It was apparently close mic’ed in a small room so lacked ambience. A lot of pianists seem to gravitate to the same venues for their recordings, those venues being established over many decades. Very few if any good recordings appear to emanate from recording studios, with the exception of some of the very large ones. A good example is Wyastone, used by many recording companies.
https://www.wyastone.co.uk/nimbus-foundation/wyastone-pianos
I also have several DGG recordings for musical reasons, but it seems, like Enja for Jazz, DGG is one of the labels, which close to never has really good sound quality.
Astonishing how a decades long big label can be so bad technically.
For the Polonaises, I like Katsaris SONY and Cherkassky DG.
Other than in some of the Etudes, to me, Pollini’s style isn’t suited for how I like Chopin to be played.
Speaking of Olafsson, his “Mozart & Contemporaries” is a fine recording, too. I picked up the 2-LP version from Presto a while back, pressed on clear vinyl, and it sounds great.
3 Likes
I would love to hear that. I first learned about Gjeilo when I heard his “Tundra” piece performed by the Indy Children’s Choir at a Christmas program a few years ago. I liked it so much I had to find a recording of it.
I’ve had a download for a few years, and then found a cd—SACD actually. Stunning.
Don’t laugh, er, never mind, laugh if you want to, but I really like the first George Winston album, Autumn. Simple and beautiful.
2 Likes
I agree, also Winter into Spring.
1 Like
Philips’s digital recording captured the wide micro and macro dynamics that these 12 Etudes embodies. Ms. Uchida’s gentle key strokes and paces on the micro part of music fits really well with Debussy’s music. when comes to piano CD this one always comes to my mind.
5 Likes
Here are a few of many that I find are excellent both in terms of musicianship and, importantly, excellence of sound quality. All of these can be found at NativeDSD in either DSD256 or DXD. Its really only a question of where to start, because all of these are excellent.
3 Likes
I have the dsd256 of Anna Chopin;
Amaziy good stuff;
Is pure 256 dsd
I agree. This pure DSD256 recording of Anna playing Chopin selections sounds about as good as it gets. I was delighted to find that Jared had chosen to release this in pure DSD. Such a gift!
1 Like