The following article captures my thoughts on half a dozen recently released classical recordings that I’ve been listening to over the past few weeks:
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Very sorry to hear that, but I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. Despite the quality of recordings and bargain prices, their whole e-commerce user experience was woefully lacking, IMO. It was almost analogous to having to step back to DOS-era computers after a generation of living in a graphic interface world. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s close in my experience.
Yes, it was a pretty basic website, but at least I didn’t get bombarded with ads … The reason for closing, included with a late July email, in their words:
Dear fellow music-lovers,
The time has come to announce our closure within the next sixty days. In the interim, we have a backlog of new and restocked titles that we plan to offer you via our usual updates, in preparation for the subsequent sale of the entire inventory to a consortium of wholesalers.
With one exception, we’re all well past retirement age, and the challenges of running a niche business in the year 2025 are more than this near octogenarian is willing to confront. In short, after fifty-one years, we bid you farewell.
Thank you all for your patronage.
Best wishes,
Joe Eckstein
As I noted, they are still open but doubt they will last into the New Year. They still have a large stock and will likely sell to someone else. Who? I haven’t a clue.
Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705–1770)
Premier Livre de Sonates à Violon Seul avec la Basse Continuë Op.1 Nos. 3, 6 & 8
VI Symphonies dans le goût italien en trio Op.6 No.1
Second Livre de symphonies dans le goût italien en trio Op.14 No.2
Alana Youssefian, baroque violin
Le Bien-Aimé
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Review of Quartet Integra’s release on Yarlung Records now posted…
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Thoroughly enjoying this new download from Presto Classical - -
And this old favorite from Rachel Podger and the Brecon Baroque - -
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I’m listening to the latest from Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson. After a year of touring Bach’s Goldberg Variations, he’s found a new fascination with, and appreciation of Beethoven’s “third period” sonatas opp. 109, 110 and 111. But ever the thoughtful curator, he discarded the idea of grouping them together in a single album, and chose instead to program a set of works that he would enjoy listening to himself, with compositions that either informed or were influenced by each of those sonatas. It should be noted that this approach also gives him the chance to sell three times the number of albums. Still, in listening, it’s such a unified program, I give him the benefit of the artistic doubt.
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This recording was re-released on Alpha but, either way, the recording/performance/music standards are very high indeed - -
Johann Paul von Westhoff: Sonatas for violin and basso continuo, 1694
Les Plaisirs du Parnasse:
David Plantier, violin; Maya Amrein, cello; Shiruko Noiri, archlute; Andrea Marchiol, harpsichord
rec: April 4 - 9, 2004, Frasnes-le-Château, Église
Zig-Zag Territoires - ZZT050201 (69’13")
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A pretty clean 1978 RCA Red Seal reissue of a 1954 recording (gotta love the colorized cover photo) of Franck’s Symphony in D minor, by Guido Cantelli and the NBC SO. Decent sound overall, and great lows. I haven’t spun this one in a few years.
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Moving on to another old LP. I honestly don’t know if this is a reissue or not. There isn’t a single date anywhere on the cover or the original-looking Decca “FFSS” inner sleeve. And all I can find on the label itself is “Recording First Published 1959.” But it’s a solid, quiet pressing, and the sound is fabulous. Peter Maag and the LSO performing Mendelssohn’s incidental music from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
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Another great London recording of MND is Fruhbeck de Burgos with the New Philharmonia from 1969.
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This is a fabulous recording of a chamber orchestra. Incredibly lifelike timbres and textures - I swear I can hear the grip of the rosined bows on the strings, and the ringing overtones of the piano strikes. We used to go hear Hobson and his “Sinfonia da Camera” regularly in the gorgeous-sounding Great Hall of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts when he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They were a terrific ensemble for classical-period and other small-scale orchestral works, with Hobson conducting from the keyboard. Man, that was a long time ago. Not sure where he is or what he’s doing now.
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The Krannert Center certainly has great acoustics. I wish one could say that about the one that is closest to me, Chicago’s Orchestral Hall, even after a couple renovations.
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We saw so many great performances in that hall when we lived in Champaign. Besides the regular season Hobson SdC concerts, we saw Solerno-Sonnenberg play the Tchaikovsky concerto, and a beautiful guitar duet concert with Christopher Parkening and his student and protege (and my brother’s former teacher) David Brannon. There were plenty of others, but those are two that come to mind. Since Indy is only two hours away, we really ought to look into current performances every now and then.
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