Rameau: Les Indes Galantes

Rameau’s opera Les Indes Galantes was published by the composer into a set of suites, restructuring the music in a different order from the opera. Taken an instrumental work, these suites stand on their own. The best current version is on Harmonia Mundi and it is a bargain too. A great baroque work worth checking out.

Schutz Italian Madrigals

Heinrich Schutz [1585-1672] composed his Opus 1 Italian Madrigals under the tutorage of Gabrieli, but nonetheless they are 19 beautiful works, mostly for 5 voices.

Seems that there are no current versions available on CD at the moment, although you can get some used. As far as MP3 albums, there are two from Harmonia Mundi and Berlin Classics that would be worth checking out.

London Jubilee

One of those bargain lines from London Records in the early 80’s, the London Jubilee label made up the bulk of my early classical music purchases. As these performances were my first exposure to a lot of works, they have stuck in my mind as sounding ‘right’ as far as performances go. That tends to happen when you get familiar with a particular recording. Luckily most of the releases were of classic performances by major artists, so no bad records, and quite a few excellent ones too. I am working on getting a discography together of the Jubilee line, although they never made it to CD, some of the recordings are still around in different incarnations. To be honest, when I am in a ‘vinyl’ mood, I break out these old recordings, and still enjoy them a lot. Nice big artwork, and good liner notes on the back cover. PS: If you have any release info or artwork from this line, it would be greatly appreciated if you would send it to me : basicrep@gmail.com

Beethoven Piano Sonatas

Quite a while back I found a CD release of an old LP of Beethoven Sonatas by Wilhelm Backhaus on the London Records Jubilee label. The LP was the first I ever had of the Moonlight, Pathetique and Appassionata Sonatas, and I think I could not have had a better introduction to these works.

There is now a 2CD release of the above sonatas while adding Les Adieux, Pastoral, Tempest and the Waldstein Sonatas. The recordings range in date from 1959 to 1964, and the sound is warm and cozy, and a little on soft on the treble, but otherwise a great collection. The CD release is an import, but I just noticed that it is back in stock at Amazon again for the time being. Well worth getting this collection even if you have other recordings of these works, because Backhaus is a great performer from the older days.

LISTEN TO CLIP ON SWIFT.FM

Albinoni: Op. 9 Concertos

Albinoni may be best known for his Adagio for Organ and Strings, used in the movie Platoon. The Adagio is an arrangement by musicologist Remo Giazotto, who discovered a fragment of a work while researching for an Albinoni biography. While a beautiful work, if that is all that you know of Albinoni, you are missing a lot. The closest comparison may be of the works of Vivaldi, and the recommended works are baroque gems.

Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music give an original instruments performance of the Opus 9 Concertos. This is apparently the first recording of this work on period instruments, and is a full price 2 CD set. Well worth the price, though. Also available as an MP3 Album.

The 2 CD Budget Set by I Musici is also a good recording, and includes the famous arrangement of the Albinoni Adagio. The recordings are from the 1960's, and are of a more romantic vein than baroque. Available in a bargain MP3 Album.

Barber Violin Concerto

Why buy a cd from a performer you do not know, with an unfamiliar conductor, and with one of the works unknown to you? Well, on a whim, I decided I needed more Barber in my collection, and chose this cd with 19 year old [at the time, in 2000] Hilary Hahn. I tend to be suspicious of very young violin players. Their technique may be flawless, but the performances are missing soul. Not so here. Hahn’s tone is smooth, but not too sweet. While razor precision does not fall in the perview of these two works, there is some great violin playing on this disc. Hahn’s playing has emotion, and she brings the music alive, instead of treating it as a dusty tome that has to be played just right, in order not to offend. I will be expanding my collection of Hahn recordings to be sure, and am interested how her performances of more familiar works will hold up.


 

 

Basicrep.com Reorganization

I have been very lax about updating composer listings, and have decided to merge everything into the blog. You will be able to bring up any composer name or work type from the Category listings. This will let me easily add recommendations for particular works, and allow me to spend time on the Music Label Line pages as well as some basic recommendations I have wanted to post for a while. If you access any of the Composer Pages directly, you will may be forwarded to the Blog posts on that composer or the composer page. It will take me a while to get everything reorganized. The original composer pages will be kept online for those composers that do not have blog posts yet, but the releases recommended are getting out of date, and many of the records are out of print again. It is a tremendous amount of work to keep up with the current releases, and hopefully this will allow me to post a lot more often, and offer a way to give reviews and thoughts on the works. Also, with the changes lately, some of the images in the older blogposts have broken, so sorry about that, will try and get them fixed ASAP :) - Jim

Best of Bruch

Max Bruch may not be the best-known composer, although he is most famous for his Violin Concerto No. 1. These sets of Philips Duos will definitely round out all of his major works. Well worth a listen, there is a lot of great music here. And as usual the MP3 versions are quite a bargain.

From Wikipedia:
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920), also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, one of which is a staple of the violin repertoire.
Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Robert Schumann dedicated his piano concerto. Ignaz Moscheles recognized his aptitude. He had a long career as a teacher, conductor and composer, moving among musical posts in Germany: Mannheim (1862-1864), Koblenz (1865-1867), Sondershausen, (1867-1870), Berlin (1870-1872), and Bonn, where he spent 1873-78 working privately. At the height of his reputation he spent three seasons as conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1880-83). He taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from 1890 until his retirement in 1910.
His conservatively structured works, in the German romantic musical tradition, placed him in the camp of Romantic classicism exemplified by Johannes Brahms, rather than the opposing "New Music" of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his time, he was known primarily as a choral composer.
His Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (1866) is one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. It uses several techniques from Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor. These include the linking of movements, and a departure from the customary orchestral exposition and rigid form of earlier concertos. It is a singularly melodic composition which many critics have said represents the apex of the romantic tradition.
Other pieces which are also well-known and widely played include the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra which includes an arrangement of the tune "Hey Tuttie Tatie", best known for its use in the song Scots Wha Hae by Robert Burns. Bruch also wrote Kol Nidrei, Op. 47, a popular work for cello and orchestra (its subtitle is "Adagio on Hebrew Melodies for Violoncello and Orchestra"). This piece was based on Hebrew melodies, principally the melody of the Kol Nidre incantation from the Jewish Yom Kippur service, which gives the piece its name.
Other works include two other concerti for violin and orchestra, No. 2 in D minor and No. 3 in D minor (which Bruch himself regarded as at least as fine as the famous first); and a Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra. There are also 3 symphonies, which, while not displaying any originality in form or structure, nevertheless show Bruch at his best as a composer of fine melodic talent and a gift for orchestration, firmly in the tradition of the Romantics. He wrote a number of chamber works, including a set of eight pieces for piano, clarinet, and viola; and a string octet.
























Mozart Violin Concertos

Another Arthur Grumiaux, this time of the Mozart Violin Concertos.

Bach Solo Violin Works

Arthur Grumiaux's recording of the Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin is about as good and introduction to these works as you can get. MP3 Album version is a great bargain too.