As usual, a diverse assortment of works from my library.
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Just started listening the series (of 4), it’s forte piano and Mullova uses period strings and bows . It’s a different take altogether
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I picked up some Manfed Honeck with the Pittsburg SO in NativeDSD’s sale. I also looked at the Dvorak 9th and Orff Carmina Burana. But I already have Fricsay, Kubelik and Reiner for the Dvorak and decided that 1 Carmina Burana is enough (especially as it is the Eugen Jochum).
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Sent me down a rabbit hole with the Marianna Martines/Martinez suggestion. Read a biography by Irving Godt, edited by John A. Rice to get more information. Lived in Alte Michaelerhaus immediately next door to Michaelerkirche in Wien. Her musical talent was first recognized by the greatest librettist of the age, Metastasio, who the Martines family lived with on the entire third floor of the Alte Michaelerhaus. After his 12 y old voice broke Haydn lived for a time in their attic, ultimately (as a teenager) giving her lessons in keyboard playing. The Dowager Princess Esterhazy lived on the more prestigious first floor (second floor in American parlance) and this may have been Haydn’s introduction to the family. Though Haydn taught her (Marianna Martines) for a period of time, he never mentioned her in any of his voluminous correspondence. She was well-regarded by Charles Burney, royal patrons in Wien and musicians in Naples and Bologna, possibly as a favor to Metastasio and the Viennese Royals. Unique in being a composer, accomplished singer and harpsichordist. Mozart would occasionally play 4 hands with her on a forte piano and some of his early work may have been influenced by her compositions. I found this recording of her youthful Piano Sonata No. 1 in G Major by Joanna Kacperek on her delightful recording of works by female composers, In Plain Sight.
John Banther, host of WETA’s Classical Breakdown Classical Breakdown | WETA , included this recording as one of his suggested Summer listens.
@Mike_O_Neill , Viktoria Mullova started this project with Kristian Bezuidenhout, but he was playing on an actual restored period instrument, rather than a contemporary fortepiano based upon a period instrument, used by Alasdair Beatson. Mr. Beatson’s fortepiano had the decided advantage of remaining in tune long enough to record. The series is lovely. I prefer the fortepiano version with gut-stringed violin to modern instrument recordings. Greater articulation, if less color, on the fortepiano.
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Copy/pasting from Aaron T White’s descriptive post in Qobuz Club:
The recording is one of the culminating projects of Sergio Vartolo’s tenure as maestro di cappella of San Petronio (1984–1998), a fourteen-year residency during which Vartolo recorded a substantial portion of the basilica’s manuscript archive with the reconstituted Cappella Musicale. The Torelli trumpet cycle was recorded across multiple sessions in the basilica itself, exploiting the same acoustic environment for which Torelli originally composed the works. The original release was on Bongiovanni GB5523 in 1995; the 2016 digital issue on Qobuz makes the recording available in streaming/CD-quality form… and simply searching “Torelli Trumpet” won’t surface it.
The acoustic environment of the Vartolo/San Petronio recording is the recording’s most striking single feature and its most decisive difference from the Brilliant Classics recording. The Bongiovanni sessions were conducted inside the Basilica di San Petronio itself, in the specific acoustic space for which Torelli composed the works with its documented ~12-second reverberation time in the central nave.
Twelve seconds. For comparison: a typical modern classical recording venue (Walthamstow Assembly Hall London, where the AAM’s Op. 9 Albinoni was recorded, has approximately 2–2.5 seconds reverberation) delivers roughly one-fifth the reverberation of San Petronio. The Sendesaal Villa Berg in Stuttgart, where the Hammes/Brilliant Classics recording of Torelli’s trumpet concertos was made, is a modern SWR radio studio with a controlled acoustic of approximately 1.5–2 seconds reverberation, thus clean, close-miked, and analytical.
