 2 sites seem to be my only options if I want the hi-res version. ;-(

 

Russell

[Russell_L]

IMHO this recording is worth the price!

 

Indeed it is! I downloaded the album from eClassical just now, and listened to a couple of tracks. Absolutely spectacular!!! Thanks for the recommendation!

 

BTW, if you like this sort of stuff, I can highly recommend 3 separate albums in a very similar vein on Chandos, all conducted by Neeme Jarvi. They're in 24/96, and are devoted to music of Chabrier, Saint-Saens, and Massenet (one album each). The performances on all 3 are spirited and the sound quality is sumptuous and resplendent. Get 'em if you don't have 'em already!

 

Russell

[Russell_L]

My goodness. I got it from The Classical Shop, and it's become a large learning experience, which is not over yet. My player is iTunes, and the music came down FLAC. I thot I'd asked for AIF conversion, but, well.... So I bought conversion software. Bigasoft FLAC Converter got me the AIFFs, which iTunes accepted - as seventeen individual tracks, attached to an "Unknown" album. I can edit the track info to make an album - acceptable pain - but how do I get the artwork? Was this trip really necessary? Yes, probably. Living is learning.

 

Thanks, all!

 

You can get the artwork (usually in hi-res) directly from the album's page on The Classical Shop: there's a button in the upper left of the window for downloading the artwork and another one for a PDF of the liner notes. You can also find artwork on Amazon as well as other sites. Once downloaded, you can easily add the artwork to all the tracks at once by selecting all of them in the iTunes window (be sure it's in 'Songs' view) and then pressing command-I (Get Info). Drag the artwork onto the 'Artwork' area of the resulting window and click 'OK'. (You can also batch-edit other fields in that window--saves a lot of time instead of doing it track-by-track.) This is all for iTunes on OSX, BTW--it should be similar on a PC.

 

BTW, you needn't have bought a converter for your FLAC files--there are at least a couple of very good free converters out there (at least for OSX): Max (which is what I use) and XLD.

 

Russell

[Russell_L]

I quickly listened to Chabrier and Saint-Saens on Qobuz, but it wasn't "love at fist sight" so far. Maybe I need more listening later. For Chandos however I like this one, not in the same tempo as Meyerbeer, but magical in performance and very good in sonics.

 

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Do give them another listen. I especially love 'Danse Macabre' on the Saint-Saens album, which has always been a favorite work of mine, and here I think it's pretty much ideally done, with sonics to match.

 

And thanks for the d'Indy recommendation!

 

Russell

[Russell_L]

Maybe one thing I've noticed that Saint-Saens from Chandos is recorded in quite low level and you need to put your volume control pretty high if you won't to loose a punch. I hope that the HDTracks version is the same as on Qobuz and everywhere else.

 

Yes, I've noticed that as well. Doesn't at all detract from one's enjoyment, but it's something one should be aware of beforehand. Glad you enjoyed it!

 

BTW, if you like Suppe Overtures, Jarvi does a great job with them as well, and the Chandos sound is also wonderful.

 

Russell