After his 2019 release exploring the Toccata by examples dating from the late Renaissance to the high Baroque, the young Italian harpsichordist Andrea Buccarella in his recent release does the same with the Fantasia… Both albums feature beautiful playing, exploring the genres on a diversity of instruments, and the succinct texts in the accompanying booklets are quite educating without going over the top… I could quite listen to Sweelinck’s Fantasia chromatica on repeat…
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Newsflash: A disturbance in The Force
Wonder how this will effect Roon dimensions like the Roon Music Blog: Classical Community Conversations?
Will support become opaque?
I expected Apple to do this, not Samsung. A bit disappointing, but Heraclitos was right.
As long as the forum continues, I don’t see why this thread should be impacted one way or other… In the end, that community members maintain lively conversations about music and artists, only contributes value to Roon…
It seems as if there appears a deeper reason for a year-long concentration on ARC, while the core system remained without much change… And maybe Samsung’s interest in the automotive and mobile market may define the future direction of development efforts, what would be a lamentable outcome…
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After last week’s release of a new recording of Rachmaninov’s Vespers or All-Night Vigil by the Yekaterinburg Philharmonic Choir, I listened to some more versiones of this enchanting choral work, and then came to discover Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil from 1912… I must confess that I hadn’t listened to any of his works before, and came away quite impressed by the quality of his choral composition…
Grechaninov (1865-1965) was a contemporary of Richard Strauss, who after studying without much success with Arensky in Moscow, went to St. Petersburg and was there taught and promoted by Rimsky-Korsakow. His last 17 years of life he spent in the US, where he became citizen. His late-Romantic compositions are worth to be more widely performed and known…
One worthwhile example are his four string quartets, recorded in 2002 and 2005 by the Utrecht String Quartet for the German MDG label. Here’s volume 1 (2002), covering the early and somewhat immature first op.2 quartet, and the much later (1913) quartet from 1913…
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There is a cost to Blogs. Maintained server space. Cost vs. value assessment with a new sheriff in town? Who knows? Will remain optimistic until refuted. Mass storage does get flushed with changes in management.
When does the same thing happen to Tidal/Spotify/Qobuz?
Agree re: mobile market, but that is the main growth vector for Apple as well. Apparently no one in the future will sit and read or sit and listen attentively/reflectively to music unless at a performance. Everyone will be low-carbon mobile, racing hither and yon, “multitasking” every inch of the way. Ear-pods for listening. Ah. I’m just being unduly splenetic.
It was only a matter of time for Roon to be snapped up and they’ve done a heckuva job providing subscribers with the best service music organization software available. Major kudos to the folks at Roon.
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Ah, we’re just some old geezers…
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Do you have a favourite version?
But at least we’re occasionally still splenetic and dangerous. If a fella can’t laugh at himself, he should join in the long line of others more than willing to laugh at him.
As Voltaire has Pangloss point out to Candide, “Tout va pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.”
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Not really one favorite, but I like the versions by the Latvian Radio Choir and Sigvards Klava (by that way it was that I discovered the Grechaninov Vespers)
and the version by the Phoenix/Kansas City Chorale under Charles Bruffy…
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As an addendum to last nights postings, I would also recommend this 1999 release by the British Holst Singers… very powerful, beautiful and emotionally satisfying… the choral music in the Russian-Orthodox tradition really is calming for the soul…
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I hearted this album when it came out last month, and it only becomes more beautiful with every listen… what a wonderful singing cello…
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Hey @bill_perkins, and fellow classical music connoisseurs, just a quick note to assuage your concerns. Harman is impressed with the lively discussions on Community and there are no plans for this space to change. We’ll continue to exchange recommendations and share the music we love with fellow listeners.
Our support model will continue to be handled in a transparent fashion here. The sudden boon of Harmon resources, once fully implemented, is expected to have positive ripple effects that will greatly augment the throughput of our teams. But support will still be handled on Community.
It’s still early days, and more details will emerge soon but we’re all very excited about this new chapter. Some folks have expressed fears in the main thread in Roon Software; that’s only natural. Change can be scary; our customers love Roon and they have strong feelings - mostly positive, but there’s apprehension as well. Most importantly, this new Roon era is going to bring many more great things for current customers and new users alike. It’s an exciting time and we’re energized.
Please don’t be fearful needlessly @bill_perkins; it’ll distract you from your love of music - and potentially slow your recommendations. None of us want that!!
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Jacques Offenbach, today known foremost for his operettas, at his own time was known in Paris as the ‘Liszt of the cello’… These delightful duos for two cellos are taken from his Cours méthodique de duos pour deux violoncelles… a didactical work, but nevertheless a joy to listen to…
And, by the way, this is another album where Roon gets the titles of the grouped compositions wrong… the individual track titles seem correct, but Roon messes this up, as soon as you save the album into the library, no matter if from Tidal or from Qobuz…
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These complete Haydn piano sonatas are wonderful, available in US on Qobuz.
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Also listened to Anne Gastinel/Xavier Phillips Offenbach recording and greatly enjoyed it.
BTW, I find Mssr. Tiberghien’s accompaniment in the Fauré L’Œuvre pour violoncelle et piano superb. The balance between these two is a wonder to listen to, which is why I hope they soon record something else together.
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Yes, they are…
Thank you for the reassuring note. Nonetheless, it felt different to be sharing with other classical music lovers with the kind support from Roon versus the indifferent “support” of Samsung. Nonetheless, it is the generous exchange and appreciation of this wonderful music with others similarly enamored that has made this Blog work for me, and, I conjecture, for others.
One of my biggest concerns re: the Samsung Roon acquisition has to do with implications this acquisition has on Classical Music heavy streaming services (Qobuz, especially) integration with Roon. This is where I and others do initial listens to classical music as a prelude to purchases. Will Qobuz/Tidal and the record labels they have contracts with now rethink this and go another direction? Then there’s the issue of whether streaming device/music server manufacturers will continue to be supported or remain interested in being a part of a Samsung technosystem? I’ll continue to more alertly operate on the assumption that all is presently well and continue to enjoy what is surely a uniquely good period in music listening and data-rich organization.
Back to the amazing music.
this is quite wonderful as well.
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…and as long as we’re mining this vein, this is a wonderful album, with stupendous singing by Boris Christoff and choirs. when I owned it on LP, it was titled “Music From the Slavonic Orthodox Liturgy”, but it’s just was fabulous as titled here:
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That takes me back… one of my formative experiences is learning the difference between bass timbre and bass range. Listen to Christoff sing the Song of the Varangian Guest (in Sadko), and you will be convinced of a different pitch level. It isn’t low at all (for a true bass), but it sounds amazing.
Christoff’s Boris is great too.
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