With Vartolo, the trumpet and string ensemble are recorded as they would actually have been heard in Torelli’s own performances at San Petronio with the vast basilica reverberation extending each note into a shimmering, sustained sonic afterimage that blends notes together, softens rhythmic articulation, and creates the characteristic Bolognese basilica sound that shaped every compositional decision Torelli made across his trumpet corpus. Fast passages become impressionistic washes rather than clean melodic lines; the antifonal writing between opposing trumpet-pairs (in the multi-trumpet works) creates spatial-directional effects that a close-miked studio recording cannot capture. This comes close to the Bolognese liturgical experience Torelli’s music was written for… how it would have sounded on the Feast of San Petronio 4 October, in the specific reverberant space for which Torelli calibrated his compositional decisions.
The consequence for listener experience is significant. And for myself, wonderful.
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What happened to the Classical Community Playlist? The latest I see is dated September 8 2025
I am running through some of my faves with my new HE1000SE , this was particularly dramatic , especially the Appasionata
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Jamie the guy who compiled it left Roon , they shrank the marketing function 
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An assortment of favourite works;
I am very familiar with this work, but I was unfamiliar with the countertenor, Christopher Lowrey, until I heard him on the radio performing this recording…
I enjoyed it so much that I bought the download.
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Spotted this in Gramophone, I have followed his solo keyboard stuff which is excellent, this looks like a VERY small orchestra an sounds really good.
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Back at the MN Mississippi bluff country’s Beethoven Festival at Saint Mary’s College in beautiful Winona. Am delighted to listen to artists soon to appear at the Proms in a more intimate setting (and with the possibility of parking). Recently had the delightful opportunity to hear Alisia Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan perform. The program was wonderful, beginning with some transcribed and dancing Shostakovich selections from 24 Preludes for piano. The second piece was Beethoven’s Sonata No. 5 for Cello and Piano in D major. Some remarkable leaping fingerings and the fugue in the final movement is astonishing in what passes for me as modernity. Superb. Transcribed selected Brahms Lieder made this listener once again appreciate how singing a cello is. Inon Barnatan was outstanding in his accompaniment. The Pièce de résistance for the night’s performance was Shostakovich’s last composition, Op. 147, Sonata for viola and piano. The composer died shortly before it premiered. He finished composition mere weeks before his death and one can hear the composer boldly facing his mortality in the composition. Daniil Shafran, a cellist friend of the composer received permission from his widow to transcribe the work to cello. Here is a pointer to Mr. Shafran’s and Anton Ginzburg’s performance.
and one to Alisia Weilerstein with Inon Barnatan at another venue playing the Shafran transcription
Ms. Weilerstein aptly described the piece as one of the most remarkable she’s performed, existential and ranging in color from grey to black. It certainly does have its moments of darkness, but I found parts of it, particularly the third movement, both life-affirming and death-acknowledging. Parts of his incomplete opera based upon Gogol’s The Gamblers shine through the second movement, a scherzo. Shostakovich aficianados will enjoy hearing allusions to all 15 Shostakovich symphonies, as well as Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata in the stunning third movement.
I don’t find recordings of the cello transcribed piece in the streaming dimension or elsewhere. I had a listen to the original version for viola and piano (Ada Meinich and Vladimir Ashkenazy) and found it much more bleak. Not clear why.
If any of you are aware of a Shafran/Ginzburg recording, please let me know. I sincerely hope that Ms. Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan record this in the not too distant future. It is a tour de force performance/composition.
A possibly amusing aside. I was seated next to a former Minnesota Symphony Orchestra cellist. Mr. Barnatan indicated at the start of the performance that they would be inverting the first half of the performance so that the Shostakovich selections would come first, followed by the Beethoven, which I thought a nice programmatic move. My neighbor took it to mean that the second half would come first, followed by the first half. When I commented to her upon the beauty of the fugue in the Beethoven just prior to intermission, she replied, “Oh that wasn’t Beethoven. That was the Shostakovich transcription for cello.” I demurred and realized that performers are much more focused on what they need to do rather than on extensive repertoire, which is what we listeners can more broadly enjoy. When Alisia gave a brief and insightful talk just prior to performing the Shostakovich cello transcription for Op. 147 as the concluding piece, my neighbor gave no sign of registering this. She pointed out some inside baseball on fingering challenges in the pieces and showed me the callus on her left thumb. Altogether satisfying.
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Saw this in Gramophone , the cover is a tad uninformative . Its Four Seasons , Berlin Baroche
Counts as a vigorous version, quite brilliant !!
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