The specialist label BruZane, focused on French Romantic music but based in Venice, may be the ideal label for “Biffy and I” to enjoy. This week they released the latest album by French composer Rita Strohl, from their Women Composers series. The music is astonishing, both in ambition (comparable to Bruckner and Wagner) and also its relative obscurity until recently. Rave reviews in the French press are fully justified - well worth a listen this weekend.
I will give it a listen.
side note, Roon did not surface this recording via "Rita Strohl’s discography, although volumes 1 & 2 were present. I searched again by the orchestra, and it was the first hit.
Another excellent Segerstam recording. He presents the suite as originally conceived by Sibelius, who considered it a symphony, rather than separate tone poems. It is not in the symphonic box mentioned above.
Compositions seem not to be assigned to Rita Stroll as a composer although she is in the credits. As there is no second recording of any of these compositions they do not even exist as compositions for roon, until…
You add the album to your library and everything works:
Most probably the album is simply too fresh for automatic metadata support. It has been released just yesterday.
just added this; the metadata looks quite different.
A video of the recording… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V41D0Uczf0
I find Celibidache an utterly fascinating and unique figure, and too like his account of No. 7, which has a real intensity. I should probably try more of his recordings, as I imagine there is far more to discover.
It made me think about my current dilemma of period instruments/historically informed versus some older, more romantic versions of great symphonies. Speaking of which…
Last week was a bumper week for new releases.
Firstly, I had been waiting for the latest Adam Fischer Haydn release, as it includes No. 104:
I really enjoyed this recording, but still hanker after the BPO etc. There is something so majesterial in their account, such a richness of sound that the music can really take, that a period account doesn’t offer me…or am I just used to that later sound world?
In contrast, the new Tafelmusik release of two of Haydn’s earlier symphonies is just wonderful, and I have no desire to hear them with a larger orchestra. I thought ‘La Passione’, which I did not know, came off really well.
Finally, and even earlier, I thought this Buxtehude recording of cantatas was really fantastic.
I somehow still expect Buxtehude to be like a draft of a Bach piece, but to my ears, this sounded closer to the pure, refined sound world of Charpentier. But whatever the comparisons, this is exquisite music and music making.
I’m enjoying this. I don’t remember listening to these as they originally came out in the 70’s, but the playing and accompaniment are exciting. Accardo remade these later in life but these are the ones to hear.
Today is a sad day - the last day of the Chandos.net aka The Classical Shop offering download purchases by record labels like Chandos, Capriccio, Linn, Naxos and many more. From tomorrow on it will not accept new orders and supposedly close down the download section completely November 29th.
I take it as a very obvious sign than paid download business is in dramatic decline. Used it mainly because of the superb surround recordings by Chandos, many of them being unavailable or ridiculously expensive on SACD.
But they still offer some nice discount till tomorrow so I filled some gaps of my collection and could not be happier. Something light and pleasing:
Pretty interesting collection of overtures, dances, incidental pieces and tone poems by Camille Saint-Saens with the ´Danse Macabre´ and the ´Danse Bacchanal´ (from Samson et Dalilah) being the only well-known ones. Nothing overly intellectual, simply beautiful music conducted, played and recorded in exemplary manner.
Previn said some of his best recordings were his Strauss series on Telarc. This is an excellent version of the Alpine Symphony.
Indeed excellent, thanks!
I personally opt for Luisi´s version with the Staatskapelle Dresden dubbed ´Wunderharfe´ (miraculous harp) by another Richard:
Previn´s version is wonderfully dense and energetic, but Luisi is getting the timbre and orchestral mixtures a bit more how I would imagine it to be ideal (if you like pretty Wagner-inspired orchestration with romantic Strauss compositions). Very personal choice of course.
Given how much I love the songs and operas, I am slow to engage with Strauss’s orchestral music. What is the best introduction? As a cheat, the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ from ‘Salome’ may be one, but the horns in ‘Don Juan’ are fantastic. There may be better versions, but Solti’s still gives goosebumps.
@Arindal Very unfortunate and I agree this is another indicator paid downloads are declining. I own more Chandos physical and non-physical media than any other label’s by at least 5x.
I’m jumping on the sale.
@Thomas_Becker fully agree, they had wonderful recordings, always being in my top 10 of labels from which I really bought albums. Particularly if you like British composers or anything from the first half of the 20th century Chandos was always the first place to buy a download or SACD without even prior listening.
On the other hand I have the feeling they in a way killed their business with a very stubborn and erratic pricing strategy. If you put up all versions of your recordings on Qobuz including 96k and put prices for downloads up so you are the most expensive seller, it is a natural reaction of listeners to stream and not to buy.
I have bought some 20+ albums at highest quality since they announced the discount, but some titles I skipped as they still cost 20 pounds at a 50% discount. Who would pay 40 pounds or 48 euros or 52 dollars for an album if you can stream it as a part of your subscription?
I had an odd thing happen with Qobuz…I was notified that my Chandos downloads could no longer be downloaded again, because of changes in licensing. But when I checked if they were still available to buy, as downloads, they were.
I’ve backed them up, anyway, but I can’t understand the logic of it all.
Neglected composer worth hearing. Complete symphonies on BIS by Neeme Jarvi is the better of the two complete cycles but this 4th by Volmer is the better of the two recordings of the 4th.
who is the soprano?
I thought I saw mention of Sibelius’ Pelleas w/ Segerstrom conducting in this thread, but now I don’t see it.
in any event, I listened, and it was fine, but then came across this recording, which I much prefer. very good sound too.
